I'm looking for a good 3D programming book - one that starts out with the really easy stuff, then moves on to really advanced stuff, explaining everything along the way. Thanks for any ideas !
I'm looking for a good 3D programming book - one that starts out with the really easy stuff, then moves on to really advanced stuff, explaining everything along the way. Thanks for any ideas !
Do not make direct eye contact with me.
well I've heard a lot of people recommend Tricks of the 3D game programming gurus it uses directx. If your looking for the basics it might be a little advanced for you, I havn't looked at it so I can't say for sure.
-gunder
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If you want to use OpenGL, you can find links to the Red & Blue books on the stickey at the top of the game programming board.
I would recommend "Amazing 3D Programming" by Andre Lemothe. The main reason being, it's easy to digest, has only a couple of errors that you can identify easily as you work through it, but it is really good at covering many of the essential basics--
vectors
matrices
texture mapping
hidden surface removal (HSR)
camera points of view
element relationships in 3D.
BSP (binary space partitioning)
You gotta start somewhere, this is a good place to start.
It is not the spoon that bends, it is you who bends around the spoon.
Hey gunder and Sayeh, did you even notice the similarities between the authors of the two books ? Anyway, thanks for the suggestions !
Do not make direct eye contact with me.
Here's the thing-- if you start working with vectors in your drawing engine, you'll never go back. Every high end game engine out there (doom, unreal, etc.) uses vector math.
It takes a difficult geometry problem and makes it simple to work with because you start dealing with an easy and fun way to identify space in 3-dimensions, while gaining certain algorithms for calculating relationship information (for example, I don't care how close I am to the wall, I just want to know what side of it I'm on).
furthermore, you get away from consumptive code required to do with sin, cos, and tan. Your accuracy over distance goes way up... it's just so much easier and more powerful.
It is not the spoon that bends, it is you who bends around the spoon.