Hiya Well, as ive said before, im making an rts engine. Ive gotten done with the base code pretty much and now im at the point where I need to start working on collision routines and quad/octree system. Ive made a pretty extensive vector lib (2d,3d,4d) but I cant seem to get matrix math, quaternions and all of that stuff, thus I cant work on lighting, collision detection, physics etc. I want to use perpixel lighting, but I cant seem to understand how eye space to tangent space to light space to vertex space.... how do you do that stuff!!! Are you expected to know how to code a frustum class without reference, or how to compute light interactions, or do 4D collisions! I know algebra, geometry and I understand trig and such, im not a pro at any of them, but for most things i can normaly solve on paper, my question is though, how in the heck are you expose to remember the steps to creating a quaternion class, or a polygon sub division routine!!! Thanx alot for any help on my delema. I enjoy math, but I cant seem to understand the more advanced concepts used in 3d gfx other then vector routines (which Im quite good at). ~yodaman

you don''t remember anything, you search on the internet and find all the appropriate math then convert it to c++ code.

Intel has a great freeware library that takes care of a lot of the matrix stuff for you (its called sml - small matrix library).

Get yourself the book entitled "Mathematics for 3D game programming and computer graphics". I''m working through that one right now myself, and it contains everything you''ll need to make your matrix classes (that''s actually one of the excercises for chapter 2), and pretty much everything else mathematics wise that relates to 3D programming (lighting, collision detection, visibility determination, linear physics, rotational physics, etc). The book "3D game engine design" makes a great companion too. Online resources are ok for a referance, but I really don''t think you''ll find a resource that is detailed enough to cover a topic like this.

I will warn you though, this book moves damn fast. I spent three hours just getting past the first 8 pages. After the initial overload however, it started to flow much easier. I must say the book is incredibly detailed. Every formula they use they first derive from earlier concepts. For every theory they employ they give you the proof. They don''t give you incomplete information on anything.

Expect to have to work hard to really get something out of this book though, and expect to have to read sections of it again and again. If you really want to learn it however, I promise you that you will if you stick at it.