i''ve been learning opengl for a while now.. and have got myself the book "OpenGL Superbible second ed.", but it doesn''t explain the maths at all.. e.g trig, matricies, etc.. and they dont teach us this stuff in school until at least yr 11 or yr 12. so i was thinking i''d go and buy myself a book so i could learn the maths as well... anyone have any good suggestions (related to game programming would be great..) i was thinking of getting the black art of 3d game programming, but its out of date, but does it still teach the maths good?.. do i even really need a book for this?

You really do not need to buy a book if you just want to learn the math behind 3D computer graphics. Just search sites such as

gamedev
gamasutra
flipcode

or just type "3D math" in the av search engine (www.av.com)

There is one thing however... I do not know how old you are, but you really shouldn''t try to learn 3D math untill you are about 16 years or above... thrust me the math is quite complex if you want to understand everything!!

Anyway... If you ever need some personal help... feel free to mail me at: mitolah@hotmail.com (But DO NOT mail me before trying the stuff yourself!! I will know when you do this and I won''t like it!!)

Hope this helps, Dark

The above advice is very good. I''m going to give you one other tip. Unless you''re a math prodigy, you''re probably not going to get it the first time you read a tutorial. Don''t get discouraged. Read several tutorials. Then go back and read the ones you started on. Everybody explains it a little differently and eventually it will become clear.

"things are more like they are now than they ever have been"

Black Art of 3D game programming will teach you matrices. Do you know trigonometry? If you don''t, I could tell you how it works. You know Pythagoras'' theorem, right?

------------------------------
#pragma twice

sharewaregames.20m.com

Trig. is a piece of cake, any kid could pick that up quite easily . Matrices isn''t a really a big deal either. Ask your math teacher, he/she''ll be able to help you out there pretty quickly...and/or ask for extra stuff to do on say, trig.

"Paranoia is the belief in a hidden order behind the visible." - Anonymous

Hello!
All of the above tips and tricks are quite good. However an ordinary maths book will do.
Actually it isn''t very hard to understand once you get the hang of it. Maybee practice some examples to understand the basics and then just build on that.


Daniel Westerstål
http://sigmaent.cjb.net
http://lookfast.cjb.net

Any math that you would ever need for 3d programming is found in a book called Real-Time Rendering by Möller. Its $50, because its hard-bound, but its worth every cent.

thx for the replies

i have been reading tuts on matrix maths.. and im still really confused by it. im beginning to understand trig but, its pretty easy . im 14 btw.

and i think i might check out that book Real-Time rendering.. does it teach all the maths from the ground up? thats what i was looking for when i made the first post.. a book like that

If you want all of the math behind 3d computer graphics and then some, I would recomend The Black Art of 3D Game Programming. It covers A LOT of topics.

JoeMont001@aol.com www.polarisoft.n3.net

I wouldn''t recommend trying to learn 3D maths from Realtime Rendering as it''s not what the book is really all about. A decent maths textbook or the tutorials on the Net are the way to go.