I''d like to learn about how a game engine is built from scratch (the perspective and everything, like in Doom or Quake), without D3D or OpenGL. I don''t neccesarily intend to do this, but I am interested in the math and equations, so I can better understand what I''m doing in the 3D world of gaming. Thank you

Sorry, I guess I''ll post the question in 3D Theory. Didn''t see it.

I can get the ball rolling with some resources. The classic book on 3D projections, etc., for 3D graphics independent of any API is "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, second edition" by Foley et al. Its a decade old, and you may find a copy in many libraries.

A more recent book that is excellent is "Real-time Rendering" by Moller and Haines. It focuses more on 3D (whereas the Foley book also covers 2D, image processing and other non-3D things), and is more modern. I actually prefer this book. Check out the associated web site:

www.realtimerendering.com

If you want to see a lot of math used in game engines, then David Eberly's book "3D Game Engine Design" is a good place to look. Its a bit hard to follow. Its hardcore. Some of his stuff is online at:

www.magic-software.com

and

www.wild-magic.com

David's stuff may be of particular interest to you since he was involved in the development of the commercial 3D game engine, NetImmerse from NDL (www.ndl.com). And the NetImmerse engine (as well as David's Wild-Magic engine I guess) is cross-platform, with the core engine being independent of OpenGL, or Direct3D or anything else.


Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.

[edited by - grhodes_at_work on April 1, 2002 2:01:18 PM]