5 comments about Game Engine Toolset Development.

1. I bought this book thinking it would help me write a new tool for, say, building 3d models, or some other general tool. When it arrived I got excited just by the shear size of it, it's huge!
   
   However, I started flipping through it browsing each and every chapter (didn't read them all in detail of course, but quite a few) and it doesn't teach you how to make a NEW tool for your game, it teaches you how to make an EXISTING tool better. While that knowledge is extremely valuable (and the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 3), it's not what the description of the book stated: "Readers are not required to have any experience developing game engine tools." If you have no experience developing a tool, you're going to have a little trouble getting started. If you know enough math and have good enough coding skills to get a game engine going, you'll be able to write a tool for your game, but you don't need this book to do it.
   
   Now, with that said, this book IS quite good and worth your money so long as you don't expect to read this book and then write a tool, you're going to need more info. Get the book anyway and use it as a guide, it's usefull in that aspect.
   
   This book is so good at making a tool better, most of it's "gems" can and should be applied to ANY application, game tool or not. Also, it covers some good highlevel (or lowlevel, depending on how you view it) .Net functionality such as interfacing with COM and code documentation, as well as few other excellent techniques. These "gems" are quite valuable on their own.
   
   So, in conclusion, if you know nothing about writing a tool, or you don't know C#, hold off on buying this book (make sure to put it in your wish list however). If you have a tool but find it's difficult to work with, or you want to broaden it's appeal, or just simply make it better, get this book, you won't regret it.



2. I just received my copy of Game Engine Toolset Development and I have been unable to put the book down. The author gives a good introduction to .NET 2.0 and relates it to toolset development for games. The chapters are easy to read and follow and he gives good advice on how to build good tools. He could have looked at other toolsets to make the book more complete, but I see this book as a way to introduce students to game programming who have a basic programming background (Java, C++, C, Alice 2.0, etc.).



3. Then, as a hobbyist, I'll just let you know that this book not only teaches, but flat you gives you some great modular code that you can work into many different types of tools.
   
   There's also some great design principles covered that have improved my workflow, even though i'm currently working solo.



4. This is an excellent book, which covers a lot of important aspects of game/engine tool development, but it is more like a recipe book, as each chapter subject is almost stands on its own - just like game programming gems series. My favorite is how to integrate native code into a managed application. The book is well written (one of the best I've read recently), and the only thing i missed is a few chapters on how-to integrate into an existing pipeline - like importer/exporter for a common 3d package at least. A better title for this book would be "(game)tool programming gems"



5. I admit that at first I was thinking this book would focus more on the game engine part of the toolset development in its title. I knew it wasn't REALLY about developing a game engine but even so, make sure you understand what you're getting.
   
   That said, I really liked this book. I'm halfway through it already (it's a very quick read given how discrete each chapter is and the clear and easy to read print and examples).
   
   I've read a number of game development books and you rarely get everything done right. This book gets close. The author describes the particular problem the chapter seeks to solve (e.g. encryption, batch processing, etc.) and goes through the steps of solving it.
   
   The book is similar to those programming gems types of books that aren't organized in some linear fashion but are discrete chapters on specific topics that can be picked and chosen as you see fit.
   
   The author does a very good job of putting the examples together and many of the chapters have been useful to me (I plan on implementing a number of the tools/frameworks he mentions).
   
   If you're working on a game engine, I really suggest trying this book out. This assumes you're not already an expert game programmer who already built a lot of these sorts of tools before.
   
   If you're looking for something that will help you build a full-fledged game engine, look for another book...then come back to this and get it to help you flesh out your toolset.

No comments about Uzbekistan in Pictures (Visual Geography. Second Series).

5 comments about Foundation Flash 8 (Foundation).

1. I just finishing reading Foundation Flash 8, co-authored by Sham Bhangal and Kristian Besley. The technical reviewer was Todd Yard, a role that he has played in 11 other Friends of ED books. I was checking out Todd's company website, and was very impressed. He works for Jeremy Allaire, former CTO of Macromedia. You might recognize him as the creator of the product that made Dreamweaver so great - Allaire Homesite. I digress, back to the book review.
   
