Physics for Game Programmers [Paperback]

Grant Palmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2005

This book illustrates how to infuse compelling and realistic action into game programming—even if you don’t have a college-level physics background! This book covers the basic physics and mathematical models and then shows clearly how to implement them basics to accurately simulate the motion and behavior of cars, planes, projectiles, rockets, and boats.

This book is neither code heavy or language-specific, and all chapters include unique, challenging exercises to solve. This fun book also includes historical footnotes and interesting trivia. The style will be light and conversational, and all physics jargon will be properly and clearly explained.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Grant Palmer has been a scientific programmer for almost 20 years as an employee of or a contractor to the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. Grant’s primarily develops computer programs that simulate the physical environment experienced by a spacecraft entering a planetary atmosphere.

Product Details

• Paperback: 472 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (April 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159059472X
• ISBN-13: 978-1590594728
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More of an engineer's viewpoint of game physics, February 22, 2006

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calvinnme - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Physics for Game Programmers (Paperback)

The book is divided roughly into two parts. The first part deals with general physical concepts, such as object collision, the equations governing projectiles, and a general review of Newtonian physics. One of the more interesting topics in this section of the book was the aerodynamic effect of spin on projectiles.
The second part of the book is about applied game physics. There are chapters on things like how to model cars, boats, airplanes and projectiles, using the principles outlined in the first part of the book, which is pretty much the same approach taken in David Bourg's book on the same subject, "Physics for Game Developers". There is extra material here though, that is not mentioned in Bourg's book such as the presentation of damage models for armored vehicles, an entire chapter dedicated to the physics of lasers, plus a chapter on sports simulation that includes such things as modeling a golf game.
The style of the book is thorough yet not verbose. Thus the book is only 400 pages versus the hefty size of David Eberly's weighty tome on the subject. There are a couple of places where I might have liked to see a bit more treatment of a particular subject. For instance, the author punts on the topic of 3D collisions of rotating objects. Still, there's enough related material included that I could likely work it out from what was presented.
Like Bourg's game physics book, this is more a book about physics and simulation than about game programming. The examples shown are simple demo programs, because the purpose is to give you the idea of how to code this material, not present a full-blown application. The source code presented in the book is in Java, and can be downloaded from the book website at Apress.
I would say overall this book is on par with David Bourg's book on the subject, and chances are if you are really planning to get into game physics it wouldn't hurt to own both books. I liked this book better than Bourg's because the author covered more topics and his code is Java based as opposed to Bourg's more Windows-centric solutions. However, Bourg's book is better at staying on topic, is better organized, and does not have the extraneous information on such things as the history of the devices being modeled as this book has. The table of contents is as follows:
1. Adding Realism to Your Games
2. Some Basic Concepts
3. Basic Newtonian Mechanics
4. Basic Kinematics
5. Projectiles
6. Collisions
7. Sports Simulations
8. Cars and Motorcycles
9. Boats and Things That Float
10. Airplanes
11. Rockets and Missiles
12. The Physics of Solids
13. Explosions
14. Lasers
15. Probabilistic and Monte Carlo Simulations

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars simple physics, May 20, 2005

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W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Physics for Game Programmers (Paperback)

The level of physics here is around a typical first year undergraduate physics course. Concentrating on kinematics. Unsurprisingly, because most videogames depict things in motion. Hence, if you've already had that amount of physics, you are in good shape for the book. You can now focus on the coding aspects.

The entire book is about simulations. The code isn't that difficult to grasp. Perhaps the hardest aspect to some readers will be reconciling the two mindsets. How do you map from a set of physics equations to a computational representation?

The book also slides into object oriented programming. Useful if you are new to this idea. The simulations of various bodies lends to a very natural projection of a code object (a "class") onto a physical object that it simulates. Good pedagogy.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book rocks, March 6, 2006

By 

Tyler Kirby (Tempe, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Physics for Game Programmers (Paperback)

I used the equations in the "Cars" chapter of this book to write a sweet street racing game for my senior project. I'm not real good at math or physics but I could easily follow the explanations. It was the only game physics book I could find that gave the equations for acceleration based on engine torque. Great book.