Aimed at the working Visual C++ game developer, 3D Game Engine Design provides a tour of mathematical techniques for 3-D graphics, and the source code that’s used to implement them in state-of-the-art video game engines. If you work in the game industry (or would like to), this book will serve you well, because it delivers excellent best practices for algorithms and programming techniques that’ll help your software keep up with the competition.

"Virtually all the books on building 3D game engines cover the basics: here’s a polygon, here’s a transformation matrix, here’s a perspective projection, and so on. The problem is that you can’t make a professional quality game with just the basics. This leaves a large gap between you and your goal of creating a great game engine. With this book, Dave is launching a huge boulder into the gap, helping you scamper to your destination."
Eric Yiskis, Lead Programmer, Oddworld Inhabitants
3D Game Engine Design is the first book to go beyond basic descriptions of algorithms and accurately demonstrate the complex engineering process required to design and build a real-time graphics engine to support physical realism. Faster algorithms will always win out over faster processors and assembly-language optimization techniques. Implementing those algorithms, however, can be a challenge for even experienced programmers.
This book provides rigorous explanations and derivations of all the essential concepts and techniques. Ideas are revealed step by step with numerous code examples and illustrations. Source code implementations are included on the companion CD-ROM to help you understand the full progression from idea, to algorithm, to working code. Since algorithms are not used in isolation, the source code for a complete engine is provided to bring crucial context to the implementations. This book and CD-ROM offer the most comprehensive professional reference available for the development of 3D game engines.
Features:
* Designed for professionals working in game development, simulation, scientific visualization, or virtual worlds
* Written by a respected game engineer and designer of a leading commercial game engine
* Thoroughly describes the algorithms-fully implemented in working code-that are the key to writing the fastest, most efficient code possible
* Provides source code for Windows 95/98/NT/2000, Linux/Unix, and Macintosh platforms.
About the software:
Includes a CD-ROM with C++ source code implementations of all the algorithms covered in the text as well as source code for a complete game engine. Updates for the engine, new ports (such as for the Macintosh), FAQs, and additional material on real-time graphics can be found at Geometric Tools website http://www.geometrictools.com. The renderer layer of the engine is abstract and can work with whichever API is desired. An OpenGL-based renderer, DirectX8 (Direct3D), and a GLUT-based hardware renderer for either Windows or Linux are included.

Aimed at the working Visual C++ game developer, 3D Game Engine Design provides a tour of mathematical techniques for 3-D graphics, and the source code that’s used to implement them in state-of-the-art video game engines. If you work in the game industry (or would like to), this book will serve you well, because it delivers excellent best practices for algorithms and programming techniques that’ll help your software keep up with the competition.

This text is a virtual encyclopedia of expertise that’s based on the author’s own work and research in the gaming industry. It provides the mathematical notation, algorithms, and C++ code (on the accompanying CD-ROM) that are needed to build fast and maintainable game engines. Early sections start with the basics, with the math that’s used to work with common 3-D objects (like spheres and boxes). Highlights include a high-powered review of quaternion algebra--in many cases, the preferred way to transform 3-D data.

The chapters on graphics pipelines explain the math that’s behind representing and rendering a 3-D world in 2-D with intervening effects like lighting and texture mapping. A variety of current algorithms are provided for representing 3-D scenes, efficient picking (which allows a programmer to determine the object in a 3-D world that has been selected), and collision detection (in which objects collide virtually). In the game software of today, curves--and not individual triangles or polygons--often are used to represent 3-D objects. Algorithms that are used to turn curves into rendered surfaces are provided, too.

Later sections look at the current thinking about animation techniques for characters (including key frames, inverse kinematics, and skinning (in which digital skin is fitted over digital bone to create more realistic-looking movement)). How to represent terrain inside virtual worlds also is explained. The book closes with excellent material on such cutting-edge special effects as lens flare and projected shadows, which can add an extra level of realism to a video game. An appendix examines guidelines for designing object-oriented game software in C++.

