Colliding billiard balls. Missile trajectories. Cornering dynamics in speeding cars. By applying the laws of physics, you can realistically model nearly everything in games that bounces around, flies, rolls, slides, or isn't sitting still, to create compelling, believable content for computer games, simulations, and animation. Physics for Game Developers serves as the starting point for those who want to enrich games with physics-based realism.Part one is a mechanics primer that reviews basic concepts and addresses aspects of rigid body dynamics, including kinematics, force, and kinetics. Part two applies these concepts to specific real-world problems, such as projectiles, boats, airplanes, and cars. Part three introduces real-time simulations and shows how they apply to computer games. Many specific game elements stand to benefit from the use of real physics, including:
<ul>
<li>The trajectory of rockets and missiles, including the effects of fuel burn off</li>
<li>The collision of objects such as billiard balls</li>
<li>The stability of cars racing around tight curves</li>
<li>The dynamics of boats and other waterborne vehicles</li>
<li>The flight path of a baseball after being struck by a bat</li>
<li>The flight characteristics of airplanes</li>
</ul>You don't need to be a physics expert to learn from Physics for Game Developers, but the author does assume you know basic college-level classical physics. You should also be proficient in trigonometry, vector and matrix math (reference formulas and identities are included in the appendixes), and college-level calculus, including integration and differentiation of explicit functions. Although the thrust of the book involves physics principles and algorithms, it should be noted that the examples are written in standard C and use Windows API functions.

Physics for Game Developers

Computers & Technology

Bourg, David M

Games & Strategy Guides

O'Reilly Media

Advances in 3D visualization and physics-based simulation technology make it possible for game developers to create compelling, visually immersive gaming environments that were only dreamed of years ago. But today's game players have grown in sophistication along with the games they play. It's no longer enough to wow your players with dazzling graphics; the next step in creating even more immersive games is improved artificial intelligence, or AI.Fortunately, advanced AI game techniques are within the grasp of every game developer--not just those who dedicate their careers to AI. If you're new to game programming or if you're an experienced game programmer who needs to get up to speed quickly on AI techniques, you'll find AI for Game Developers to be the perfect starting point for understanding and applying AI techniques to your games.Written for the novice AI programmer, AI for Game Developers introduces you to techniques such as finite state machines, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and many others, in straightforward, easy-to-understand language, supported with code samples throughout the entire book (written in C/C++). From basic techniques such as chasing and evading, pattern movement, and flocking to genetic algorithms, the book presents a mix of deterministic (traditional) and non-deterministic (newer) AI techniques aimed squarely at beginners AI developers. Other topics covered in the book include:
<ul>
<li>Potential function based movements: a technique that handles chasing, evading swarming, and collision avoidance simultaneously</li>
<li>Basic pathfinding and waypoints, including an entire chapter devoted to the A* pathfinding algorithm</li>
<li>AI scripting</li>
<li>Rule-based AI: learn about variants other than fuzzy logic and finite state machines</li>
<li>Basic probability</li>
<li>Bayesian techniques</li>
</ul>Unlike other books on the subject, AI for Game Developers doesn't attempt to cover every aspect of game AI, but to provide you with usable, advanced techniques you can apply to your games right now. If you've wanted to use AI to extend the play-life of your games, make them more challenging, and most importantly, make them more fun, then this book is for you.

AI for Game Developers: Creating Intelligent Behavior in Games

Seemann, Glenn

Given the improved analytical capabilities of Excel, scientists and engineers everywhere are using it-instead of Fortran-to solve problems. And why not? Excel is installed on millions of computers, features a rich set of built-in analyses tools, and includes an integrated Visual Basic for Applications (Vba) programming language. No wonder it's today's computing tool of choice. Chances are you already use Excel to perform some fairly routine calculations. Now the Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook shows you how to leverage Excel to perform more complex calculations, too, calculations that once fell in the domain of specialized tools. It does so by putting a smorgasbord of data analysis techniques right at your fingertips. The book shows how to perform these useful tasks and others: Use Excel and Vba in general Import data from a variety of sources Analyze data Perform calculations Visualize the results for interpretation and presentation Use Excel to solve specific science and engineering problems Wherever possible, the Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook draws on real-world examples from a range of scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, and physics. This way, you'll be better prepared to solve the problems you face in your everyday scientific or engineering tasks. High on practicality and low on theory, this quick, look-up reference provides instant solutions, or "recipes", to problems both basic and advanced. And like other books in O'Reilly's popular Cookbook format, each recipe also includes a discussion on how and why it works. As a result, you can take comfort in knowing that complete, practical answers are a mere page-flip away.

Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook: Adding Excel to Your Analysis Arsenal

Science & Math

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bourg, David M. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bourg, David M

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bourg, David M. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Physics for Game Developers

AI for Game Developers: Creating Intelligent Behavior in Games

Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook: Adding Excel to Your Analysis Arsenal