   First of all, let me specify who this book is for: Those looking to get a handle on Flash, starting from square one. One fellow gave it a really harsh review, probably expecting it to be something along the lines of Flash 8 Essentials. That being said, Foundation Flash 8 is a very good book in its own right. Sure, the first few chapters are elementary, but considering that this text is supposed to take you from beginner to intermediate in your skill-level, it's right on target. It takes you step by step through each part of the interface, and then builds from there. By the end, you're making simple video games.
   
   Even seasoned veterans could benefit from reading through the introductory chapters, because of some of the significant changes to the way Flash works. For instance, object drawing used to cut out shapes that overlapped each other, which was an annoyance those who were used to a different graphics program.
   
   This was always confusing to me, being a big fan of Macromedia Adobe Fireworks, the interface of which looks very similar to Flash. Now that this has been tweaked, the two cousin programs behave more similarly. This book does a good job of pointing out things like this, that while simple, could possibly prove confusing for those already used to the previous behavior. You could say that before, Flash was in "quirks" mode, and now it's more streamlined.
   
   One of my favorite section of the book was chapter 12, which covers sound and video optimization. Flash 8 goes leaps and bounds beyond where its MX 2004 predecessor had been. I like that fact that the authors emphasize that you should tweak, listen to, and watch your projects as you work on them. While Flash has some heavy-duty compression by default, you would do well to choose specific settings for each media file you use, as this will help you get the best sound / picture clarity, while keeping your file size as low as possible. As is the case with most things in digital / physical art, practice makes perfect.
   
   Another thing I appreciate about this book is its emphasis on learning real code. Some of the Flash books I've read in the past tend to gloss over this as too difficult for newer users. This may be true, but it does them a disservice not to teach it. Thankfully, these guys encourage the reader to delve in further, and draw the line between beginner or expert at the point of ActionScript...
   
   "You can use a drag-and-drop behavior. It's fast and efficient, but at the expense of reducing your understanding of the problem, and it offers a solution that addresses problems that may not be part of your particular task. It's also a 'one size fits all' solution - and how many times have you bought a one-size-fits all shirt and thought 'Mmm, fits perfectly, almost as if it was tailor-made for me?' Me neither." - Page 302
   
   The above quote pretty much sums up the jist of all web-based design. I can't tell you how many times I've got an email or been asked in person, even by experienced visual designers: "What program do you use to make your CSS websites?" What they mean is: How can I point-and-click my way through it? The short answer is: You can't, not of you intend on learning anything. Most people are disappointed to find out I use Araneae for all of my hand-coding.
   
   Likewise, if you want to really harness the power of dynamic animations in Flash, you need to get comfortable with ActionScript. For those of you who are familiar with JavaScript already, it shouldn't be too hard to pick up because AS syntax is modeled after JS. If you're new to both, fear not, because Flash comes in with a built-in code assistant, similar to that in Dreamweaver.
   
   The authors start out the ActionScript chapters using the code assistant, and then gradually steer the reader towards typing out code by hand. You could think of it this way: at the beginning of the book, you're riding a tricycle, but by the end you're handling a Harley Davidson.
   
   My advice is this: as you're reading this book, take it all with a small grain of salt. They tend to hail Flash as the final point in web evolution, and sort of treat HTML as a necessary step for embedding your SWF file. I would swing the pendelum back towards the center, treating Flash as part of a wholistic solution to the web, using the most logical solutions where appropriate. Sometimes we over-complicate things, and lose the beauty of simplicity. As long as you maintain a larger perspective, you will learn much from this book.



2. Being a novice designer, I learn most effectively when I have experts telling me the ins and outs of how things work in a program, explaining the logic behind a certain sequence of actions, and sharing the tips and tricks from their wealth of experiences using the program. And this is how I exactly felt embarking on the exciting exploration of the Flash world using the Foundation Flash 8 book by Sham Bhangal and Kristian Besley.
   
   The book covers Flash 8 from its basic tools and techniques in dealing with shapes, text, colors and animations to the more advanced action/interactions and ActionScript. Rather than just prescribing step by step procedures to use the many tools and functions in Flash 8, the authors reveal what is behind the scene - from simply how terms such as "Tweening", "Onion Skins" and "Masking" came about to the underlying mechanisms of ActionScript. In addition, I found also most useful the many "rules of thumb" of using Flash that the authors share throughout the book.
   