Filled with mathematical insight and expert code that puts each principle or algorithm to work, 3D Game Engine Design provides an expert view of what goes into building a state-of-the-art game engine. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Mathematical methods and sample source code for 3-D game development
• Geometrical transformations
• Coordinate systems
• Quaternions
• Euler angles
• Standard 3-D objects: spheres, oriented boxes, capsules, lozenges, cylinders, ellipsoids
• Distance methods for a variety of shapes
• Introduction to the graphics pipeline
• Model and world coordinates
• Projecting perspective
• Camera models
• Culling techniques
• Surface and vertex attributes
• Rasterizing
• Efficiency issues for clipping and lighting
• Hierarchical scene representation, using trees and scene graphs
• Picking algorithms for a variety of 3-D shapes
• Collision detection for static and dynamic graphical objects
• Oriented bounding-box (OBB) trees
• Basics of curves and special curves (including Bezier curves and various splines)
• Curves (generating surfaces from curves by using different techniques)
• Character animation, using keyframe animation and inverse kinematics
• Skinning
• Geometrical level of detail considerations
• Techniques for generating game terrain
• Spatial sorting and binary space partitioning (BSP)
• Special effects: lens flare, bump mapping, volumetric fogging, projected light and shadows, particle systems, morphing techniques
• C++ language features for effective object-oriented design
• Reference to the numerical methods required for game mathematics

Now considered an essential reference in the game industry, 3D Game Engine Design is the first book to go beyond basic descriptions of algorithms and accurately demonstrate the complex engineering process required to design and build a real-time graphics engine to support physical realism. Faster algorithms will always win out over faster processors and assembly-language optimization techniques. Implementing those algorithms, however, can be a challenge for even experienced programmers.
This book provides rigorous explanations and derivations of all the essential concepts and techniques. Ideas are revealed step by step with numerous code examples and illustrations. Source code implementations are included on the companion CD-ROM to help you understand the full progression from idea, to algorithm, to working code. Since algorithms are not used in isolation, the source code for a complete engine is provided to bring crucial context to the implementations. This book and CD-ROM offer the most comprehensive professional reference available for the development of 3D game engines.

*Designed for professionals working in game development, simulation, scientific visualization, or virtual worlds.
*Written by a respected game engineer and designer of a leading commercial game engine.
*Thoroughly describes the algorithmsfully implemented in working codethat are the key to writing the fastest, most efficient code possible.
*Provides source code for Windows 95/98/NT/2000, Linux/Unix, and Macintosh platforms.

A thorough book suitable for those undaunted of math

I expected a book that would discuss game engine design in a fairly straight-forward manner. A book that started off with a discussion of the basic principles, and then moved on to the complex details would have been easier to follow.

This book was not initially what I expected, due to the fact that it is very math-oriented. Within minutes of starting the book I was faced with mathematical proofs.

However, the book is very thorough, and covers a diverse range of topics. Included with the book is the WildMagic engine, which is an implementation of the material discussed in the book.

I would recommend it as a reference for somebody who is already familiar with game development, and who is not daunted by fairly complex math. I would caution beginners wanting to learn about game engine design to stay away.

Everything you need, and then some

This book gives you an excellent foundation upon which you can begin building a game engine. It covers all of the essentials (matrix algebra through artificial intelligence) wonderfully. It isn’t so much a cookbook that will show you, step-by-step how to build a game engine, it gives you all of the tools to do so though.

Poor pseudo-code

This book is fantastically comprehensive, though I bought it more for the CG algorithms than anything else.

My biggest gripe is with the pseudo-code. My C++ is not great, but I can get by - I found the code in general under-commented for a textbook. If you were writing software, it might be fine, but the purpose of the code is to explain the algorithms, and to work in concert with the text, which it does not. Furthermore, I found the text did not fill in the holes - I was left to try to figure out what Eberley was doing by going through the code. Possibly if I had read the whole thing through from cover to cover things would be clearer.

If you’re just looking for an algorithm reference, you could do better.

VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

Are you a professional or student working in game development? If you are, then this book is for you. Author David H. Eberly has done an outstanding job of writing a second edition of a book which focuses on the design of the scene graph management system and its associated rendering layer.

Eberly, begins this book by discussing the details of a rendering system, including transformations, camera models, culling and clipping, rastering, and issues regarding software versus hardware rendering and about specific graphics application programmer interfaces in use these days. In addition, the author discusses rendering from the perspective of actually writing all of the subsystems for a software renderer. He also takes a look at the essentials of organizing your data as a scene graph. Then, he focuses on specifically designed nodes and subsystems of the scene graph management system. The author then looks at some general concepts you see in attempting to have physical realism in a three-dimensional application. Next, he discusses a lot of mathematical detail for much of the source code you will find in Wild Magic. Then, he takes a brief look at the basic principles of object-oriented design and programming. The author continues by discussing memory management. Finally, he takes a look at a handful of sample shaders and the applications that use them.

This most excellent book is very much enhanced, describing the foundations for shader programming and how an engine can support it. Perhaps more importantly, the book is the most comprehensive reference available for the development of shader-based 3D graphics engines!

This book is not about "Game Engine Design"

This book is not about "Game Engine Design" -- it’s about algorithms that you may come across when writing a 3D game engine. There’s very little treatment of "engine design" in this book.

