Game Programming Books - Page 10

Artificial Intelligence for Games (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology)

Ian Millington

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> General AAS
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Games & Strategy Guides -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Creating robust artificial intelligence is one of the greatest challenges for game developers. The commercial success of a game is often dependent upon the quality of the AI, yet the engineering of AI is often begun late in the development process and is frequently misunderstood. In this book, Ian Millington brings extensive professional experience to the problem of improving the quality of AI in games. A game developer since 1987, he was founder of Mindlathe Ltd., at the time the largest specialist AI company in gaming. Ian shows how to think about AI as an integral part of game play. He describes numerous examples from real games and explores the underlying ideas through detailed case studies. He goes further to introduce many techniques little used by developers today. The book's CD-ROM contains a library of C++ source code and demonstration programs, and provides access to a website with a complete commercial source code library of AI algorithms and techniques.

* A comprehensive, professional tutorial and reference to implement true AI in games.
* Walks through the entire development process from beginning to end.
* Includes over 100 pseudo code examples of techniques used in commercial games, case studies for all major genres, a CD-ROM and companion website with extensive C++ source code implementations for Windows, and source code libraries for Linux and OS X available through the website.

Game Programming All in One, Third Edition

Jonathan S. Harbour

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Very impressed 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I tend to shy away from game programming books with the phrase "All in One." And not without good reason. Most of them are utter garbage. They simply try to do too much. Take the 1st edition of GPAIO for example--it was just awful. It had diagrams on the wrong page, tons of errors, etc. And it wastes way too much time going through the technical stuff. Very little on game programming.

Not so with this book.

While there is some technical stuff, the author utilizes it almost instantaneously to form a simple tank game along the way. Towards the end of the book, he covers horizontal scrolling (i.e., Super Mario Bros.) and vertical scrolling (i.e., 1942). While neither example is a complete game, both really explain the mechanics well enough that making a game of either type should be fairly easy.

I was a bit reluctant to buy the book because it uses Allegro, rather than the more mainstream options of DirectX and OpenGL. But I really think Allegro was a great choice. It allows him to focus on the meaty stuff, you know, actual game programming stuff. I have way too many books that waste upwards of 150 pages on setting up a window with DirectX.

My only criticism is that the book is more for hobbyists than professionals, but then again I have never seen nor heard of any such book. Anyone who wants to program games, albeit simple games should definitely check this book out.

As for the reviewer who gave GPAIO one star, I'm really doubtful that s/he is serious. But if so, my advice to you is this: If you can't get Allegro up and running, then you shouldn't be programming games. It's that simple. Really. It's not any harder or easier to set up than DX, OpenGL or even SDL.

Editorial Review:

Game Programming All in One, Third Edition gives aspiring game programmers the skills that are needed to create professional-quality games. If you have a working knowledge of C or C++ and are ready to expand your skills into the field of game programming, then get ready to begin your journey with this latest edition! You won't cover the topic of programming in general, but rather the specifics of programming for games. Using the cross-platform Allegro game library, you'll learn how to write complete games that will run on almost any operating system. Both Windows® and Linux® screenshots are displayed throughout. Using the techniques taught within this book and the tools included on the CD-ROM, you'll be able to write standard Windows and DirectX® programs without the cost of an expensive compiler.

Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering

Andrew Huang

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

not exactly what I was looking for 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book could be a good resource for someone interested in general hacking and reverse engineering, but it fails to provide enough details or describe enough Xbox-specific projects to be truly called "Hacking the Xbox". Maybe if the title had just been "Hacking" it would have lived up to my expectations. As such, I feel that Jonathan Harbour's "The Black Art of Xbox Mods" was more what I was looking for. Still, this book has some value for me, particularly the soldering tutorial.

Editorial Review:

Showing Xbox owners how to increase the value and utility of their system, Hacking the Xbox features step-by-step tutorials on hardware modification that teach basic hacking techniques as well as essential reverse engineering skills. Full discussions of the Xbox security mechanisms and other advanced hacking topics are here, along with practical pointers from hacking gear resources to soldering techniques. The book also covers the social and political implications of hacking and profiles the humans behind the hacks in candid interviews.

Challenges for Game Designers

Brenda Brathwaite, Ian Schreiber

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Welcome to a book written to challenge you, improve your brainstorming abilities, and sharpen your game design skills! Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers is filled with enjoyable, interesting, and challenging exercises to help you become a better video game designer, whether you are a professional or aspire to be. Each chapter covers a different topic important to game designers, and was taken from actual industry experience. After a brief overview of the topic, there are five challenges that each take less than two hours and allow you to apply the material, explore the topic, and expand your knowledge in that area. Each chapter also includes 10 “non-digital shorts” to further hone your skills. None of the challenges in the book require any programming or a computer, but many of the topics feature challenges that can be made into fully functioning games. The book is useful for professional designers, aspiring designers, and instructors who teach game design courses, and the challenges are great for both practice and homework assignments. The book can be worked through chapter by chapter, or you can skip around and do only the challenges that interest you. As with anything else, making great games takes practice and Challenges for Game Designers provides you with a collection of fun, thoughtprovoking, and of course, challenging activities that will help you hone vital skills and become the best game designer you can be.

