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Physics for Game Developers (Paperback)

by David M Bourg (Author)

3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (Mar 26 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0596000065
ISBN-13: 978-0596000066
Product Dimensions: 23 x 17.8 x 2.4 cm
Shipping Weight: 681 g

Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #106,673 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#14 in Books > Computers & Internet > Microsoft > Graphics, Animation & Illustration

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Product Description

From Amazon.co.uk

Aimed at the game developer or student/hobbyist interested in physics, Physics for Game Developers reviews all the maths for creating realistic motion and collisions for cars, airplanes, boats, projectiles, and other objects along with C/C++ code for Windows. While this authoritative guide isn't for the "mathphobe", the author's clear presentation and obvious enthusiasm for his subject help makes this book a compelling choice for anyone faced with adding realistic motion to computer games or simulations.

It's the clear, mathematical presentation here that makes this title a winner. Starting with the basics of Newtonian mechanics, the author covers all the equations needed to understand velocity, acceleration, kinematics and kinetics, among other concepts. A knowledge of college maths (including calculus) is assumed. (Appendices review the basics of matrix and quaternion mathematics for those needing a refresher.)

Central to this book is its presentation of modelling projectiles, airplanes, ships and cars. The author first presents essential mathematical concepts for each kind of object. (For instance, pitch, yaw and roll, and lift for airplanes, modelling fluid drag for ships and braking behaviour for cars.) For many chapters, Bourg then presents Windows-based DirectX programs in C++ to illustrate key concepts. For example, you can experiment with different parameters to view a cannonball's path. (On their own, these programs make this book a great companion text to any advanced high-school or college physics course since students can see the effect of each variable on the behaviour of each body in motion for a variety of equations.)

Modelling collisions is a central concern here (a necessity, of course, for action games). To this end, the author provides collision detection and the mathematics of 3-D rigid bodies for simulating when bodies collide. As the sample programs get more involved, the author discusses techniques of tuning parameters for performance. A standout chapter here models a fluttering flag using particle systems.

In all, this text proves that physics and computers are a perfect match. The author's patient and clear mathematical investigations of common formulas and concepts can add realistic motion to any computer game, as well as help teach essential concepts to any student or hobbyist who's interested in physics and doesn't mind a little college-level maths. --Richard Dragan

Computer Shopper, April 2002

This book is highly recommended to both game programmers and physics teachers.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

20 Reviews

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.7 out of 5 stars (20 customer reviews)

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2.0 out of 5 stars Archaic units and sparse context saps potential, May 4 2004

By	A. M. Lovell "regular guy" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While the book has some value (primarily owing to its choice of topic and introductory level), the impact it might have is greatly reduced by its examples reliance on non-metric units -- and a variety of dissimilar choices at that. It makes as much sense as using EBCDIC in your examples in a work on text processing. The result is that the examples suffer a loss of literal value if you wanted to quickly transplant them into a project that has the good sense to use metric measures to avoid confusion over unit conversions.

Secondly, the code examples are sparsely documented. This causes trouble if one wants to transcode one into another language (as I did in taking the flag simulation to Java). One is reduced to blinking and trying to figure out whether the first or second dimension of an array in the author's example corresponds to the flag's height along the pole or its "fly". He's presented a lot in this code, and there are so few comments in it to clarify the arbitrary choices within that a great benefit would have been realized had he added a few. Even had they been taken from the text of the chapter, they would have produced a more valuable result.

I would love to see Mr Bourg attempt a second edition that attended to some of these needless editorial choices.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Well Done, Jan 5 2004

By A Customer

For really, really small objects, Newton's laws of motion don't apply (that's why we have Quantum mechanics and the like.) For everything else, we follow Sir Issac. If you're a game developer, you'll need more than a rudimentary understanding of physics if your aim is realism. David M. Bourg's most recent book covers the theory you'll need to polish your game while keeping it "real."

Inside the covers, you'll discover a review of Newton's laws accompanied by a hearty dose of explanatory graphics. Warning: as a prerequisite, he assumes solid math and basic intro college physics skills. Next, he segues into Kinematics, you know, the underlying mechanics of motion of objects.) He teaches linear and angular displacement, velocity and acceleration. Don't worry, it's not all equations and graphs, he includes helpful sample code (in C) too.

The final chapters cover advanced topics like 3D rigid body simulators and rotations, collision response and particle systems. Before you reach those chapters however, Bourg covers specific examples for projectiles, aircraft, ships, hovercraft and cars.

With the advancement in speed and power of today's microcomputers, achieving reality in games is certainly possible. Bourg's book helps you achieve that without having to spend days in the library pouring over college physics texts. This book is a sound physics review and very well written for the gaming professional.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Nice refresher with basic application in games, Jul 24 2003

By	Gianfranco Berardi (Melrose Park, IL United States) - See all my reviews

Even if you haven't taken physics, this does give you a nice overview of the science. Everything is covered with the idea that it can be used in games. Naturally there is math involved, but nothing overwhelming. Overall, I found that this can be pretty helpful as a side reference, but it doesn't offer anything ground breaking. Naturally, there isn't much in physics that you can't learn from school...but a lot of people have problems learning physics from school anyway.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars David Bourg is my brother
David is a genius, It think he was dropped at our doorstep by aliens

Published on Dec 15 2003 by John C. Bourg

4.0 out of 5 stars Physics De-ruster
If you're a Computer Science major you most likely were forced feed physics in college, and totally forgot about now days. Read more

Published on Jun 25 2003 by what76

3.0 out of 5 stars KNOW YOUR CALCULUS!
While I did find this book informative, I must warn potential readers that very advanced math is required to make any sense at all of this book. Read more

Published on May 19 2003 by Christopher Millsap

1.0 out of 5 stars I could be stoopid, but...
I've been trying for over an hour to get the flight simulator sample provided with this book to do anything remotely realistic; so far, no dice (unless you consider weird wobbles,... Read more

Published on Dec 6 2002 by K. Baum