Customer Reviews

Cutting-Edge 3d Game Programming With C++

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

You need to be an avid programmer to appreciate the way the code is organized into C++ objects. This is an older book and all the examples are in DOS until the last example which is in Windows (fun little game). The 3D engine renders to a block of memory so it makes no real difference where the example renders. Unlike books about DirectX or OpenGL, this teaches you the "Under the hood" mechanics of 3D. Keep in mind, DirectX and OpenGL are interfaces and what you are learning is how to talk to DirectX or OpenGL. That doesn't mean you will understand the "Under the hood" mechanics of 3D because there are a lot of math algorithms being used. If you want to understand, or at least try to understand 3D on it's lowest level, you will need to read this book many times over. 3D is just that hard unless your a math wizard. The biggest plus to this book is that you have a full 3D, texture mapping, light shading, 4 point polygon rendering engine to play with. There are no libraries here, it's all in C++ for you to see. I have taken the engine and expanded on it and made a tool for applying textures to polygons and animating the polygon objects for my own projects. That's not to say I completely understand everything in the book because 3D math is that hard. You will gain the most knowledge by trying to use and expand the code for your own use. This is not something you will accomplish over a few week ends. Understand this book, then go to DirectX and/or OpenGL and you will have a far better understanding of 3D and what's really happening. ...

I am a self taught C++ programmer, and read this book over, and at first was excited at the information it presented, however the complicated mathematics of matrices, and the very simple explination left me in the dark. I decided to go and write my own 3D engine, after many tedious hours of developing the 3D conversion code, I decided to pick the book up again, everything seemed so much clearer now, the information is very concise, and to the point. However the source code, only compiled on my Borland C++ 4.5 compiler, with some of the functions rewritten to handle the code without an assembler. This book is a must have for learning, but don't expect to get a fully working engine, without some work on your side. I felt the work on my side, only helped my growing interest in programming. ENJOY!

3D game programming is about concepts and applications rather than code and code. The modules that form part of the engine that half the book is dedicated to seem to come from nowhere, at least if you're reading about 3D game programming for the first time. No-one likes reading code that comes from some mysterious library. Therefore it is not an opening text on 3D game programming. But if you are an experienced programmer, reading lines and lines of code that WAS meant for beginners would seem redundant to me. Maybe computer science lecturers and game debuggers will find it helpful.

I bought this book in a fit of ambition. The first reading was slow going, and the theoretical explanations were a bit lacking. However, I bought it nearly a year ago, and I'm still finding it useful. Don't expect miracles from this book - it's an excellent companion when making your own 3d engine, but you're going to have to sweat for it. Excellent for DOS, but the Windows chapter is dire.

This is the best book i have found yet that describes the basics of 3D game design. True, there are new ways of doing things in 3D like Direct3D and OpenGl, but if you want to know how these things work this is the book to do it. Before i ever read anything about DirectX, i read this book. When i began using DirectX, i was amazed by the corellations i found with this book. The only reason it doesn't get a perfect 10 is because discussions on Polygon Sprites and Sound effects were very weak. Also, if you don't have the Programming Lanquages the author uses, you will have to rewrite some of the code( been there done that ). But if you want to learn how 3D engines work, this is an excellent book. The texture mapped worlds look excellent.

This book shows how anybody can be a 3D game programmer. I liked the extensive use of the Object Oriented language. Most books claim to be object oriented, but they turn out to use it seldom, if ever. John De Goes truly uses the techniques of a good C++ programmer. He does not take shortcuts or use "Hacked" code. He really does try to teach the reader how to make a 3D game engine using line by line, and easy to follow code. This book is the best C++ game programming book I have ever read

This book is aimed towards the creation of a 3-D game like Doom or Quake. You NEED a compiler that allows the use of the REGS structure which directly accesses registers. The compiler the code was first made in is no longer being made so you'll have to do a good amount of debugging to get the included code to compile. The book comes with a CD that has some great sound and image utilities. The code will not compile in a Microsoft compiler, trust me I've tried! Even though I couldn't use the code, I did learn a lot of historical information from this book. This was the way games were made before DirectX. I learned several great graphical concepts from this book, like gouraud shading. Although this book is a bit out of date the publisher has several other books that could prove useful to you.

After reading through chapter 10, it's difficult to know if this is intended to "teach" or "give" a 3D engine. The author writes a tiny paragraph explaining what he'll do, then writes 6 pages of poorly commented source code. After trying to figure out how his texture mapping works (from his source code!) it doesn't take a genius to realize that this book is intended to "give" a 3D engine rather than teach you how to build it.

I had just finished a C++ class and I wanted something that would be both fun and educational. But instead I ended up with this waste of paper. First of all the 500 MB on the CD ROM are clips from PBS specials on things like the circus... Second, almost none of the source code is written on the CD-ROM and the bit that is, is incomplete. Third, the source code isn't even written out in the book you have to try to put it together from bits layed out across the chapters. I can't tell you if there is even a 3d engine in there since I gave up trying to get the code to work after chapter 4. the fifth thing, those pictures on the back of the book they don't have anything to do with the book, adds (placed at the back under the appendix) for drawing and cad programms you can buy. Finally, I'd say with those cover pictures and all the hype in the first chapter will get a lot of poeple (like me) to buy it. And buy the time they really sit down to read it, it will be to late to return it which makes it a good scam on us.

Unlike most other "How to Write Computer Games" book authors, John De Goes has been in the trenches of commercial game development. The information presented here is hard to find elsewhere. Unfortunately, the loose, spur of the moment style results in a book that's in serious needs of condensation. I fear it could have been written in less than half as many pages. There are also some technical errors (such as an obviously wrong proof), and some "optimizations" that add complexity without any real speed benefit.