Even though the title is misleading, it’s still a great book if you’re looking for a reference on 3D game engine algorithms.

High caliber book (if you can follow the math)

I’m pretty good about leaving honest reviews of gaming books, giving 1 star to books with Andre LaMothe even being mentioned, giving 1 star to books written about how cool the author’s engine is over yours, giving 1 star to people with overinflated egos that need petted (which, btw, you will bump into more than once in the field of gaming since it has that "wow"-afying effect that attracts the people who need their egos polished, *cough* LaMothe *cough*).

This book is none of that. Upon opening the first pages, you can immediately tell this book is an entire course work full of information that is all very relevent to game engine design. The author does an extradionaire job to explain the concepts, not just how he did it (which won’t leave you with that annoying "now all praise for me I am super l337 gAm3 c0d3r" feeling like certain other books tend to do).

This book is a very well written book on anything even remotely close to game engine design. The level of conceptual detail is amazing, but it is quite math heavy (so beware if you aren’t good with math to begin with), but given that the process of game engine design is inheriently math heavy, there is no point in bashing this book too hard since, lets face it, if you can’t do the math you won’t get very far with making a 3d engine.

The thing I like about the book is that many differet functions, formulas, and concepts that are relavent to building a functioning 3d game are presented in some form or another in this book. It talks and feels like a CS book, and thats good sinec thats what most CS people feel comfortable with.

However, let me make sure that people realize, you need to be at least comfortable with C++ in order to get anything from this book. I would recommend at least up to a level of CS III (or equivalent) college course at the minimum (maybe less if you know C++). Also, an understanding of Linear Algebra is extremely helpful in game design, but thats hard to say since Linear Algebra is an upper level math course that most people will have to be in college before even having the opportunity to take (no offense to you youngins, but you might have to wait a few years before you understand whats going on).

There is another review on here that says that this book doesn’t cover networking or some of those other things, but still doesn’t make this book any less worthwhile.

Overall though, there are a few sections that I wish the author would have expanded on (especially the appendix 2 stuff - was some really good C++ problems I’ve bumped into myself). The next edition should be a definite winner, but for the time being I am very pleased with this book - highly recommended.

JW

Very math heavy, but still good

Reviewing this post I cannot change the rating, otherwise I would give it a 4 star rating.

This book contains many different functions, formulas, and concepts that are relavent to building a functioning 3d game. On the down side, it talks and feels like a math book, not so much a computer science book. That is fine since game engine design is inheritly math heavy, but also very bad because math formulas and derivations are fine, but *ONLY* with accompanying explanations written in plain english (which are lacking in several areas).

For example, trying to explain what formula is used to indicate what array index one would use to grab a quad tree in a quad tree array (as opposed to a linked list/tree structure), he starts off with writing "Given a..." - you can tell within the first two words, no, this is not how to explain what you’re doing. Something more along the lines of "To determine the index offset...", much better.

The chapter that I especially dislike is the terrain rendering chapter. I have yet to make up my mind what algorithm he is using (I think ROAM?), but the explanation in the book takes off at tangent pace from the start and leaves you wondering what he is getting at. Obviously, we’re going to render terrain, but the methodolgy of the deliverance of the information is simply... lets say for sake of argument, unfollowable. It is like a mad scientist wrote it.

One thing I definately liked was that he presents a lot of pseudo code for MANY of the problems he covers. This was exceptionally helpful, and fairly well done. More comments would be even better, but still as it stands is not bad.

However, let me make sure that people realize, you need to be at least comfortable with math AND programming in order to get anything from this book. I would recommend at least up to a level of CS III (or equivalent) college course at the minimum (maybe less if you know C++). Also, an understanding of Linear Algebra is extremely helpful.

There is another review on here that says that this book doesn’t cover networking or some of those other things, but I don’t feel that it makes this book any less worthwhile. Although, yes, it would be better if it did contain a networking chapter.

Overall though, there are a few sections that I wish the author would have expanded on (especially the appendix 2 stuff - was some really good C++ problems I’ve bumped into myself). The next edition should be an improvement, but for the time being I am fairly pleased with this book. Not neccessarily high on my recommendation list, but good enough to get information out of.

Eberly has a follow-up book entitled "Game Engine Architecture" where he goes on an overview of his Wild Magic engine. Fairly good book as well, a lot less math happy too (he even makes mention of the number one complaint of this book being its math heaviness).

JW

Very math heavy, but still good

Reviewing this post I cannot change the rating, otherwise I would give it a 4 star rating.

