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Physics for Game Developers
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, 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.
336 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 9, 2025
A nice summary of some of the most common scenarios in videogames and the basic physics behind them. It was interesting for me as I understand the physics but I had never spent much time thinking about the difficulties of implementing it in a videogame. The code examples make the discussion more concrete and are good for curiosity even though presumably you wouldn't code these things yourself with modern engines (and definitely not in C++).
December 23, 2019
Great book for physic dev. Recommend!
April 29, 2023
「ゲーム開発のための物理シミュレーション入門」の原書。
訳語の対応を調べるために両方買った。
訳語の対応を調べるために両方買った。
May 22, 2009
David M. Bourg, Physics for Game Developers (O'Reilly, 2002)
It seems to me that when you're confronted with a book title like Physics for Game Developers, you see an undercurrent of “rocks for jocks” in that. It implies that this is physics for folks who never glommed onto physics. As someone who never got above a C in any science class after Biology I in tenth grade, then, it would seem to be right up my alley. Not so. The first five chapters of the book will kill you if you're not familiar with various forms of scientific notation. (Know your Greek letters!) It doesn't help that Bourg has overloaded a few common operators for his own means (for example, he uses * for dot product and ^ for conjunction, when coders will be used to seeing those to symbols used for multiplication and exponentiation respectively). That said, however, once you get past the first five “refresher” chapters, the book picks up a good deal. There's code! And once Bourg is describing what code does, rather than attempting to impart more abstract (well, okay, “abstract” is not the right word, but hopefully you know what I'm getting at), his language becomes a great deal clearer, at least to those of us who think in code rather than physics. Worth picking up if you're in the market for this sort of book, but you might want to pick up a copy of Physics for Dummies to help you through the first part. ***
It seems to me that when you're confronted with a book title like Physics for Game Developers, you see an undercurrent of “rocks for jocks” in that. It implies that this is physics for folks who never glommed onto physics. As someone who never got above a C in any science class after Biology I in tenth grade, then, it would seem to be right up my alley. Not so. The first five chapters of the book will kill you if you're not familiar with various forms of scientific notation. (Know your Greek letters!) It doesn't help that Bourg has overloaded a few common operators for his own means (for example, he uses * for dot product and ^ for conjunction, when coders will be used to seeing those to symbols used for multiplication and exponentiation respectively). That said, however, once you get past the first five “refresher” chapters, the book picks up a good deal. There's code! And once Bourg is describing what code does, rather than attempting to impart more abstract (well, okay, “abstract” is not the right word, but hopefully you know what I'm getting at), his language becomes a great deal clearer, at least to those of us who think in code rather than physics. Worth picking up if you're in the market for this sort of book, but you might want to pick up a copy of Physics for Dummies to help you through the first part. ***
March 23, 2008
wtf lol. you don't need me to tell you "physics for game developers" is going to make your sphincter tighten in fear. O'Reilly's just screwing with us now.
I think I stole this from someone to save them a bunch of head-scratching that'd have done them no good in the end. They're a successful fleshpeddler in Tunis the last time I checked, just spinnin' pies and oglin' thighs. Good for them.
I think I stole this from someone to save them a bunch of head-scratching that'd have done them no good in the end. They're a successful fleshpeddler in Tunis the last time I checked, just spinnin' pies and oglin' thighs. Good for them.
March 11, 2010
Not enough from the perspective of game development.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews