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Thursday, October 23, 2008

Physics for Game Programmers


Product Description

First, you can get the source code directly from Apress' website. Second...the implementations are in simple terms. Third...(Grant Palmer's) book is full of trivia about physics that are just plain fun to read.

— InkBlog: The Random Musings of David Weller

As far as the style of the book goes, I think that's actually where it really shines. The author has a way of explaining things that's thorough without being verbose.

— Craig Andera, Pluralsight

Physics for Game Programmers shows you how to infuse compelling and realistic action into game programmingeven if you dont have a college-level physics background! Author Grant Palmer covers basic physics and mathematical models and then shows how to implement them, to simulate motion and behavior of cars, planes, projectiles, rockets, and boats.

This book is neither code heavy nor language specific, and all chapters include unique, challenging exercises for you to solve. This unique book also includes historical footnotes and interesting trivia. Youll enjoy the conversational tone, and rest assured: all physics jargon will be properly explained.

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #194179 in Books
* Published on: 2005-04-20
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 472 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Grant Palmer is the author of the acclaimed Java Programmer's Reference and is a recognized expert in both the C# and Java languages. Grant has worked as a scientific programmer in the Space Technology Division at the NASA Ames Research Center for the past 20 years. This has involved working with Java since 1996, developing programs for scientific applications as well as converting older FORTRAN and C applications to the Java and C# platforms.
Customer Reviews

Very nice book5
This is a very nice book, with a simple language, easy to understand, if you aren't a physic or math professional.
The formules are clean and light to put in your game source without down your hardware performance.

Excellent Beginner's Book5
This book gently introduces the reader to physics useful for game programming. It doesn't try to be a PhD thesis (thank you, Grant!), which makes it easily approachable by someone with a solid grasp on Algebra (Trigonometry knowledge helps, but lacking it won't hurt much).

Although the base material can be found in any good physics textbooks, the value here is in weeding out the unwanted fluff present in most textbooks, and presenting the material in plain language along with the equations. You would likely have to spend many times this book's cover price, and spend many time the hours weeding out the nonsense. Grant strikes an excellent balance between mathematical correctness and easy reading.

Do yourself a favor, and save a spot on your bookshelf for this title. It's easily worth twice its asking price, and I'm ecstatic at this book's great bang for the buck.

Practical physics for game programmers4
This title is also suitable for people with weak knowledge about math and gives easy to understand examples from everyday life. The physics models themselves didn't go very deep under the topic but rather handled more common approaches to the problems which is often the case on game related physics.

Chapter covering collisions were a bit too superficial to my taste but it's understandable since subject in all of it's complexity would form a book on it's own. Also all the examples were written in common Java rather than in pseudo code but works well for the purpose.

In overall this book is good starting point for game related physics but lacks profound optimization for large scale physic environment.