This book contains many different functions, formulas, and concepts that are relavent to building a functioning 3d game. On the down side, it talks and feels like a math book, not so much a computer science book. That is fine since game engine design is inheritly math heavy, but also very bad because math formulas and derivations are fine, but *ONLY* with accompanying explanations written in plain english (which are lacking in several areas).

For example, trying to explain what formula is used to indicate what array index one would use to grab a quad tree in a quad tree array (as opposed to a linked list/tree structure), he starts off with writing "Given a..." - you can tell within the first two words, no, this is not how to explain what you’re doing. Something more along the lines of "To determine the index offset...", much better.

The chapter that I especially dislike is the terrain rendering chapter. I have yet to make up my mind what algorithm he is using (I think ROAM?), but the explanation in the book takes off at tangent pace from the start and leaves you wondering what he is getting at. Obviously, we’re going to render terrain, but the methodolgy of the deliverance of the information is simply... lets say for sake of argument, unfollowable. It is like a mad scientist wrote it.

One thing I definately liked was that he presents a lot of pseudo code for MANY of the problems he covers. This was exceptionally helpful, and fairly well done. More comments would be even better, but still as it stands is not bad.

However, let me make sure that people realize, you need to be at least comfortable with math AND programming in order to get anything from this book. I would recommend at least up to a level of CS III (or equivalent) college course at the minimum (maybe less if you know C++). Also, an understanding of Linear Algebra is extremely helpful.

There is another review on here that says that this book doesn’t cover networking or some of those other things, but I don’t feel that it makes this book any less worthwhile. Although, yes, it would be better if it did contain a networking chapter.

Overall though, there are a few sections that I wish the author would have expanded on (especially the appendix 2 stuff - was some really good C++ problems I’ve bumped into myself). The next edition should be an improvement, but for the time being I am fairly pleased with this book. Not neccessarily high on my recommendation list, but good enough to get information out of.

Eberly has a follow-up book entitled "Game Engine Architecture" where he goes on an overview of his Wild Magic engine. Fairly good book as well, a lot less math happy too (he even makes mention of the number one complaint of this book being its math heaviness).

JW

Good, but not what you might expect

I read this a few years ago, and have referred back to it many times, but I only recently realized that I neglected to write a review of it.

This book is well-written and contains a lot of useful information. The author is one of the few people qualified to write a book of this nature, and he has done an admirable job. That said, the title is pretty misleading, since the book has very little to say about the design of a game engine. Instead, it focuses on implementation details and the math involved with them. Topics covered include geometrical methods, the graphics pipeline, tree-based scene graphics, intersections, collision detection, curves and surfaces, animation, terrain, spatial sorting (quad/octrees, portals, BSPs), special effects, object-oriented infrastructure, and numerical methods. The author doesn’t gloss over anything, providing detailed mathematical derivations of how things work.

Unfortunately, the math is so heavy that unless you’re already pretty familiar with the subject matter, you’ll probably have a hard time with the book. Therefore, I think that the target audience is much smaller that the group that would be attracted by the title.

If you’re involved in game engine development or just want to deepen your knowledge, I think you’ll appreciate the fact that the author doesn’t pull any punches. Otherwise, you’ll probably be more interested in the author’s new book 3D Game Engine Architecture, which was recently released.

Good, but not what you might expect

I read this a few years ago, and have referred back to it many times, but I only recently realized that I neglected to write a review of it.

This book is well-written and contains a lot of useful information. The author is one of the few people qualified to write a book of this nature, and he has done an admirable job. That said, the title is pretty misleading, since the book has very little to say about the design of a game engine. Instead, it focuses on implementation details and the math involved with them. Topics covered include geometrical methods, the graphics pipeline, tree-based scene graphics, intersections, collision detection, curves and surfaces, animation, terrain, spatial sorting (quad/octrees, portals, BSPs), special effects, object-oriented infrastructure, and numerical methods. The author doesn’t gloss over anything, providing detailed mathematical derivations of how things work.

Unfortunately, the math is so heavy that unless you’re already pretty familiar with the subject matter, you’ll probably have a hard time with the book. Therefore, I think that the target audience is much smaller that the group that would be attracted by the title.

If you’re involved in game engine development or just want to deepen your knowledge, I think you’ll appreciate the fact that the author doesn’t pull any punches. Otherwise, you’ll probably be more interested in the author’s new book 3D Game Engine Architecture, which was recently released.

Book Review

I have spent the past four years studying game development and have read many books on the subject. The technologies utilized in game development are extensive but most can be grouped into a small list, which is rendering, animation, modeling, collision detection, collision response, artificial intelligence, audio processing, input management and network communication. This book only contains technologies related to rendering, animation, and collision detection.