   The book proved to be very helpful for me as a novice Flash user to gain some solid foundational skills and a well-formed beginning understanding of how things work in Flash. The authors achieved this through their well-written explanations and illustrations, plus hands-on practices for the users, which consist of numerous mini exercises in each chapter of the book and a larger project that the users continuously build on throughout the chapters. The final few chapters also provide some nice additions including how Flash works with the Internet, principles of good design, and so on. These help put learning Flash in context and making it fit nicely in the large picture of Web design.
   
   In the end, the five hundred plus pages of the book were fairly easy to go through, (also thanks to the light humors intermittently found in the writing). I felt more confident working with the powerful program, and I just cannot wait to roll up the sleeves and get started with some real work using Flash!



3. This book covers a lot of ground and does so in a detailed and friendly way. It's organized and laid out logically enough, getting you started with the interface, tool types and basic animation, and then working its way through more and more complex topics. The book's working examples are appropriate for each level the book advances through,and the writing style is approachable enough that a wide range of users should find it worth their while.
   
   I gave this book four stars and not five because it wasn't proofed well in some areas. For example, the chapter on Flash video notes incorrectly, that Mac users -even prior to the days of OS X- could download a free version of iMovie to start making movie content. The actual situation is that iMovie has only been available since OS X arrived, and only to those who have purchased a new Mac with a super-drive, or purchased the iLife suite. It is not and has never been available as a free download.
   
   Another flaw this book has is that many of the screenshots are scaled down so much, that you cannot read the dialog text without squinting or looking very closely. (I don't wear glasses btw : ) Not all the screenshots suffer from this problem, but enough do to make it frustrating at points. A better idea for the next edition is cropping out the empty space or unimportant parts of a given dialog box, rather than scaling the whole dialog box -even the parts with important text- down.
   
   Overall still a good book, and worth owning if you only have time or resources for one Flash Book. I prefer this book's learning style to that of the Lynda.com type books, which seeminly are all made from the same cookie cutter. When an author becomes and industry unto themselves, look out. : )



4. I am an animation student at Brooks College and Flash is part of the curriculum. One of the challenges of these intensive courses is that we cover so much material, so fast, that it is hard to get any depth before we are off to the next tool. I looked around the net for tutorials and other resources to supplement class materials and having had previous good experiences with this publisher I picked up Foundation Flash 8 as a beginner book (and ActionScript for Flash 8 as my next step up).
   
   I found this to be a very solid book. The early chapters are, in effect, the manual that didn't come with my Education Version product. All the basics that we zoomed through in class were right there when I needed them and I found myself enhancing my homework assignments by doing what was required, looking up topics when I was stuck and adding extras to the projects that helped me nail an A in the class.
   
   I reviewed many programming books a few years back, and my first impression was that these books felt a bit different. I think some of the complaints one or two have voiced may be related to this. But upon review of the material and test projects I find this book friendly and well laid out. The material covered served both as a ready reference and as a good foundation for more advanced material. It starts at raw beginner and moves into some meatier intermediate stuff that I am still using to get ready for the more advanced ActionScript I am interested in.
   
   About the only complaint I can register is that my personal interests lie more towards producing games and animated cartoons so I would have found an emphasis on that more `fun' - but that isn't a reflection on the book, just my childish nature. ;)
   
   I recommend this book for beginners as a good reference and foundation for more advanced Flash topics.



5. "Foundation Flash 8" by Sham Bhangal and Kristian Besley is, overall, an excellent introduction for all new Flash users, be they right-brained artists who think a line is something you draw in a picture or left-brained techies who think a line is something you write in a program.
   
   Right-brained readers will be enthralled by the first half of the book's focuses on Flash's drawing and animating features, with exhaustive treatment of symbols, colors, tweening, and masks. There's even an excellent section on text and text animation. Left-brained readers will drool over the second half of the book, which runs from simple behaviors to intelligent actions to "intermediate" ActionScript. Somewhere in the middle, there is lots of talk about buttons -- and artists will be thrilled with all the things they learn to do to make them look pretty and programmers will be equally thrilled with all the things they learn to do to make them do neat things when pushed.
   
