just wondering... i never had that kinda complicated stuff on school like i see in many 3d programming tutoerials, is it something that you will understand eventually or do you really need a solid understanding of this stuff? thanx

The math used in 3D programming isn''t taught in school until you go to college. It''s called Linear Algebra. Fortunately you only need a very small subset of LA to understand 3D programming and this part is not that hard to figure out with the help of tutorials and papers.

The more advanced you want to make your program the more education you''ll need. Everything can be learned on one''s own through tutorials, books and papers, but ít easier to pick up in school where you have teachers that can explain more thoroughly the parts that are hard to get.

I don''t know what you''re math background is, but for any type of 3D programming, linear algebra is a must. In order to work in different coordinate systems and understand how to manipulate objects within those systems, you have to have some understanding of what a given matrix operation will do. It does''nt hurt to have a strong grounding in trigonometry as well. I, myself would have had a hard time picking it all up without some kind of formal instruction to give me a good foundation. Once you have that, you can pick up the rest.

Hi

You don''t need all the linear Algebra Stuff for 3D Programming, only the Matrix Operation is important, but all those other things like Eigenvalues, or how to proof the existance of Bases, and to know all the tiny little things that make up an Vectorspace.
You don''t need to know what to do with Vectorspaces others then R3.

There are so many things you don''t need, and what you need, you can get by selflearning very good, like Spellbound sayd.

I hope the Mathematical words are correct, i only know the german ones

Lars

I''m a college (or in swedish "gymnasie") student and I''ve only taken the first classes of math (MaA) so I''m really bad with more advanced maths than the basic arithmetics.

I can''t say I have done "really advanced" 3D stuff, I''ve only played around with some textures and polygonal planes (i.e. the fun part) and there''s no need for maths there, only some "3D thinking" like what axis go where and 3D coordinates.

When it comes to more advanced stuff like matrices and transformations, I believe that you do need algebra. So, if you want to code the next generation Quake III like games, don''t do like me.

Study math.

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Daniel Netz, Sentinel Design
"I'm not stupid, I'm from Sweden" - Unknown

Yes, I agree with you Spiff. I''m reading MaB also but that sure doesn''t help me so much either. I was looking through the D3DIM some days ago went across the transformation stuff.

Can someone explain to me why you have to use 4x4 vectors and not 3x3 for the transformations?

For me it''s the transformations which is the hard part.

I personally didn't get along with the math teacher (it didn't help that she was about my age and cute too) so I decided to wait with any further maths studying.

You're right about the transformations, as soon as you've got that, I think that you pretty much handles any 3D API quite well.

Here's what The online MSDN DX7 SDK says about matrices, hope it hels, otherwise, we just have to discuss it in the weekend, huh Digger?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/psdk/directx/imover_94tg.htm

There also seems to be a big pile of maths tutorials on http://www.flipcode.com/tutorials/

The fourth matrix dimension seems to be the origin of the world space coordinate which is the origin of the other axis vectors.

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Daniel Netz, Sentinel Design
"I'm not stupid, I'm from Sweden" - Unknown

Edited by - Spiff on 3/29/00 3:49:15 AM

Thanks a lot Spiff!!!!!
See you in the weekend.

Hi all !!

Here in Germany I had advanced math in school and did my degree in Math. (For Germans : Mathe Leistungskurs). I learned a lot, Vector bases, and all that stuff behind the math.
I am just creating my own 3D Engine, and all I need is just a little bit of what I learned.
In school you learn a lot, and you forget it very fast, if you don''t need it. I think the most important part to learn is Vector and matrix operations.

For example if you want to get the shortest distance from a point to line in 3D, you can pick up a book or some articles on the net to read the algorithm. But, if you know WHY this algo works, your life is much easier, because you then can derive knowledge to do that with a sphere or so.

I would suggest, get a good math book, and learn basic geometry. And, don''t just read it, program it !!! Then, after some time it will do a huge "click" in your brain, and then you understand what you are doing all the time. The same was it for me. During school I learned algos for all kinds of stuff but never really knew what I did and why it works. Then, when I began to write 3D Applications it did a click and suddenly I understood everything that I just write down.

Phillip

Learning math in school is most often very boring, you have to do a lot of stuff that you really don''t find it either interesting or useful at all, therefor ending up not learning anything.

It''s not until you actually want to learn maths, for use in programming for example, that you find it amusing to read about. Not in the school bench. I''m gonna head home from work soon and read a 12 page document about matrices, that was not me 1 year ago

I also think that you can find a lot of useful information on the internet too and learn about maths that way, if you only know where to look for it.

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Daniel Netz, Sentinel Design
"I'm not stupid, I'm from Sweden" - Unknown