I''m thinking of investing in another math book but I need some help as to which one to buy. Mathematics for 3D game programming and computer graphics or Fundamentals of computer graphics for Peter Shirley... I believe they are around the same price and I do not want to buy both... what do you guys think? -Lewis [m80] Play QUADz MX @ www.m80produxions.com

Well, I guess that all depends on what specifically you want to do. I mean, do you want to focus primarily on the graphics end? If so, go with the latter. Otherwise, if you''d prefer to work more on the engine end, the former may be a better choice.

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Original post by LewieM80
I''m thinking of investing in another math book but I need some help as to which one to buy. Mathematics for 3D game programming and computer graphics or Fundamentals of computer graphics for Peter Shirley... I believe they are around the same price and I do not want to buy both... what do you guys think?

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Well, I myself have the book ''3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics''. The book is indeed very heavy on math, and has some really useful stuff in it, but at the same time, many of the things in it will not be used in 3D game developing in OpenGL or DirectX because OpenGL and DirectX already have most of it built in...

Thanx for the advice... along with 3D Game Programming, I ordered the Idiot''s Guide to Caculus... it''s a nice refresher. It''s an excellent book and everything is explained. I guess I''m a math freak... I have a proof of the Pythagorean theorem if any of you are interested. I also proved the distance formula for a 3D point =)

-Lewis [m80]
Play QUADz MX @
www.m80produxions.com

I needed to proof Pythagorean some days ago too and I needed to proof that it doens''t work for angles that are not 90 degrees..

About the math book.. I need to write a paper for my school. It''s going to be for my math class and I need to write game to show how to implement the things.

Things like vectors, matrices, collision detection and culling and I was wondering if I should buy a good math book or just try to get my math teacher understand the whole thing?(he''s freaking good at math but has never prgrammed)..

Actually, I''d be interested to see a proof that Pythagoras doesn''t work for non-right triangles. It''s really not hard to prove that it works for right triangles, as there are probably hundreds (possibly more) of proofs for it, but of course they all start with a right triangle...

This is not that hard of a problem either:
We know that the Path. theorem holds, and using it as well as coordinate geometry, we can derive the law of cosines which states that c^2 = a^2 + b^2 - 2abcosC. Observe that this becomes the Path. Theorem when C = 90 degrees. Now, for all other non-right angles, 2abcosC != 0, thus invalidating the conditions of c^2 = a^2 + b^2 (Path. Theorem). QED>


Brendan

[edited by - Punty50 on December 14, 2002 10:37:38 PM]

If you use a angle that is larger then 90 or smaller then 90 and you use the cosine rule you will come up with something which is not possible(I don''t know what the english word is but here in holland we call it ''bewijs uit het ongerijmde'').

You get something like AD is larger then AB but that''s not possible because D is a point AB. So when you do everything right the only thing that could be wrong is the thing you started with and that was that Pyth will work with a angle that''s smaller then 90.

That law of cosines is very interesting... thanx for posting that. Math gets crazy sometimes, doesn''t it? I think I need food now... real food!

-Lewis [m80]
Play QUADz MX @
www.m80produxions.com

Hehe Math is pretty great

The thought crossed my mind that if you want to become a game programmer you could better study math then computer science :D

But I had a question to... I need to write a paper for my school. It's going to be for my math class and I need to write a game to show how to implement the things(if you explain what a vector is then you should let his relation with game programming see).

Things like vectors, matrices, collision detection and culling.. I was wondering if I should buy a good math book or just try to get my math teacher understand the whole thing?(he's freaking good at math but has never prgrammed)..
Any math books which are good? What things to use in my paper?

We are with a small team(6 persons). 2 of them are doing it for there drawing class and they become the artist. The others do it for math and comp science.. So we have 2 artists and 4 programmers and 1 year to finish our product. We have an idea of a game but that's to difficult for us(I think). But that doens't matter. We need to show how it could work and give it our best shot.. if we fail but have tried it's not terrible..

So, what mathbook? And which points should I write about?

[edited by - Scheermesje on December 15, 2002 10:01:28 AM]