Customer Reviews

Building a 3D Game Engine in C++

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

 

 

I purchased this book in 1995 when I was migrating from C to C++. Stepped through the code in the debugger, and put it aside, as it was for DOS, and I wanted to have a real Window, not DOS screen. Later, with Charles Petzold's "Programming Windows" help, I ported 3D engine DOS code to Windows31 and it worked, but I have to adapt it to the Windows events/kbd/mouse processing. Now in 6 years I recompiled the Windows 31 version on Windows 2000 Advanced Server in VS.NET Beta1 - it compiles and runs(!). I am learning C# these days, and will try to re-write Brian's engine in C#. My point is that the ideas of 3D engine experssed in this book are fundamental, as they are absorbed from the knowledge of many talented people named in the book. The bulk of engine design and the code is solid, it just takes time and patience to gain necessary experience to understand the engine, adopt it to the event-driven model, and move it to the platform of your choice. Overall book is worth the money spent for those who want to learn the core of 3D programming.

This is a very old book using very old technology. The author is using raw C++ code and some assembly language to demonstrate a 3D game engine which he calls AST3D. At this point in time, you should not buy the book expecting to extract the code intact and have a state of the art 3D game engine. However, since the code is not wrapped up as part of a larger more complex programming library, the code snippets in the book are very readable and therefore useful as pseudocode to understand the components of a game engine at a building block level, and some of the more basic algorithm information is still useful too. The problem is that modern in-print books on 3D game engine architecture are usually so wrapped up in some very complex code library that it is hard to get a good handle on how to write an engine and the design decisions involved. That is why this book is still useful. The most useful chapter in the book is chapter 16, "The View from the Top", in which the structure of the 3D game engine is explained in text and in block diagram form, referring back to topics in previous chapters. There is a complete code listing in the back of the book, so even if the diskette is missing from your used copy, you can still go through the code and get an idea of what you would need to have in your own game engine. Just don't pay any more than a used-book price. I notice that Amazon does not show the table of contents so I do that here:
1. An Approach to Games Programming - Designing Real-Time Interactive Games;The Main Loop; Real-Time Interactivity; Fun: The Golden Rule of Programming
2 Graphics in Two Dimensions - Basic Raster Graphics Theory; Basic VGA Theory; The VGA Class; The ASTPallette Class; Debugging with Dual Monitors;
3. Fixed Point Math - Why Fixed Point Math?; What is Fixed Point Math?; The ASTFixedPoint Data Type; Mathematical Operations; Function Call Overhead and Borland C++; Why not a C++ Class?;Cumulative Error;
4. 3D Graphics Primer - 3D Coordinates; Coordinate Systems; Math Classes; Transformations; Trigonometry; Projections;
5. Optimizing By Design - The Main Loop; Event Driven Programming; The Graphics Pipeline;
6. Organizing Your Data - The C++ Language; The AstObject Class; Object Definitions; The AstWorld Class;
7. Input Devices - The Generic Input Device Class; 2D Input Devices; The Thrustmaster Cockpit System; Keyboard;
8. Hidden Surface Removal - Types of HSR; Backface Culling; Depth Sorting; The Z-Buffer;
9. Drawing and Object - Transforming from LCS to CCS; Projecting the Vertices; Drawing the Triangles;
10. Shading - Fundamentals; Flat Shading; Gouraud Shading; Flat versus Gouraud;
11. Texture Mapping - Linear Interpolation; What is a Texture Map?; Drawing a Texture Mapped Triangle; Loading Textures from a Disk; Room for Improvement;
12. Environmental Effects - Depth Cuing;
13. Simplifying for Speed - Object Culling; Distance Abstraction;
14. Collision and Boundary Detection - Object Collisions; Boundary Collisions;
15. Automatons - Implementing Automation; Timing and DoSomething(); Automatons in AST3D;
16. The View From the Top - Overall Structure of AST3D;
17. Advanced Topics - Custom Hardware; Multiplayer Games;

This is one of the only 3d graphics books I've come across which actually does a decent job in explaining how 3d graphics are done. I'm not saying its brilliant, but it is simple. Even though the examples are probably outdated, and probably designed for a 386/486 machine with no texture mapping, it still explains pretty timeless techniques which are still valid in 3d engines of today. I like it.

I thought this book was great because it taught me how to make 3d game engines like flight simulators and stuff. This book was very comprehensive and told all of the tips and tricks of 3d game designing. JUST A MESSAGE TO EVERY ONE WHO WROTE BAD REVIEWS!!! This book was not made for people who just started game/graphics programming. You have to have a good understanding of many graphics methods and you have to know high school math. This book was not designed for beginners

I bought this book many years ago because a friend of mine was going to buy it and asked if he should order one for me too. Yeah sure, why not. At that point even 2D game programming was a challenge for me, so I never read the book.

Now about 5 years later, and after reading "3D Math Primer for graphics and game Development", I wanted to apply some of my new knowledge, to show a simple filled cube on screen.

I started reading the book. Brian Hook at the time had a 486 and the OS was dos. The book does not explain OpenGL or Direct3D. It is completely software 3D. I like this fact. I don't expect to use the result for anyting other than knowledge. I want to know how 3D works under the hood, before I try OpenGL or Direct3D.

The examples are very easy to follow. I have now achieved to show a spinning cube on the screen which was my goal and I'm looking forward to read on and apply texture mapping.

Conclusion:
Great book if you know matrices and vectors but have no clue about how to apply it to programming.

Great if you only expect the book to help you with the first few steps into 3D programming. Don't expect to create Unreal engine or something like that.

I give it 3 stars. Maybe it deserves more but still, it IS dated and I'm taking this into consideration as well.

This book is a great book on programming game engines. Brian, as some us know, is one of the top 3 game programmers at ID Software. He makes the engine, not the game. Don't expect to learn how to make a game from this book. If you are, I suggest one of Andre Lemothe's books.

This was actually my first book I've read on programming games and although it was over my head, it made me aware of the issues involved with writting a game. I like the biblio so that I can further pursue and grow my programming skills.

Well, the book seems basically to tell you all that you might want to know about 3d games, but nothing about coding them. I was highly dissapointed that 1/4 of the book was wasted to list the code that is included on the disk, which happens to be a very minimal use of the ast3d functions. And theres nothing in the book on how to use the ast3d function to code a game. What you essentially get in the example on the disk is nothing more than a 3D bouncing object screen saver. That's not a game, and no help to code one! It might cover the aspects of 3D game engines, but what good is it if they don't show you how to use it!

This book is just what I needed to get off the ground. I program for a living in the data realm and this book made great sense to me. It was very easy to follow.

This book teaches the general procedure for creating a 3D game engine, not a 3D game. The code is not written to be compiled alone, but used as a library of tools to create unique games. The engine described is quite good. To anyone from Texas (not mentioning names) that likes to review books but not learning to spell or type, it is obvious why your compiler made so many errors. The book, itself, is an excellent addition to any advanced programer's library, not just those concentrating on the entertainment industry.