Eberly gives an in-depth look to game development and provides adequate solutions to every problem introduced. He does not cover every possible way each problem could be solved nor does he spend a lot of time introducing and defining each problem. Instead he assumes the reader has a general understanding of the problem and gives a quick review followed by one or two detailed solutions using the most common techniques. Eberly’s writing style makes it easy to follow the accumulation of segments to the final solution. His math notation on the other hand was confusing at times. A few places he supplemented words with mathematical notation and allowed the math to do the explaining, which made it seem like he was unable to put it into words.

I have found this book to be very useful and have added it to my reference library of game development, but I would not recommend this book to someone just starting to study game development. For a reader to glean anything of use out of this book he would have to be experienced in object oriented programming, have a basic understanding of 3D rendering technologies and have a working knowledge of calculus and linear algebra.

Book Review

I have spent the past four years studying game development and have read many books on the subject. The technologies utilized in game development are extensive but most can be grouped into a small list, which is rendering, animation, modeling, collision detection, collision response, artificial intelligence, audio processing, input management and network communication. This book only contains technologies related to rendering, animation, and collision detection.

Eberly gives an in-depth look to game development and provides adequate solutions to every problem introduced. He does not cover every possible way each problem could be solved nor does he spend a lot of time introducing and defining each problem. Instead he assumes the reader has a general understanding of the problem and gives a quick review followed by one or two detailed solutions using the most common techniques. Eberly’s writing style makes it easy to follow the accumulation of segments to the final solution. His math notation on the other hand was confusing at times. A few places he supplemented words with mathematical notation and allowed the math to do the explaining, which made it seem like he was unable to put it into words.

I have found this book to be very useful and have added it to my reference library of game development, but I would not recommend this book to someone just starting to study game development. For a reader to glean anything of use out of this book he would have to be experienced in object oriented programming, have a basic understanding of 3D rendering technologies and have a working knowledge of calculus and linear algebra.

Not for the faint of heart

Let there be no doubt that Mr. Eberly is an expert on the subjects presented in this book. Unfortunately - and it pains me to make this statement - he is a terrible instructor. After spending countless hours studying the text and the accompanying source code, I have regrettably come to the conclusion that he is more interested in showcasing his knowledge than actually explaining the material.

It is imperative for a programmer interested in this book to realize that it demands an extreme familiarity with linear algebra. Even the most basic fundamentals of 3D programming are explained in strict mathematical notation. When looking at an equation, if you are unable to immediately visualize the C/C++ representation you are in for a long, difficult read and an even longer integration process.

There is, however, a great deal of value in the abstract theory section of the book. I do not feel, however, that those sections alone are worth the cover price.

Because of the wealth of information contained in both the text and source code, I can’t in good conscience give this book a bad review. Unfortunately, this is no casual read. Personally, I believe that the level of education one needs to fully utilize the information presented contradicts the need for this book entirely.

Not for the faint of heart

Let there be no doubt that Mr. Eberly is an expert on the subjects presented in this book. Unfortunately - and it pains me to make this statement - he is a terrible instructor. After spending countless hours studying the text and the accompanying source code, I have regrettably come to the conclusion that he is more interested in showcasing his knowledge than actually explaining the material.

It is imperative for a programmer interested in this book to realize that it demands an extreme familiarity with linear algebra. Even the most basic fundamentals of 3D programming are explained in strict mathematical notation. When looking at an equation, if you are unable to immediately visualize the C/C++ representation you are in for a long, difficult read and an even longer integration process.

There is, however, a great deal of value in the abstract theory section of the book. I do not feel, however, that those sections alone are worth the cover price.

Because of the wealth of information contained in both the text and source code, I can’t in good conscience give this book a bad review. Unfortunately, this is no casual read. Personally, I believe that the level of education one needs to fully utilize the information presented contradicts the need for this book entirely.

Full of math, gives strong basis. NOT for beginners

Gives the mathematics that build a 3d graphics engine. Some chapters could have gone deeper (like animation), others are really good (curves and terrain generation). But if you are looking for a book that will build your application from vertices to AI, that’s not the book you need. For example, 3d collision detection focuses on the mathematics to find where and when a box intersects, let’s say, a lozenge but not on organizing the CD procedures.
But definitely a must have if you want to get deeper in CG and game programming.

Full of math, gives strong basis. NOT for beginners

Gives the mathematics that build a 3d graphics engine. Some chapters could have gone deeper (like animation), others are really good (curves and terrain generation). But if you are looking for a book that will build your application from vertices to AI, that’s not the book you need. For example, 3d collision detection focuses on the mathematics to find where and when a box intersects, let’s say, a lozenge but not on organizing the CD procedures.
But definitely a must have if you want to get deeper in CG and game programming.