Game Physics Engine Development (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology)

Ian Millington

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Simulating physics helps cutting-edge games distinguish themselves by making virtual objects behave as we expect them to in the real world. Physics engines are the software programs that run these simulations. Building an engine is difficult, however. There are a large number of new developers (and hobbyists) coming into this market who need help through this complex process. Current introductory books are inadequate; they don't bring enough real-world programming experience to the task. There is a need for an introductory book on game physics with solid coding guidance but which limits the math content. Ian Millington brings his extensive professional programming experience to this problem. He has developed games since 1987, has studied AI and mathematics at the PhD level, and founded Mindlathe Ltd., a company that designed and built commercial physics engines. Physics Engine Development carefully describes each step in the creation of a robust, usable physics engine. It introduces the mathematical concepts in a clear and simple manner, keeping to high school level topics and building a physics code library as it goes. Each new concept is explained in diagrams and code to make sure that even the most novice of game programmers understands. The companion CD-ROM includes the source code for a complete physics engine of commercial quality. This book will serve as a introduction to more mathematically advanced books on game physics, such as Dave Eberly's Game Physics.

* Uses only high school algebra
* Shows how to build a complete system based on professional principles
* CD-ROM with C++ source code for a full commercial-quality physics engine

Physically Based Rendering : From Theory to Implementation (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology) (The Interactive 3d Technology Series)

MATT PHARR, Greg Humphreys

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Six stars out of five 5 out of 5 stars.
42 of 42 people found this review helpful.

Although it is not possible here, I am fairly sure this book deserves such rating. This is truly remarkable work and is likely to become a classic text in the field of computer graphics.

It is not a survey-type book, instead of trying to describe every possible method out there, the authors have concentrated on a few selected techniques, that are not only good (modern, fast, easy to implement, etc.), but also have some pedagogical merits and can serve as a gentle introduction to the world of ray tracing and digital image synthesis. Despite focusing on selected areas, the authors managed to squeeze here in an amazing amount of material. Among other topics, this book covers: subdivision surfaces, ray-primitive intersection acceleration techniques (3D DDA and kd-tree), color and radiometry, anti-aliasing, tone mapping, physically based reflection models, texture mapping (including texture anti-aliasing using ray differentials), area lights and HDR Image Based Lighting, volume scattering and much more.

A large part of the book has been devoted to the light transport and Monte Carlo techniques. One can find there an introduction to the theory of Monte Carlo estimation (including selected methods for reducing variance and computation time, like Russian roulette, multiple importance sampling or stratified sampling) and explanation of important light transport equations (rendering and transfer equations).

Finally the authors have described (and implemented) several solutions for the rendering equation: Whitted-style recursive ray tracing, direct illumination estimation, path tracing, irradiance caching and photon mapping.

However, it is not only the vastness of the material covered in this book, that causes this volume should be praised so highly. Perhaps, the style, in which this book has been written, is even more impressive. For each of the topics, the authors start with what is usually known as "dry math and theory", and then show how it is supposed to work as an algorithm (including its dirty details) and finally they explain how to turn this algorithm into C++ code. Each of those transitions concentrates on a small portion of the problem, so it is still easy to understand. Anyone, who had to turn a SIGGRAPH paper into something that works, will immediately recognize what kind of gem this book is - it actually shows how to do it!

This brilliant blend of theory and practice is one of its brightest spots, for learning the theory and math formulas is one thing, but writing a working, robust implementation is completely another.

Those, who prefer studying sources, will get source code of a very good, physically based, extensible ray tracer (called pbrt) with the best documentation one could ever imagine. Documentation that gives the rationale for almost every line of code. It shows not only how they did it, but also why they did it that way.

It is not the only book, that one will ever need - computer graphics is a vast topic - too big to be covered in a single volume, even as huge as this one. However, it is certainly one of the books that everyone interested in photorealistic rendering should buy. The price of this book is really low, if you think about it as of an excellent, first-rate computer graphics course.

Aimed at students, researchers and people interested in computer graphics algorithms, it is an indispensable book for anyone willing to write his own photorealistic (not necessarily physically based!) ray tracer and learn more about computer image synthesis.

Editorial Review:

Rendering takes a three-dimensional scene description and computes an image for display. It is a key stage of computer graphics, creating imagery so that the human observer can finally see results. Physically-Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation teaches a variety of modern rendering algorithms by presenting the documented source code for a ray tracing rendering system. The system, lrt, is written using a programming methodology called literate programming invented by Donald Knuth that intermingles text describing the system and the principles behind it with the source code that implements it.