   Of course, if artists didn't learn some ActionScript (or at least some basic Flash behaviors), or if programmers didn't learn animation, then there would be no point to learning Flash. Bhangal and Besley manage, in "Foundation Flash 8," to teach the full range of foundation Flash functionality to the full range of novice Flash users. While programmers might yawn a bit during the first few, graphics-intensive chapters (and, I imagine, while artists' eyes might spin somewhat during the last couple of ActionScript chapters), there's plenty in this book to keep everybody happy. Conveniently, the authors have structured the ongoing case study -- and have provided intermediate project files -- so that skipping sections or chapters is possible.
   
   The authors make no assumptions about the level of knowledge of readers, other than that experienced Flash users are not their target audience. Everything is taught from square one (or, sometimes a bit frustratingly, from square zero). Straightforward and moderately complex topics are explained well throughout, and the more advanced scripting topics are equally well presented. One shortcoming is the less-than-stellar handling of complex, abstract graphics topics, such as advanced gradients and Bézier curves; as the authors put it on page 63, "It's easier to do than to explain!"
   
   Friends of ED publishes what are probably the best design-oriented books in the business, and "Foundation Flash 8" certainly fits their usual high standards. The paper is thick and bright, the typography is pleasant, and the writing style is friendly -- at times bordering on plucky (page 132: "Colors, fills, and gradients are the extra paprika on the already tongue-tingling dish that is Flash"). This particular volume does suffer a bit from its two-column layout, which results in figures -- particularly screenshots -- being a bit too small for comfort, and from its one-color printing, which is not so much a problem in a book on, say, Dreamweaver or PHP but which is a significant disadvantage in a book dealing with a drawing and animation tool. (As the authors themselves acknowledge on page 132, "It's never going to be entirely satisfactory to discuss color in a book printed in black and white...")
   
   Pluckiness and monochromicity notwithstanding, "Foundation Flash 8" does exactly what its name suggests -- it gives the reader a solid foundation in Flash 8 -- and it does it well. The book is comprehensive, accurate, clear, and well organized, and most importantly, it bears the "Friends of ED" cachet and is backed up by the best support in the business: the Friends of ED readers' forum, a lively and helpful online community frequented by authors and other experts always willing to answer question and to help solve problems. "Foundation Flash 8" is a fine choice for anyone eager to get his hands wet with Flash. I strongly recommend this book.

5 comments about Foundation XML for Flash (Foundation).

1. How to use the XML in the Flash? This is one of the doubts most recurrent in lists and forums of quarrels. Who already tried work in Flash with XML created in one of programs of the Office Package definitively already lost the patience, much calm is necessary to reach the accurate node of the correct skill.
   
   Sometimes we obtain alternatives, but almost always having to lose much time to carry through simple tasks. There the book "Foundation XML for Flash" of the Friends of ED publishing company enters, it presents simple solutions for who works with this type of archive, shows as to work with archives of the Word, Excel, Access besides instruct to work with Web services and much more.
   
   It is a perfect book for who wants have complete reference regarding about the Flash and XML theme.



2. This clearly written and well-organized book provides an overview of XML and how to use XML structured data in a variety of Flash projects. Anyone who is interested in working with XML in Flash and would like to learn more about how to get started will benefit from the easy-to-follow examples and the range of topics that the author has chosen to cover. Beginning with an overview of XML the chapters quickly move on to show how Flash can use XML data. The content is addressed to both Flash designers and developers. While Flash developers may already be familiar with the uses and specifications for XML schemas, Xpath, and XSLT; many Flash designers will gain an appreciation for many of the complexities of XML, as well as insight into the Web Services model. Later chapters, for example, reveal how to use Microsoft Word, Excel and Access to create XML content.
   
   As one who can manage Flash ActionScripting, but who does not have a strong programming background, I found the background into the various XML types to be quite helpful. The book does an excellent job of explaining entities, relationships, schemas and how to navigate an XML object in order to show the how to use XML content with Flash. I was particularly interested in the many applications for e-learning and found the blend of author's screenshots, code examples and main text to provide a nice balance of learning styles.
   
