I was going to post this question in a separate thread, but it''s related. Between 3D Game Engine Design and Real Time Rendering, which would you recommend? Both books seem to cover the same stuff (I flipped through them in the book store), but I still don''t know which covers it better.

As for advice on books, although I think that the Prima Tech books are okay for beginners, I''m really not a fan of them. I understand why people (at least hobbyist game programmers) like them so much, unlike some of the more complex books (which are mostly theory) these books deal almost completely with code samples, and giving you an exact way of doing something. The upcoming book that teaches C++, Win32 and game programming all in one is probably the best example of this. They read like internet tutorials, which isn''t necessarily a bad thing, it''s just why pay for something you can get for free .

Still, if you''re looking for books, it may be a better idea to get an OpenGL book, and an advanced game programming book (like 3D Engine Design), and read the tutorials around the web (you can find tons of tutorials and links here, and on flipcode, just in case you didn''t know .)

I would definitely recommend learning ''software'' 3D programming before trying to learn a 3D API like D3D or OpenGL. For me it made picking up D3D a whole lot easier.

''Black Art of 3D Game Programming'' is indeed an excellent place to start with software 3D, as is ''Building a 3D Game engine in C++" by Brian Hook. Both books are for DOS, but it is trivial to port the code into DirectDraw.

Just bought Game Programming Gems and I''m diggin it. I really recommend it if you got the basics of coding and a little bit of game dev under your belt.

Is there a free 3D book out there for download? Just like "The Art of Assembly" but for 3D programming?

Do a search on google for Michael Abrash''s Black Book. I know that it is available online somewhere. It''ll have some of the stuff that you are looking for.