Overview
Colliding billiard balls. Missile trajectories. Cornering dynamics in speeding cars. By applying the laws of physics, you can realistically model nearly everything in games that bounces around, flies, rolls, slides, or isn't sitting still, to create compelling, believable content for computer games, simulations, and animation. Physics for Game Developers serves as the starting point for those who want to enrich games with physics-based realism.
Part one is a mechanics primer that reviews basic concepts and addresses aspects of rigid body dynamics, including kinematics, force, and kinetics. Part two applies these concepts to specific real-world problems, such as projectiles, boats, airplanes, and cars. Part three introduces real-time simulations and shows how they apply to computer games. Many specific game elements stand to benefit from the use of real physics, including:
- The trajectory of rockets and missiles, including the effects of fuel burn off
- The collision of objects such as billiard balls
- The stability of cars racing around tight curves
- The dynamics of boats and other waterborne vehicles
- The flight path of a baseball after being struck by a bat
- The flight characteristics of airplanes
You don't need to be a physics expert to learn from Physics for Game Developers, but the author does assume you know basic college-level classical physics. You should also be proficient in trigonometry, vector and matrix math (reference formulas and identities are included in the appendixes), and college-level calculus, including integration and differentiation of explicit functions. Although the thrust of the book involves physics principles and algorithms, it should be noted that the examples are written in standard C and use Windows API functions.
Colliding billiard balls. Missile trajectories. Cornering dynamics in speeding cars. By helping game developers create compelling, believable content for computer games, simulations, and animation, "Physics for Game Developers" serves as the starting point for those who want to enrich games with physics-based realism.
Synopsis
Colliding billiard balls. Missile trajectories. Cornering dynamics in speeding cars. By helping game developers create compelling, believable content for computer games, simulations, and animation, "Physics for Game Developers" serves as the starting point for those who want to enrich games with physics-based realism.
Booknews
This book shows how to create believable content in computer games, simulation, and animation by applying the laws of physics to moving objects in the game. Early chapters review basic concepts of rigid body dynamics, covering kinematics, force, and kinetics, and later chapters apply these concepts to real-world problems with projectiles, boats, airplanes, and cars. Final chapters introduce real-time simulations and show how they apply to computer games. A college level understanding of physics is assumed, plus proficiency in trigonometry, vector and matrix math, and calculus. Bourg is professionally involved in computer game development and consulting. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewGalileo, Newton, and their descendants toiled their lives away so that you could create incredibly realistic computer games, sims, and animations. Don't waste their life's work: Use it in your games, with Physics for Game Developers.
Imagine you're writing the next great baseball simulation: Here are principles for modeling every pitch, based on the release speed, spin, even whether you're playing at sea level or up high at Coors Field. Your next first-person-shooter could reflect the realities of long-distance marksmanship (e.g., wind speed and muzzle velocity.) Planets. Race cars. Missiles. You want to make them realistic, what are you gonna use -- astrology? Nope. The physics in this book.
Author David Bourg starts with a basic primer on "mechanics": kinematics, force, kinetics, and other areas of physics that impact game design. You'll walk through applying these ideas to typical game design problems; then build real-time simulations -- learning what to model, what to leave out; how to create the model; how to account for collisions; how to tune your model, and more. Bourg does this stuff for a living (modeling real-world hovercraft performance, for example). Folks could die if he gets it wrong. He's the guy to learn it from. (Bill Camarda)
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer with nearly 20 years' experience in helping technology companies deploy and market advanced software, computing, and networking products and services. He served for nearly ten years as vice president of a New Jerseybased marketing company, where he supervised a wide range of graphics and web design projects. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.
This book shows how to create believable content in computer games, simulation, and animation by applying the laws of physics to moving objects in the game. Early chapters review basic concepts of rigid body dynamics, covering kinematics, force, and kinetics, and later chapters apply these concepts to real-world problems with projectiles, boats, airplanes, and cars. Final chapters introduce real-time simulations and show how they apply to computer games. A college level understanding of physics is assumed, plus proficiency in trigonometry, vector and matrix math, and calculus. Bourg is professionally involved in computer game development and consulting. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)