3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development

by Ian Parberry and Fletcher Dunn

Book Overview

3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development covers fundamental 3D math concepts that are especially useful for computer game developers and programmers. The authors discuss the mathematical... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1556229119
• ISBN13: 9781556229114
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
• Length: 429 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Very good book to get started with

The authors state early on that this book is intended as the first book an aspiring game programmer should read, and I would agree that for the most part it lives up to that goal. Many 3D game programming books include math primers covering a chapter or two, but really, 3D math is a huge topic deserving an entire volume. This book provides a great service, then, in that it thoroughly covers most of the basic topics that graphics programmers need to know, in a tutorial style that should be accessible to all beginners. Hopefully, we'll start to see more game programming books that focus on their core material and defer coverage of 3D math to books like this one rather than trying to pack unavoidably incomplete coverage into a few dozen pages.So, what exactly does it cover? It starts off with a couple of chapters on coordinate systems, and then spends three chapters on vectors, followed by another three chapters on matrices and transformations. It then covers orientation, comparing matrix, Euler angle, and quaternion representations (including one of most clear explanations of quaternions that I've encountered), before diving into several chapters covering geometric primitives, including detailed coverage of working with triangle meshes.The book closes with a chapter applying 3D math to graphics in areas such as lighting, fog, coordinates spaces, LOD, culling and clipping, and so on, and another chapter on visibility determination, touching on things like quad- and octrees, BSP trees, PVS, and portal techniques. The explanations in these chapters are much less complete, taking more of an overview approach. Others have criticized the book for this, but I feel that an overview is appropriate, since it then sets the stage for these topics to be covered in detail in other game programming books.I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone just getting started with game and graphics programming.

WOW

I bought this book with 'NO' experience in game programming or 3d math. I guess you could have called me a 'pre-beginner' if that says anything. I have tried to learn 3d programming from reading other books on this topic and found myself getting confused before finishing the first couple of pages. This book came to my house and I began reading chapter 1, before I knew it I was on chapter 5 (2 hours later) and knew a good bit about Vectors, Matrices, 3d Coordinate systems and the such. I have always been a firm believer in reference books to use as I learn rather than getting the step-by-step books. I am not one to read a book from front to back, but this book has really been an exception. I would recommend this book to ANYBODY who wants to learn 3d game programming. It is an easy read and really shows how easy the concepts are once you get the algorigthms down. I am now on chapter 10 and plan on reading more tonight. :) I can't wait to be done with it and start applying the code in this book... Thanks Fletcher Dunn!

If you really want to *understand* 3d graphics

I bought Mathematics for 3D Game Programming & Computer Graphics and this book hoping to learn the basics of 3D for game development. I wanted a book to really help me to understand -not only know- the principles behind 3D development. I found that Mathematics for 3D Game Programming & Computer Graphics was a "copy and paste" of parts of a linear algebra textbook. It had the interesting parts for graphics developers, but it did nothing in terms of reaching / teaching the reader, explaining things and helping to smooth the learning curve. It was pure math.Well, 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development it's just the opposite. It's clear, concise and mathematical rigorous, but at the same time it tries to reach the reader, explains the math of 3D graphics AND the reasons behind that math. Whenever possible it always gives you a graphic interpretation of what you are reading and if that's not possible, it gives you extra explanations. The authors know where the hard parts are and excel at helping you to understand them. Where most books give you a theorem and left you in your own (face it: most books) this one tries to help you to get a step beyond and understand the math and the workings of it.There is a clear feeling in all the book: usefulness. This book -in terms of smoothing the learning curve- is to current basic 3D math what Realtime Rendering is to current 3D algorithms and techniques.The bad:1. It's very basic. Don't expect to go from 0 to 100 with this book. It will give you the basics, but you will need to continue.2. It's not mean to give you full working code. The code examples are to illustrate how the concepts can be implemented in software, not to provide a full working library.To sum it up: a book to understand, not just "know" the math behind 3D math written in a clear and non-pretentious way.

Very well written, graceful transition to 3D math.

This book does a fantastic job of starting out with the basics. It doesn't assume you already know 3D math. I had to re-read a couple parts to make sure I understood what was being taught, however this was due to the nature of the difficult subject, and not because it was poorly written. The book is very well written. While this book starts out with the basics, it does move into more advanced topics, but because it does such a good job of giving you a solid foundation at the beginning, you are able keep up.The code samples are excellent as well. They don't get so complicated that you can't understand it...and they help to reinforce how to actually implement a vector, matrix etc. in C.Thanks to authors for writing a book that a person with very little 3D math experience can pick up and actually get through. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about 3D math...whether you are a beginner or advanced.If you are even slightly interested in 3D math and computer graphics or game programming, I would pick this book up for sure. It is the best book I have found yet on the subject.