Mathematics for Game Programming and Computer Graphics: Explore the essential mathematics for creating, rendering, and manipulating 3D virtual environments

by Penny de Byl

A comprehensive guide to learning fundamental 3D mathematical principles used in games and computer graphics by example Mathematics is an essential skill when it comes to graphics and game development, particularly if you want to understand the generation of real-time computer graphics and the manipulation of objects and environments in a detailed way. Python, together with Pygame and PyOpenGL, provides you with the opportunity to explore these features under the hood, revealing how computers generate and manipulate 3D environments. Mathematics for Game Programming and Computer Graphics is an exhaustive guide to getting “back to the basics” of mathematics, using a series of problem-based, practical exercises to explore ideas around drawing graphic lines and shapes, applying vectors and vertices, constructing and rendering meshes, and working with vertex shaders. By leveraging Python, Pygame, and PyOpenGL, you'll be able to create your own mathematics-based engine and API that will be used throughout to build applications. By the end of this graphics focussed book, you'll have gained a thorough understanding of how essential mathematics is for creating, rendering, and manipulating 3D virtual environments and know the secrets behind today's top graphics and game engines. This book is for programmers who want to enhance their 3D mathematics skills relating to computer graphics and computer games. Knowledge of high school–level mathematics and a working understanding in an object-orientated language is needed to grasp the contents present in this book.

Genres: Computer Science

444 pages, Paperback

Published November 30, 2022

About the author

Penny de Byl is a professor of computer game design and development, artificial intelligence, animation, and educational technology. She has been awarded numerous awards for teaching and research throughout her twenty-year career. She has a PhD in artificial intelligence and computer game character programming.

Reviews

[Alan Ramsay]

Approachable, partly by using python, but riddled with silly errors that would cause difficulty if trying to learn from this without prior knowledge. I've read much better material for beginners, and there's not enough depth for more advanced users to get much satisfaction

[Emily Fletcher]

I really wanted to like this title; however, now that I'm nearing the end, I'm only continuing because of the sunk-cost fallacy mindset.

This book does cover interesting topics, and I think it is a great way to introduce them. However, at times the book can be very condescending. Sometimes the title tells you that it doesn't expect you to understand what has been written, which is a weird mindset to have.

I also feel like this book was not proofread correctly. The code in the book does not always compile, sometimes key parts of files are missing, and with no troubleshooting guidance, it can be difficult to debug. Frustrations on this expand when you compare the book's code to the code on GitHub. The code uploaded is different at times from the book, which does make you feel like you've wasted your time.

There is no encouragement of project independence during the title; it is more of a copy what I write text, which makes the code errors frustrating. It works as a topic introduction, I suppose, which saves it from one star, but I'm not sure it offers anything you can find elsewhere.

The code standard in the book is simple but poor; there are a lot of Globals and poor programming practice. This can be forgiven, as this book is not a Python tutorial; you will not learn how to program with this book, or really any game programming techniques; see this as an introduction to graphics, with Games being the buzzword to draw people in.