   I learned a lot from this work and am sure that it would be useful to people who are already familiar with Flash and want to learn more about how to use XML with this program.



3. I was actually hoping that it would be the perfect companion to the 'PHP for Flash' & 'Advanced PHP for Flash' series but it's more on the intergration between XML/Flash/MSOffice which in the web-designing industry is kinda/sorta useless since seeing that most of the technology used is PHP/ASP and MySQL.
   
   The book is great for learning the basic functionality of XML with Flash but doesn't really give you the in-depth functions that are so widely used today.
   
   Hopefully there will be an 'Advanced' series out soon.
   
   Happy flashing!!!



4. I had to purchase this book for a class I'm taking, and now it's 8 weeks into the semester, and I seriously got nothing at all from this. I'm having better luck looking for tutorials than reading this worthless book. Pictures are horrible, chapters drag on forever, and it's just plain not worth the 40 bucks i lost for this. Find a different book if you're just learning xml and flash, worst purchase in my college years!



5. I really do not understand what the negative reviews are all about for this book. Even if you do not want to use office to generate your xml, you can still read over those chapters use the xml file created and learn HOW TO USE xml in flash which is what this book is about. I would probably not use office but I learned alot about processing the xml files that were created by the office program. Anyways this book took me from 0 knowledge about xml in flash to becoming fairly copmpetent in this subject. I highly recommend this book.

5 comments about Windows Graphics Programming: Win32 GDI and DirectDraw (Hewlett-Packard Professional Books).

1. I tested many code and contents of this book and discovered many misunderstandings and erros.

   While reading and testing, I'd got doubtful of the reliability of this book.

   This book provides many useful information, but don't swallow whatever this book says.




2. I can't speak to the strengths and weaknesses of the entire book as cited by other reviewers, but it's clear that text rendering was the author's primary motivation to explore the depths of GDI. Chapters 14 ("Fonts") and 15 ("Text") deserve to be expanded into a volume of their own. If you're a developer seeking a thorough understanding of the way Windows deals with text, from the low-level details of the TrueType font file format to the undocumented quirks of the higher-level GDI APIs, you simply can't do any better than Yuan's book.



3. After spending several weeks going over the contents of this book, I do not recommend it to the beginning or intermediate readers. Feng Yuan insight into the Visual C++ environment is excellent; however, he does a very poor job with organizing and explaining the topic to the average reader.

   I had a hard time following his technical jargon; it was no different than reading the MSDN help manual, which was really cut and dry. If it was his intent to write this book as a reference manual to demonstrate the features of GDI or for the advance developer (who probably doesn't need it to begin with), then he did a very good job. However, developers, like myself, who is just getting into GDI it just left me chasing the bandwagon.

   The sample code had little or no comments; it was difficult trying to match his explanation to the code sample because he would write the explanation in its entirety and then provide the code sample at the end. Feng, if your reading this, please provide the code explanation in the context that it is being referenced. I had a hard time referring back to your code sample while following your explanations.

   If you are a developer of C++, I recommend Kris Jamsa who does a very good job of organizing and structuring his books. If only Kris wrote a book on GDI, I would have opted for it than this one.




4. This the most extensive, best explained Windows GDI book ever read by me! I hereby highly recommend this book to everyone who is doing GDI intensive work.

   Great job, Yuan!




5. This book is the best of the kind.
   With 1000+ pages, this book is a very broad and deep interview of windows graphics system. This book is for advanced developers. It does not teach you hand by hand how to draw a text, how to draw a window..., instead, this book is for the person who want to know how Microsoft implemented the Win32 graphics system. This book includes many windows internals and undocumented stuff.
   I want to say thanks and show respect to the author 'Feng Yuan', for his kindness to publish the knowledge.
   
   Keep in mind this book was published in 2001, I whish there will be a 2nd version, which include the new changes in Windows XP, and include details of the OpenGL's connection with GRE. And about the new Longhorn graphics engine.

5 comments about The Photoshop Elements 3 Book for Digital Photographers (VOICES).

