Pangea Software's Ultimate Game Programming Guide for Mac OS X [Paperback]

Brian Greenstone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2004

Brian Greenstone, the developer who programmed Nanosaur, Bugdom, Cro-Mag Rally, Enigmo, Otto Matic, etc. reveals his Mac programming secrets in this indispensable book. The book covers all of the nuances dealing with various Mac OS technologies such as the HID Manager, OpenGL, OpenAL, Core Graphics, Rendezvous, Quicktime, and more. Readers will also learn how to write a plug-in for Maya, do stereo 3D rendering, networking, AltiVec optimizations, and even how to copy-protect their games. For developers interested in self-publishing their games, there is an entire chapter dedicated to marketing and sales strategies. Never before has so much critical Mac game programming information been available in a single book.

The companion CD that comes with the book contains Xcode sample projects including a fully functional Maya file exporter, networking code, Vertex Array Range acceleration, threading, and a whole lot more! All sample projects are written in C, and the book is designed for intermediate to advanced programmers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I think even experienced programmers will learn from this book. -- Lane Roathe, Ideas from the Deep, 2004

If you want to learn from the Master, then this is the book for you. -- Phil Sulak, Westlake Interactive, 2004

This is the must-have book for any aspiring Mac game programmer! -- Tuncer Deniz, Inside Mac Games, 2004

About the Author

Brian Greenstone has been programming games for Apple platforms since 1982, and has been responsible for such popular Mac hits as Bugdom, Nanosaur, Otto Matic, Enigmo, Cro-Mag Rally, and more!

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pangea Software, Inc. (October 2004)
• ISBN-10: 0976150506
• ISBN-13: 978-0976150503
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,133,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great resource, but..., November 11, 2004

By 

J. Lamarche (New Hartford, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pangea Software's Ultimate Game Programming Guide for Mac OS X (Paperback)

Let me start by saying that this book is a must-have for the library of any Mac programmer interested in doing games or 3d Graphic programming. The source code included on the accompanying CD is, by itself, worth the price of the book.

You should be aware of what this book isn't, however. It isn't a complete, how-to-create 3D games book. It won't tell you about AI, or teach you OpenGL. By itself, it doesn't contain everything you need to learn to program games on the Mac. Combine it with a good book on OpenGL and perhaps one on game design in general, however, and you'll be well armed to become a game programmer.

Although not written for that purpose, it'd also be a great resource for anyone considering porting a Windows or Linux OpenGL game to the Mac.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Straight to the point, June 28, 2005

By 

Jason W. Bacon "Out paddling" (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pangea Software's Ultimate Game Programming Guide for Mac OS X (Paperback)

I bought this and several other (much larger) books in order to create a Mac-based psycho-stimulus program for fMRI research. As it turns out, I haven't needed the other books for much. The author has done a fantastic job selecting relevant material and presenting it in a clear and concise manner. There is virtually no wasted space - everything I've read has been easy to follow and enlightening. Amazingly, this 281 page book has answered almost every question I've had on Mac quasi-real-time programming. For those few questions the book did not answer directly, it at least put me on the right path to track down the answer. The book also does a great job presenting the major alternatives (e.g. Sound Manager vs. OpenAL, GetKeys() vs. Carbon events vs. HID Manager) so that the reader is at least aware of what's out there, and can quickly gain some idea of the limitations of each approach. I highly recommend this book as a starting point for anyone developing Mac OS X game programs, or any other high-performance interactive software on OS X. The only (somewhat minor) flaw I can point out is the occasional use of undeclared variables in the sample code. However, it's easy enough to determine the type of each variable by viewing the docs on a function that takes it as an argument, so this has been only a minor inconvenience.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still a good gem of a book, and not out-of-date, June 20, 2007

By 

The Other Eye (Glendale, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pangea Software's Ultimate Game Programming Guide for Mac OS X (Paperback)

I was nervous about buying this book, because the Mac has changed a bit since it was released. But, I've just started reading it, and I'm definately not disappointed that I bought it.

There are a number of things covered in this book that you can't easily find elsewhere. For example, I'm fond of stereoscopic 3-D (which has become better enabled on the newer Mac hardware). This is one of the few books to cover stereoscopic 3-D programming on the Mac.

I was also interested in it's chapter introducing techniques for copy protecting your software.

And, of course, there's the CD with some of the sample code (though, I haven't tried that, yet).

I'm happy with it, and found it to be worth the money I spent.