Customer Reviews

Game Engine Architecture

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jason Gregory's book offers a 10,000-foot view of game engine architecture, covering every system found in modern game engines, and detailing how those systems interact. It details the subjects at a level easily understood by anyone with a modest level of programming experience -- even non-programmers can gain a solid understanding of engine design from the book. This would make a great first book for anyone interested in programming game engines, either as a hobby or a future career.

However, it is important to clarify the limits of the book. I do not consider this to be a programming book, since it does not present the material at a sufficiently low-level that would permit an inexperienced programmer to implement a game engine from the ground-up. It describes how the algorithms work in enough detail that you can understand the idea, but does not present complete code examples that would demonstrate exactly how the algorithms would be implemented. There are occasional code snippets, and brief examples from engines like Ogre, Unreal, and idtech. But most of the content is entirely prose.

Experienced programmers/game devs have the coding background to implement many of the designs described in the book from the level at which they are presented. But neophyte programmers will not find enough details in this book to implement a full game engine on their own. However, no one book could do an adequate job of detailing how to implement an entire game engine: learning to program a game engine from the ground-up requires a very large stack of books (especially for physics and AI). So it would be unfair to fault this book for what it is not.

The value of the book is in providing clear, prose descriptions of the functional blocks found in a game engine, covering alternate ways different engines implement certain features, and cross-referencing how those blocks interact.

Another positive is that the book benefits from a mature writing style. Unlike the "Oh wow! Cool! Dude! Whew, math is hard! {BG}" style of writing inflicted upon many intro/for-teens books, this book can be read by adults (and most teens) without any undue eye-rolling due to bad writing. Which, sad to say, is why I feel inclined to remark on this point. Granted, this book was written for a course a SoCal, so a more mature writing still is required. I do wish more games-related books would follow this convention, instead of assuming the reader is mentally bereft or a pre-teen.

As the other reviewer said, this is a very solid, good book. Dare I say refreshingly good. I also echo the previous reviewer's sentiment about the tone that the author takes when speaking to the reader. Some people enjoy comical books but I am not one of them. I read books for information, if I want to laugh I'll open xkcd.

Where this book really fills a void is that it assumes you have some experience and maturity under your belt as a programmer / engineer. This is good because it allows us to get down to the meat without hesitation and begin discussing more serious things. What this book is NOT is a book on how to implement a game engine. What it IS is a book on what's in a game engine and common problems and pattern that occur in game engine development. A toolbox of game engine development, if you will. For each chapter / topic, the author devotes some time to explaining the role of this aspect of a game engine and then quickly proceeds to breaking the component down into smaller pieces, discussing common issues, algorithms, and patterns that arise for said system. For example, when discussing memory usage there is a great discussion of a variety of different memory allocators that can be useful in various situations. Almost always the author supplements these discussions with real-world examples of where such a data structure, algorithm, or method was used in an actual game and why.

Another aspect of this book that I really really appreciated was the inclusion of references directly in the text. Since, after all, the book is light on implementation details often the author would conclude a section by saying "So and so has an excellent paper discussing this topic in more detail at ." This is great because it allows the book to still provide access to all the implementation details without actually putting them in the book. So it's not like you're actually missing out on anything, you just have to go to the link.

The book is thick, and has a strong and serious hardback binding. It feels like it will last a long time. I don't think it's necessarily the type of book that you will refer to over and over throughout your game development career, but it offers a great bird's eye view of the entire process, while still allowing you to zoom in on specific areas and get a little bit more detail (or a lot more detail if you follow the links to the external references).

There are a couple minor errors in the book, but they are not that serious and I assume they will be corrected in the first errata and/or second edition of the book. They do not significantly detract from the overall quality of the book however, so I give it 5 stars anyway.

This book was definitely a pleasant surprise, and I only wish more authors would stop filling their books with fluff to hide the fact that they don't have enough information to fill the book. This book is packed with information, with zero fluff, and I definitely recommend it.

Jason has years of practical experience in the gamedev (Midway, EA, ND) and it really shows. There are too many books out there written by people who have never shipped anything bigger. This is not the case. When he writes how to do/don't something, he usually backs it up with a real-world scenario. Game engines are vast topic and it's impossible to cover everything in detail, so obviously it's a collection of general information, rather than a very in-depth analysis.
It's truly invaluable for juniors and hobbyists, because it's an unique position describing how professional engines work. It may be less useful for senior developers as they probably won't learn that much. Still, it's rare to be an expert in every area, so it's safe to assume everyone will find a chapter with new information as well. Big parts that are missing are networking and audio, both huge topics, but I feel like they deserve at least few pages.
To conclude: if you're a junior/amateur programmer or student - get it now. It should also be an obligatory buy for every company's library. If you're senior developer who'd like to broaden his view a little bit and see how it's done at other places - it's worth buying as well. It won't make you an expert, but it's a good start and gives at least a rough idea how other engine systems work.

I am a professional game programmer, and find the scope of the book breathtaking -- and I can easily recommend it to anyone either interesting in becoming a game programmer, or any but the most seasoned game programmer. It is not a light read, it is not a "For Dummies" book and it is not a debate about academic issues (e.g., open source vs. closed source, OpenGL vs. DirectX and so on), it covers what you will actually encounter in the industry. It covers obvious topics (e.g., 3D math), but more importantly some less obvious ones (tools, debugging, Visual Studio).

