Customer Reviews

Start Your Engines: Developing Driving and Racing Games

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

 

 

As an avid hobby game programmer I bought this book in the hope of finding detailed descriptions of some concepts and ideas that go into development of racing games.

Reading through the description and even index of the book, I was excited about the topics that were covered in the book. I actually went as far as having the book overnighted as I was in the middle of development of a game and was at the point where I needed to refine thing such as AI, (pathfinding, collision avoidance, overtaking, etc.) and implement more realism in areas of map-model or model-model collision response, for example. I was hoping this book would shed some light on some techniques used in the field to implement items such as these efficiently.

The book also has a section on generating terrains, which I hoped would teach me some new ideas for creating game maps / tracks.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed at each turn. Reading through the chapter title and then the contents, left me disappointed at first, but eventually almost astonished, that the author could claim that the chapter teaches what the chapter title seems to imply. I was left with a feeling that the author introduces each concept to an absolute beginner, but never graduates into more advanced discussions that the advanced or even intermediate developer will be interested in.

I was vaguely interested in the short section on waypoints (pathfinding) but I had already implemented a more visually appealing method in my game based on the same principles, without this prior knowledge.

If you have any experience whatsoever in developing racing games, you will probably not find much content in this book that you couldn't figure out for yourself, or that is readily available elsewhere (for free).

I am bitterly disappointed and I don't recommend it.

I'm sure the author is a great programmer and knows game development mechanics well, but this book is a superficial survey of too many topics. The car or racing specific sections such as AI or physics were way too much fluff. I bought this book for help with car physics, and I assumed this book would go into great detail about them, since...uh...that's one of the most important aspects of racing simulators. A third of the physics section is about how to fake car physics and the technique is retarded and obvious (i.e. move the car forward when the user presses a forward key, lol). I was super disappointed in the material. Physics for Game Programmers from Apress has a way better treatment of car physics.

Like I said, the author is probably great, but the editor should have allowed the author to focus on a few key areas that may be difficult for programmers new to the genre and its special problems, go into advanced detail, and forget the rest (which is 100% of the book as it is).

tl:dr; stay away from this book, I wasted 0.65 + shipping on it

I have to agree with the first poster. This is not a good book.

It might have some useful information for complete beginners, but the quality of the code is quite simply bad and extremely amateurish.

Peter

You've bought the right book if you are interested in learning how to design and program driving or racing games. Author Jim Parker has done an outstanding job of putting together a book for anyone who wants to learn how driving and racing games are put together.

Parker begins by introducing you to the basic features of driving and racing games. Next, the author looks at the architectural components of driving and racing games--the graphics system that presents the virtual universe, the audio system, the user interface, the scheduler, and the artificial intelligence system. Then, he focuses on the basic graphics techniques you'll need to master so that you can create driving and racing games. The author continues by developing a 3D version of Gopher-it. In addition, the author next deals with collision detection because of its importance. He also shows you how to incorporate intelligent opponents. The author next begins the trek into the unknown world of computer audio. Next, the author explores another option for using vehicles in games--a practice called generating--ambient traffic. Then, he guides you through the physics that are needed for driving and racing games. The author then explores the use of continuos time by using the GLUT interface. Next, he shows you how many different types of cameras can be used in a game to improve play. Then, he focuses on the basic techniques of creating terrains. The author continues by designing a Manic Mars Racer game. He next codes and implements the Manic Mars Racer game. Finally, he presents a complete driving game in C++ that uses DirectX, that was developed by some of his students.

With the preceding in mind, the author has done an excellent job of writing a book that provides you with hands-on programming that shows you how to build and customize driving and racing games. At the end of the day, you'll find that taking a detailed look at a driving game in this book really teaches you all about games.

There is nothing to offer from this book. The codes which you have to spend hours to download from the author website are so buggy and slow. This book is simply one of those that should not have been published.