1. I would recommend this book to the person who doesn't like to read a lot of verbiage. This book states the facts one one side of the page while illustrating the screen shot on the other side of the same page. I found it most helpful and easy reading. It also helps you up front and first with organizing folders and saving files to folders - doesn't jump right in and starts on edit instruction. As I believe organization is the most difficult part of Photoshop to learn, I liked being walked thru the steps.



2. This has been very helpful in learning how to use the PSE3 program... I'm still working with it but to this point I would recommend to anyone...



3. Even though I use a Mac and this book was written for Windows users, most of it can be applied to the Mac platform also. Mac users can skip the Organizer section; we have iPhoto and don't need the Elements Organizer anyway. We Mac users also must make a few adjustments; for example when told to use the Control key, we use the Apple Command key.
   I'd already taught myself how to use several of the features in Elements 3, but since buying this book, I've become amazed at the many marvels of this program that I hadn't yet discovered. Kelby gives specific easy to follow instructions.
   Still, it would be great if more was written for the Mac. There are many of us loyal Mac users out there, who aren't about to give up our wonderful Macs.
   
   Hold On, Jessica, Don't Let Go



4. Kelby has a real talent for explaining the process of improving your shots with the help of Elements. This is a great book for the amatuer or beyond. I will recommend to my fellow beginner photogs.



5. This is an excellent step-by-step guide for using the capabilities of Photoshop Elements. I wanted something that would show me how to do the things I needed to do right now, without having to spend two weeks sitting at the computer. This book did it.

5 comments about Macromedia Flash 8 for Windows & Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide).

1. I bought this book to learn Flash...and I was dissapointed. There are no lessons, it's pretty much a user's manual. "Here is the brush tool and this is how you use it. This is the fill button and how you use it. Now, draw a line as mentioned in section 2." If you like learning a program function by function, then this book is for you. I'm going to exchange this book for sams teach yourself Flash 8 as it has lessons and you learn to use the program as a whole.



2. If you know your way around most toolbars, this book won't teach you much. It has been written for people who haven't used any complex software before. I had to buy the book for a course on Flash, but was disappointed when we covered most of the book in the first day. Easy to understand for a complete beginner. May be useful then.



3. Everyone who uses the Visual Quickstart Guides should be informed: they're lookup books, resources, not step-by-step how-tos.



4. I had to buy this book as it was used for a beginner's course on Flash, but I was very disappointed - not so much with the course but with this book. It tells you how to use this tool and how to use that tool, but never tells you WHY. Like, ok now I can convert to a MovieClip, but why would anyone want to do that, and so on and so on. If you know a bit about Flash, I guess you can easily dig up something in this book if you forgot how to motion tween or something - but then, as a reference guide as well, pretty much any other book on Flash is more thorough. Basically: this book is very superficial - I guess to not overload the novice - but then, it doesn't explain you much either. For the experienced Flash-user looking for a reference guide, look elsewhere.



5. Great book--really helps me understand the concepts in Flash. Just in the first couple of chapters I knew alot more about the tools in flash and why I would use them.

5 comments about Game Physics (Interactive 3d Technology Series).

1. Undoubtedly this is a must-have for people who are serious about developing real-time computer graphics simulations with physically based modeling.

   This book can be compared with Coutinho's "Dynamic Simulations of Multibody Systems". I believe the latter covers more materials, but Eberly's is easier to read. The book would be almost sufficient if you also have his previous book "3D Game Engine Design".

   I am not sure why the author wrote chapter 4 and 6. I suppose these can be left out. It would have been more compact.




2. My interest is physics and physics simulations, not gaming per se...so my observations should be viewed in that light.
   
   The main problem with this book is the treatment is incomplete, superficial, or just wrong (from a physics/math point of view), and the typical programmer/computer scientist is not likely to know it. I am reminded of the great fluid dynamicist von Karmen's definition of an engineer as that person who perpetuates the mistakes made by the previous generation. The REASON a game programmer can get away with this is that he is not testing his results by real experiment...his world is a computer generated simulation with arbitrary approximations to physical laws that the programmer deems to impose.
   