Discussions of issues like designs for asynchronous processing, specific controller issues, asset pipelines, state machines, physics systems and so on all reflect real day-to-day issues you will experience as a game programmer. The book is written in an easy to follow way, it is not a series of whitepapers or "gems" but is very good at gathering all of the threads that make up a game engine. It is not for dabblers, but it will definitely give you the basis (and a taste) for going professional.

Is this yet another 'Game Programming' book?
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No, not at all. Game engines nowadays are so large, complex and filled with so many subsystems that old-school engine design will fall apart on modern hardware. This book brings an up-to-date explanation of what goes into a modern game engine and why. For people looking for a book where they can copy-and-paste code until they have a somewhat working game engine then this is not the book for them. This is a book about game engine architecture and not of specific implementation details of the various subsystems. This means that once a concept has been described and the design has been explained then the low-level implementation (the code) is in most cases left as an exercise to the reader. The implementation is usually something boring anyways but in the few instances where it matters he does go into detail and show code examples. The book does assume a good understanding of C++ as it is the programming language used in almost all game engines together with some type of scripting language.

The topics in the book range from the basic but very important vector math to various methods of character animation blending and rendering. Making a game engine today is such a huge topic that no one book can capture it all. What this book does is explain a few of the important parts of each subsystem and why that particular design was chosen. If the reader then want to get more specific about any particular subsystem there are other books or tutorials out there on the internet.

Audience
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I would not say that this book is a for newcomers that want to write their first game engine, but rather programmers with some experience. In my opinion intermediate skilled programmers are the perfect reader for this book, but even a seasoned game programmer can and should read this book. There are many concepts explained in this book that should be known by all game programmers but unfortunately many do not know them. They get too focused on their area of expertise and don't actually know the overall design of the engine they are working on. This book will help them get a better understanding of how all the pieces fit together. Beginners can use this book, as it is university course material, but some concepts can not be fully appreciated until the reader have more experience under their belt and can appreciate the finer design details and the benefits thereof.

Through the test of fire
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What makes the content of this book worth the reading is the relevance of the content. The contents is not out-dated, academic or dumbed-down... quite the contrary. The concepts in this book are greatly influenced by the very engine we were using for Uncharted 1 and 2. Making a game engine for today's computers is complicated and there are many design decisions made during the development of a game/engine that is made with performance bottlenecks in mind, whether it is memory allocations, animation blending or the use of multi-processor/multi-thread architectures. What also feels fresh when I read this book is that Jason does not just present one way to solve a problem, for example the design chosen for game objects. He talks about different approaches and why some paradigms you might have learned in your introductory Java/C++ class is not a good design decision for a large-scale high-performance game engine.

I have a fairly vast collection of Programming (and Computer Science) related books in my book case. Many of these I have used as a reference, as I just don't have the mental strength and persistence to read through in great detail. Game Engine architecture however, is written in a friendly conversational style, which is so very easy to follow and I have found myself on multiple occasions saying to myself "Just one more section". The authors descriptions are excellent, and he has managed to explain things that I have heard multiple times, and only finally truly understood now.

This book doesn't really seem to fit the bill of "Game Engine Architecture", and should probably be called something like "Foundations of Game Engines". The book gives only an introductory chapter on the actual architectural (from a CS point of view) side of the engine. Instead it focuses on all the issues that are necessary knowledge for creating a game (and in many cases any performance restricted software), from the very bottom up.

The author covers a great many topics, which leaves some short of details, but in these cases the author always provides great references to both books and online material for more in depth discussion. The online sources are a bit of an issue, as they may not be available. I found one instance where the source provided no longer existed.

Warning:
This book is VERY C++ centric. I would definitely suggest (as does the author) that you learn C++ before tackling this book (I suggest Accelerated C++ or C++ Primer Plus). It'd still be a good resource for someone interested in Game programming, but you will get 5 times as much out of the book with a solid C++ grounding underneath your belt.

Despite the few issues with the book, I cannot give it any less than 5 stars, it was just that good of a read for me.

The real strength of Jason Gregory's masterpiece "Game Engine Architecture" exists in its assumption that the reader has a basic working knowledge of application development and programming in general. This book is not meant to be a reference nor is it a step by step instruction manual. Throughout the reading I found myself acknowledging that I was familiar with a given subject yet my limited knowledge bridged the gap into true understanding when presented with the simple examples and extensive outside references presented. One important thing to note is that reading this book will involve reading more material outside of the book to attain a more complete understanding of the objective of designing a sound game project. The reader should not take the suggestions of the author lightly in that respect.

I bought this and read first 5 chapters only in 1 night and suprise this book give me a lot of details and big picture understanding about computing and game engine... I will bring this as book for my friends and Indonesian's students in university who want learn in depth about game... You should have this in your bag...

Great thing about this book, is that its so in demand that even after thinking I would use it, going with C# instead, and not touching it for months... I got a msg from Amazon telling me they wanted to buy it back from me at around 70% what I paid for it...

So I sent it back! Got 40$ credit and used it to buy something more useful for me.

Note: I am NOT knocking the book. I am complimenting it.

If you're interested in developing a game of any complexity, this book is a great place to start. It will give you a concrete foundation covering *most* of anything a game engine will need to do. It also provides many references to other books as they are relevant, so as the author repeats a few times, it serves as a great "jumping off point."

While the book will not cover everything you may need to know about game development, it will put you in the right mindset and give you a great perspective.

Some of the subjects the book really doesn't cover *at all* are audio and networking.