Should I take calculus in collage to help with the mathematics of game programming? Or should trigonometry be sufficient? And what about physics? ---------------------- [italic]Hail to the king, baby.[/italic]

Learn from my mistakes. I didn''t go to college, but in high school I didn''t bother taking any advanced math, I have regretted it. It''s alot harder to come back later and get back in the groove of learning math.

Take calculus, take physics. It can''t hurt you and I''m sure it will come in handy

Richard D Shank

Thanks. It wont hurt to take it anyways.

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[italic]Hail to the king, baby.[/italic]

i''ve taken calculus 1, trig and physics so far in high school, and i really havent done much programming unfortunately (havent had time cause i spent my time studying , but i feel that it''s going to help a hell of a lot.. everything makes a lot more sense and i have an ideas how to program things. now i''m taking algebra and its seems to explain a lot too.. so i a few words.. taking maths are very helpful.

Scott

Calculas might help a little, however for game programming the most inportant math class you could probably take would be linear algebra, for all those pesky matrices you deal with in 3d graphics. As for trig, it will most likely be required and will help with some understanding, but anything 3d will have lots of matrices, which trig won''t help with. Only take physics if you want to, if you wish to make games that model real world behavior and interaction it might help.

Dusto

I''m taking Calculus and Physics in HS now, and they''re some of the easiest courses I''ve taken. More likely than not, the reason I know way too much about math is because of my constant programming hobby. So, I''d assume the opposite relation would be as well .

calculus is beautiful, but can be kinda hard...but i dont imagine itd help too much in game programming. physics is friggen awesome and it would definitely come in handy if you were doing 3d game programmind

I''m a strong proponent of taking Discrete Math, too, if it''s available. Discrete math usually is highly applicable to programming. Even if you don''t see a need for the kind of graph-theoretic algorithms they have you spend a lot of time with, you might find later that a particular problem you are working with can be interpreted as a graph-theoretic problem. That would allow you to use the algorithms you studied in the course.

Discrete math usually also covers things like recursion and loops from a formal point of view, which can be a lot of help. Even if it doesn''t help you to understand the concepts any more, it gives you terminology that allows you to discuss the issues concisely, which is important when trying to communicate with other programmers.

Null and Void,

Your physics teacher must not be challanging you too much then because physics at my school (esp. AP) is one of the hardest classes you can take (if you get a certain teacher that is). While in hindsight most of the stuff wasn''t that hard, it could be quite danting at first glance. (Esp. when he pulls out crazy mathematics and first order approximations).


Desert Fox

Null and Void,

Your physics teacher must not be challanging you too much then because physics at my school (esp. AP) is one of the hardest classes you can take (if you get a certain teacher that is). While in hindsight most of the stuff wasn''t that hard, it could be quite danting at first glance. (Esp. when he pulls out crazy mathematics and first order approximations).


BTW,
Basic Calc is easy, it''s the algebra in simplifying calc expressions that''s hard...


Desert Fox