   The other problem is that there are usually a multitude of techniques that one can pick to solve a given mechanics problem...and what would have been really valuable is if the author had shown why a particular method is better (for example, Newton's Laws vs. Lagrange's Equations) when the time comes to code the algorithm. We are not looking for Eberly primarily to teach us physics (but if he makes the attempt, it should be correct!)-that is always going to be the job of physics courses. Instead, he needs to tell us which method is useful for coding and why-this, sadly, he has not done.
   
   As an illustration of what I mean...look at how Petzold in `Programming Windows with C#' discuss the elementary process of using GDI+ to draw a curve. There are two approaches, using rectangular coordinates, or using parametric equations (polar coordinates). Petzold explains WHY the parametric approach is superior from a programming point of view.
   
   Any advanced sophomore or junior physics student will know most of the physics presented here (classical mechanics)...but in addition, they will also know the CORRECT statement of conservation of angular momentum (the author got it wrong) ...AND they will have a deeper understanding, because they will have likely studied something like Marion's Classical Dynamics which is rigorous and physical. Especially egregious is Eberly's twice incorrectly defining an inertial reference frame. In classical mechanics, an inertial reference frame is one in which Newton's laws are valid.
   
   Same comment for the math...The math is maybe sophomore/junior level (except for the Quaternions)...but it is not rigorous nor is it motivated, and sometimes it is wrong. Compare Eberly's terse treatment of the delta function with Marion's motivated and physical discussion. Also, we see things like interchange of limits and integration, without explaining when this is mathematically legal. Then there is the unmotivated vector spaces treatment. Eberly goes to the effort to define a field, but then restricts his definition of a vector space to having real coefficients...Then why bother defining fields if you are not going to use them. We are given the mathematician's definition of the determinant (i.e., the unique, alternating, n-linear function with identity) but this is completely useless from a computational view! If Eberly wants to present some advanced linear algebra, then some tensor analysis would have served the game programmer better, as it is often used in continuum mechanics and fluids, neither of which are discussed by the author. He had a perfect opportunity in the Affine Algebra chapter when he stumbles upon the Levi-Civita tensor, which he then dismisses as unimportant! The Affine Algebra chapter is really bad from both a physics and a geometry view. First, a physicist does not think of a vector as something with direction and magnitude, and a geometer is more inclined to think of them as a derivation. Second, affine spaces are too weak a tool to use to distinuish points from vectors, though we do mod out the origin..this really needs a manifold with vector fields and parallel translation. Third, linear algebra is the study of vector spaces and isomorphism.
   
   There is a chapter on numerical methods, but again incomplete! We should have at least got Numerov's method and some Monte Carlo techniques.
   
   The chapter on shading is ridiculous from a physics point of view. Essentially we have Snell's law, and a cursory reference to Fresnel and that's it...Evidently, the author was not up to discussing some real physics ala Maxwell. Why spend so much time on classical mechanics, and then almost totally dismiss optics with a non-physical discussion? We don't even get Huygens principal. But we do get a wrong definition of polarization of light.Thankfully, he did not try to define helicity.

   In summary, this book has two uses:
   1) It presents a list of physics and some numerical methods which the game programmer will find useful, and which he will then go ELSEWHERE to actually learn. (I can recommend Landau (of OSU, not Russia) "Computational Physics" and also the CUPS Physics Simulations books for excellent starters.)
   2) There is the happy possibility that a budding game programmer, in his pursuit of the knowledge to build a better computer game, will discover the much more interesting game called Physics.




3. I always love it when scientists and engineers, and mathematicians come along and review a game programming book. They go "oh! This is just ALL WRONG!!! AHHH!!!"
   
   Please keep in mind this book is for physics simulations for video games. We can't yet simulate the universe on an atomic scale in a PC game and expect a frame rate of more than 1 frame per millenium at this point in time.
   
   I own all all of Dr. Eberly's books and I find them all my most useful books. The only other graphics book I use alot is my Graphics programming by James Foley. The nice thing about Dr. Eberly's book is that the code for most of this is on his website, so if you get stuck on how to implement something looking at the source code can help you further understand the maths and equations. I recommend to buy this if you are willing to put in the effort to understand the maths, but if you have a phd already you might not need it than.



