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Physics for Game Developers (Paperback)

by David Bourg (Author)

2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Product details

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc. (26 Mar 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0596000065
ISBN-13: 978-0596000066
Product Dimensions: 23 x 17.8 x 2.4 cm

Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 333,045 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#7 in Books > Computing & Internet > PC & Video Games > Programming > Maths & Physics

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

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

9 Reviews

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

2.8 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Almost Credible, 12 Oct 2003

By	Mr AI "aideveloper" (UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This book seeks to give you an in depth overview of physics algorithms and techniques.

It is aimed at occassional hobbyists, I feel, and gives some easily implementable algorithms for a homebrew engine.

Unfortunately the algorithms that the author espouses are not useful for real game development, outside simple particle systems. He makes no serious attempt to solve the real problems in simulated physics, and his included code is plain unstable.

For example: one of his demos (the car crashing into crates - you can download it from the book's website) resets every 4 seconds. If you change his code so it doesn't reset you see the instability. After about 6-10 seconds the car sinks into the ground before leaping into the air and off to infinity. He has obviously created the demo to last just long enough not to show the shortcomings in his approach - I was shocked and disgusted when I saw this.

I've worked with professional physics middleware packages for four years. Getting physics right is tough, but there are a couple of open source physics packages on the web that get their approach right, and are far more useful for game development. This book gives you enough to put together simple particle systems (the chapter on cloth effects is a nice extension, but still misses some of the fundamental problems in cloth simulation). It gets you nowhere near a stable physics solution for a complete game.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great inttroduction to writing simulations, 26 Mar 2002

By A Customer

For someone who wants to understand the best way to simulate real life things (in my case flight simulators) I found this book an excellent start. Sure some of the maths is a bit intense in places, but I found myself coping with it pretty well, or in some cases just accepting it.

Anyone who wants to write simulations, I would recommend this as a good starting point.

Many things about simulation became a lot clearer to me when reading this, and this is after some time reading and writing simulators as a hobby.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Written the wrong way round?, 29 Feb 2004

By A Customer

Not a bad book, but I couldn't help but feel that it had been written backwards! The theory builds up, but it isn't until quite late in the book that you have enough information to actually do anything with it. Ok, you can guess what to do, but it would have been nice to have a basic framework described near the beginning with the details being increasingly fleshed out as the book goes along.
Also, perhaps a personal preference - all units are Imperial, not SI - that means feet rather than metres, etc. I was also introduced to the unit of the 'slug', with which I had previously been entirely unfamiliar... and am happy to forget about.
It's also worth checking the book's website for errata, as there are quite a few. Not a bad book, but it made me want to rewrite it in a different order. Nice point: code is in simple 'C', which makes it very clear.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor. [...]
Most of the O'Reilly books are of a very high quality, and as a result I was surprised at the poor standard of this one. Read more

Published on 3 Oct 2006 by Mr. Simon D. Howard

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Poor Resource
This book almost has no redeeming value other than to continue my animal collection of O'Reilly books. Read more

Published on 17 Jul 2004 by CodeMonkey

3.0 out of 5 stars Helpful, but with serious flaws
The first few chapters of the book explore the fundamental ideas behind physical simulations. Bourg writes these in a lucid and lively manner, providing a gentle overview of... Read more

Published on 24 May 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars Very useful if complicated in places
I picked this up for my final year project at university. Although ive done an a level maths degree, i found this book quite complicated. Read more

Published on 25 Mar 2003 by Matthew Fletcher

4.0 out of 5 stars If you think you might need this book then you probably do
A wide range of topics are covered effectively giving you the answers that you want in order to get results. Read more

Published on 9 Aug 2002 by headwedge

3.0 out of 5 stars A good, if shallow introduction to game physics
Although an interesting enough read, the book fails to really tackle the subject with any depth.

The discussion of the benefits of different integrators is kept to one chapter... Read more

Published on 8 Dec 2001

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