After Effects and Photoshop: Animation and Production Effects for DV and Film, Second Edition

Jeff Foster

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Jeff Foster has created the one indispensable and definitive production guide to two of the world's greatest symbiotic tools: After Effect and Photoshop."
—Jack H. Davis, coauthor, the Photoshop Wow! books and How to Wow: Photoshop for Photography

Nothing beats the tight synergy of After Effects and Photoshop for creating professional-level effects, and nothing beats this book for showing you how Hollywood professionals really use these programs.

In this second edition to his bestselling book, TV and movie graphics veteran Jeff Foster provides all-new information on After Effects 7 and Photoshop CS2—plus expanded coverage of blue/green screening and titling, beautiful new images, and innovative real-world solutions for today's professionals. Better than ever, this must-have reference is still the only guide that shows how to use these two superpower programs together to achieve professional results.

The DVD includes production materials, third-party plug-ins and filters, and stock video. You'll also find project files and footage to go with every one of the book's projects, which require After Effects 7 or later.

Learn what the pros know, including how to:

• Add depth to your animation by mimicking real motion
• Grab your audience's attention with creative motion titling
• Shoot a clean blue/green screen
• Apply 3D animation to 2D images
• Remove backgrounds with blue-screen garbage mattes
• Retouch frame by frame with rotoscoping
• Construct realistic composites and locales with matte painting
• Make movies from stills by simulating 3D camera motion
• Produce realistic effects such as noise, clouds, and smoke

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Game Character Development

Antony S Ward

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Editorial Review:

"Game Character Development" takes you through all the steps needed to create compelling, highly-detailed characters for games. This book is suitable for both beginner game artists and experienced designers who want to brush up their skills, and covers the latest character creation tools and technologies. Throughout this book you will work step-by-step to create a finished character that incorporates all of the methods presented. First you’ll examine the available modeling techniques and then create a base mesh. You’ll then incorporate UV mapping and virtual sculpting. With the basic model created, you’ll explore advanced techniques to add texture and detail, and finish up by optimizing and refining your character. The techniques presented can be applied with virtually any 3D software program, so you’re free to work within the application with which you’re most familiar. If a specific tool is introduced, a brief introduction will cover the basic information you need to utilize it. There’s even a chapter with suggestions on what you’ll need to add to your finished character before it gets introduced into the game production pipeline, including adding facial expression, rigging, and even animation. And a helpful reference section provides additional resources to help you with those next steps.

The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque: Under the Hood of the Torque Game Engine (GarageGames)

Edward F. Maurina III

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

By far the best book on Torque 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I can't recommend this book highly enough, i have read all the docs and the website information plus the other two books on Torque but this one just shines. You can open it at random and learn something useful from every page. The Appendix contains the documentation that Torque lacks

Impossible to review 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 34 people found this review helpful.

Impossible to review because after a month i have not received the book that I bought!!!!

On the whole a disappointment 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

If you are looking for a general reference for the Torque Game Engine then I would strongly recommend that you keep searching. The book does not touch on any of the internals of the engine focusing primarily on game scripting. However its approach to scripting is incredibly scattered, jumping from topic to topic without giving any subject any of the depth that it deserves. Worse the author will revisit topics later in the text. Compounding this sin, the index is sparse enough to be next to useless.

As a "tutorial" for writing your first demo game using TGE I would say this title may approach adequacy, if you read it straight through from cover to cover. As a general reference, skip it.

Editorial Review:

The author takes readers on an in-depth walkthrough of the Torque Game Engine—one of the most popular, powerful, and easy to use game engines available today. With clear explanations of how to use Torque to create your own games and detailed discussions of the engine’s inner workings, this book is a must read for any programmer interested in making games for fun or profit. It offers

* Step-by-step examples,
* Detailed system descriptions,
* In-depth references,
* Practical tips, tricks, and more

that will provide readers all they need to understand the Torque Game Engine.

Game Development Essentials: Game Project Management: Game Project Management

John Hight, Jeannie Novak

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Text 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I'm currently a student at the University of Baltimore, and our teacher required this book as our main text, its a very nice book. The information is laid out to make sense. Each chapter starts by telling you what the main points of the chapter is, so you can jump right into the section that you specifically want. Its also not a big book, its thin but filled with great information. Its also very light to read, it has pictures, and small paragraphs, and in each section there is one page paragraph or two written by those who are in the industry, giving advise from their real world experience about the particular topic the chapter is on.
I never thought I would ever say this, but my summary homework for this book is actually fun to do. =)
Enjoy.

Editorial Review:

Game Development Essentials: Game Project Management is the only book on the market that offers a comprehensive introduction to game project management in an informal and accessible style, while concentrating on both theory and practice. This book offers an overview of the game project management process including: roles and responsibilities of team members; phases of production; concept development; testing, marketing; scheduling; and budgeting. The fast-growing game industry has fueled rapid upward movement of game production staff into the ranks of management. This book will train readers in the tools and techniques necessary to become effective team leaders.