Explains the complex technical aspects of video game programming in comprehensive language, covering such areas as 3-D graphics, "voxel graphics," digitized sound and music, modem communications, and game assembly. Original. (Intermediate).

The definitive book for writing 3D video games in C. The only flaw: the CD-ROM is only for DOS-based C compilers. However, most of the source code is in the book, and the general principles would apply to all platforms. If you don’t see more reviews listed below, be sure to click on the book’s title for longer and impressive substantiation of this massive tome’s merits!

The definitive book for writing 3D video games in C. The only flaw: the CD-ROM is only for DOS-based C compilers. However, most of the source code is in the book, and the general principles would apply to all platforms. If you don’t see more reviews listed below, be sure to click on the book’s title for longer and impressive substantiation of this massive tome’s merits!

Does not withstand the test of time

Welcome to 1995.

This book weighs in at around 1.5 kilos and probably half of it could be culled from the book today. A lot of the material focuses on specifics for DOS (Windows 95 inclusive) programming, which is all unnecessary today under modern operating systems, if supported at all.


This book is worth reading if you’re interested in a history lesson, it shows how much work was required to get small things done and the amount of knowledge required.

These days, thanks to reusable software in the forms of libraries programmers can focus on higher level aspects and worry less about reinventing the low level functions.

Personally I flipped through the book up to Chapter 10, 3D Fundamentals (having already coded a tetris game in C, with sound effects and music, prior to opening this book). This part has some good introductory theory including vector math, matrices, fixed point math and background informatioj required to implement 3D graphics without something like OpenGL.

The rest of the book, more 3D engine impementation, BSP and then Voxels and raycasting is most excellent and I would definitely recommend it on this basis, this information can most definitely be applied to writing programs with software rendering in modern languages and programming environments.

Thank you Andre Lamothe!

A real good 2D/3D computer graphics foundation.

After I have bought this book for 10 years, I am still refers to it occasionally for implementing certain graphics featues in my software applications such as charting.

This book provides real programming in 2D and 3D the classics way using nothing more but merely math algorithm. Although this book is destinated for MS-DOS environment, no DirectX tutorial within, with knowledge of classics 2D and 3D descriptions from this book, you can be sure of, porting to any new environment is not a problem...because you owns the root.

Moreover, in today’s gaming industry or enterprise, in order to push to limits, it has to own a self written 3D engine for sure.

This is a golden book, grab a copy while still available, is surely worthy.

Sincerely,
Ricky Gai.

Review updated: 13/04/2006.

A real good 2D/3D computer graphics foundation.


After I have bought this book for 10 years, I am still refers to it occasionally for implementing certain graphics features in my software applications such as charting.

This book provides real programming in 2D and 3D the classics way using nothing more but merely math algorithm. Although this book is destinated for MS-DOS environment, no DirectX tutorial within, with knowledge of classics 2D and 3D descriptions from this book, you can be sure of, porting to any new environment is not a problem...because you owns the root.

Moreover, in today’s gaming industry or enterprise, in order to push to limits, it has to be a self-written 3D engine for sure.

This is a golden book, grab a copy while still available, is surely worthy.

Sincerely,
Ricky Gai.

Review updated: 13/04/2006.

This is still a good intro book

I owned this book for a while but I didn’t actually pick it up and start reading it until a few weeks ago... people will complain that this book is outdated and blah blah... well those people are people who want to be spoon fed everything and have no creativity... if you have any kind of brain, this book is an awesome intro to 3d graphics... just check out my site http://members.rogers.com/vetro

I started coding a 3d graphics engine... I had to improvise, but the techniques are all based on the last half of this book

V

A very good intro for rookies

This book is a very good intro for 2D and 3D programming. The source code is simple and easy to understand. It lacks some things, like bitmap rotation, but no book is complete. The code can be compiled with the Watcon 11.0 compiler or Open Watcon compiler with some minor changes.

Best intro to 2D game programming

The first half of the book is simply great. With the help of
this book , I ’ve written a complete VGA library in assembly.

The quality of the illustrations on 3D concepts like cross products , however , is too low and doesn’t help to understand the material.

But the rest is truly amazing (André even covers the Pentium’s FPU processor).

Good for math research

This is a 5 stars book, but is outdated.
Still has some good math chapters.

Giving credit where credit is due.

I...originally gave it only one star because I was so shocked that none of the code could compile.

Luckily, I plowed through the book and couldn’t pull myself away. The explanations on 3D math and algorithms are superb.

LaMothe’s code from his Windows Game Programming For Dummies book contained a DrawLine function. All the code in his 3D book eventually boiled down to a DrawLine function. So I copied and pasted his 3D code into his Dummies game engine.....after some tweaking I got a pyramid to rotate and move in 3D.

In my spare time over the past six months, I have finally been able to put together a 3D game in DirectX. It will probably be the last 3D game ever made for the PC that doesn’t use Direct3D now that there seems to be a couple of good Direct3D books out...