4. This is a great book on physics simulation, covering most of the mathematical methods and tricks. Some people would complain that's very mathematically intensive, but I don't see another way to do it without being superficial. This book, however, goes very deep in almost every aspect of rigid body simulation, and covers some aspects of non-rigid body simulation as well, which is an emerging trend.
   
   I would suggest only one change to it: there's a chapter on shaders which is pretty much useless - it's very superficial as it doesn't teach shader writing, and doesn't teach hwo to use shaders for physics - I'd suggest that it be changed to include GPGPU methods for physics instead.
   
   Other than that, the book is great, and the only one I've seen that actually covers heavy-duty, real-world simulation and not just silly approximations for special cases.



5. This book has much good information if you know exactly what you are looking for. However, its tone is very dry and academic and lacks a big picture perspective. It glosses over essential information on mechanics and in just 200 pages covers Newtonian and Lagrangian concepts. There are lots of equations, but the examples all use variables, thus making the examples no clearer than the equations they are supposed to be illustrating. There are no numerical examples at all.
   
   Chapter 5, on physics engines, which the author himself says is the heart of the book, is woefully inadequate. He talks about the equations and features he wants to implement, and shows code snippets for the features, but there is one essential component that is missing - block diagrams and accompanying discussions that illustrate how all of these pieces fit together. A crate full of clearly labeled mechanical parts does not an automobile make.
   
   Next we come to one of my areas of interest and one of the main reasons I bought this book in the first place - Chapter 6, "Physics and Shader Programs". The author certainly hits some fascinating topics - ocean waves, skin and bones animation, etc. However, once again the author skips what is between the basic physics equations that comprise these effects and the implementation of these equations and effects in code. The code that he does show is in NVidia's Cg language. So if you don't know Cg, the code is undecipherable. I would have preferred algorithmic pseudocode. Then I could implement the effects in the language of my choice.
   
   The last four chapters of the book take an uptick in quality. These chapters are strictly on numerical methods, and I can't believe they are written by the same author that wrote the first six chapters. There are fairly good discussions and examples on the subjects of linear and mathematical programming, ordinary differential equations, numerical methods, and quaternions, and also how these mathematical methods fit into solving problems in physics. They are not self-contained tutorials, but they are a good summary and review for the physics student who has already had some exposure.
   
   I really can't recommend this book as anything but a reference. Its merits are mainly the tying of mathematical methods to physics and good basic discussions on some topics. But where the rubber meets the road - answering the questions of "How does one go about building a physics engine?" and "How do I implement physics within the confines of a computer game?" I think that this book is a failure. I give it three stars only because the author obviously put a lot of effort into the work, and what he does write is not incorrect.
   
   If you are interested in game physics I recommend "Physics for Game Programmers" by Grant Palmer. It takes an engineer's viewpoint of the subject and features plenty of examples in Java of how to simulate explosions, lasers, and the motion of various classes of vehicles. There is no discussion of game engines, though. A good reference on college level physics can be found in the most recent edition of Schaum's Outline of College Physics.

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1 comments about Microsoft Visual Basic Game Programming for Teens, 2E.

1. I like the concept of the book, but there are a lot of inconsistencies in the code for the projects. Up until the fifth chapter I was fully ready to endorse the book to my district as a textbook for an advance Visual Basic class on game programming. I like the fact that he builds a game one step at a time, starting with an experiment to illustrate the concept, then building and testing a class for the game. However, when he got to the fifth chapter, he changed his naming conventions and added code to the classes with no mention in the book of these changes. This can be frustrating especial to high school students or any new programmer. There are several places though out the book where he made changes to the classes on the CD that he does not mention in the book. Then he adds the class method to the current project and your left wondering where it came from. I felt he needed to make changes in the book, so that the code was consistent though out the book and matched what on the CD.
   
   In my opinion, His editor should have caught this. Thomson as a publisher is starting to get a repetition for there badly coded books. It is obvious that an editor should be reviewing the code in a book along with the grammatical errors in the book and Thompson fails to do that. If you understand visual basic and you are looking for a book on game programming concepts the book is good. However I would not recommend this book if you are new to Visual Basic and I would definitely not recommend it for teenager, it will only frustrate them.