3D Books

I've had several false starts at 3d programming. I've tried using the code from several other books but quickly gave up after getting a short distance into the concepts. Making the sample programs work with Windows XP and Visual Studio just isn't that easy in most cases. These programs worked as indicated with Visual Studio. I was quite happy.

None the less the code could use more documentation and clarity. For instance in the simple drawmesh program the LoadBmp24 routine returns Hight and Width as a side-effect of the call. I tried my own odd shaped bitmap and the routine kept failing. These two comment lines would have been really helpful:

// OpenGL prior to 2.1 requires textures be in 2d arrays
// whose dimensions are multples of 2.

After spending hours tracking that down it was easy to adjust the routines to actually work with arbitrary bitmaps and triangle meshes.

I don't know if this book the best documentation of a software architecture ever written, but its gotta rate up there. Probably its only rivals would be some of the foundational papers about the design of UNIX.

Why are there so few good contenders? Well, the genre of documentation for software architecture is a demanding one, because you need to master of so many skills in order to do it right. What makes it even harder is that the codebase is always changing in response to bugfixes and enhancements, which puts the documentation in continual jeopardy of drifting away from the codebase it describes.

Yes, this volume is a bit more plodding than Eberly's usual effortless writing style, but remember, he's documenting a software architecture, which is an inherently plodding task. Its ploddinghood is therefore a feature, not a bug. Moreover, he is never gratuitously plodding.

f you want to be a great documentor of software architectures, then pay close attention to the techniques Eberly uses here. Notice how, by casting the documentation in a tutorial form, he simultaniously makes it (1) a much more interesting read, and (2) makes it a dual-use document, invaluable both to newbies getting up to speed and to old pro's wanting to refresh their memory.

Budding game engine developers will find this book invaluable, but they are not the only ones who would benefit from reading it. This book could be profitably used in a general software architecture class, as an example of how to really document a software architecture.

In addition, a game engine's architecture is a superset of many other software architectures. For example, someone who is building a large-scale CAD system, or an EDA package, or an event-driven simulation package, or a physics simulation package, would also save themselves from many unanticipated "gotchas" by giving this book a close read.

Well, needless to say, Eberly rocks. This is a great book on game engine architecture - even though it's less mathematically intensive than Eberly's other books (which, for many, is a good thing), it has a very good coverage of software engineering aspects of game engines, as it explains in detail how (and why) the WildMagic engine is organized. Do keep in mnid, though, that the book's purpose is not teacing how to develop games or algorithms for that - it's a software engineering book, and a good one at that.

The title says everything, this book treats most aspects concerning game engine design architecture and programming. Although not focusing in the next generation graphics architectures and shaders, it does provide an excellent basis for core engine and underlying graphics architecture design. General programming topics such as memory layout and shared object references are also discussed. A great book for begginers and a nice reading for professionals.

This is an acceptable introductory book for the architecture of an AAA-quality game engine, under the consideration that it has so little competition.

The most significant criticism I have of the book is its repeated digression of topics into a documentation of the Wild Magic engine. If you intend to use the Wild Magic engine, I highly recommend the book, but for anyone not using it, this book saves far too few pages for discussions of general engine architecture.

For example, the entire second chapter is basically a documentation of the basic types defined for the Wild Magic engine. If you are architecting a large scale project, you do not want to start the discussion with talk of a smart pointer class. Or an array class. Unfortunately, this is exactly how the book begins.

Throughout the book, the reader is constantly forced to shift through documentation for each Wild Magic class. While the author does use the engine to illustrate points, often the point is so heavily mixed with the documentation that it is tedious to pick out the general discussion.

My secondary criticism of the book is that too many words are used in specific (but uncommon) ways - making it hard to follow at times. The sad part is that the author acknowledges this for some words (which helps the reader) but fails to for others. An example of the latter is when the author concedes that he uses the word `animation' to mean any event that happens over a period of time. You will not find that definition in any dictionary, but at least he specifies his intent, which is slightly forgivable. What is not forgivable is the other phrases/words that are not acknowledged as being uncommonly used, such as `world bounds' and `local bounds'. Too often I found myself carefully following discussions not because I found the material difficult, but because I needed to extract the context for which the author is using a word or phrase. In this sense it makes it hard for anyone to simply use the book for reference purposes.

This book deserves three stars because it is a good (although sometimes short) treatment of the many subjects that are part of a 3D game engine. It loses one star for trying to combine two related, but what should be separate discussions - general engine architecture and documenting Wild Magic. It loses another for being overly verbose and dry (see my secondary criticism). It has so few competitors that you might just have to accept its failings and shift through the material to dig out the general architecture nuggets that are dispersed throughout the book.

Very nice selection of texts, helpful biographical info about authors - everything that a textbook needs.
The only downside is the price, but it's worth the money.

I find it helpful as a Spanish language learner that they define a number of the words that are not used in Spanish today. I wish I was more interested in hispanic literatura but so far I find most of the stories boring. I use this book in my required spanish lit class, so I had to buy it! Maybe by the end of the semester I find it more enlightening!

I used this book in a class at the University of NC. I actually liked the book & the class. It gives a nice overview of different literary periods and literature written during each one. It contains poesia, drama and narrativas.

This is an extremely helpful book for those who start studying literary analysis in Spanish as well as for very green literary scholars. The introduction to the special terms is easy to follow and the english equivalents are in their right places and don't distract you. Go ahead, you'll love using it in your Spanish or literary analysis class!

Aproximaciones is a wonderful tool for the student learning about Spanish literature. The selections are well analyzed by the author and the biographies provide an overview of the cultures and perspectives of the different time periods. The chronological order of the readings makes it easy to understand the different stages of the Spanish literature and the various literary movements affecting the arts, the philosophy, and society of medieval to modern times.

This book is quite staightforward and the examples in the tutorials - like modelling a simple canoe - are very useful for picking up basic skills. The tunnel fly-through tutorial is a godsend, as it finally explained to me in a clear way how to create a pre-set path for a camera to follow during an animation.

This book focuses mostly on the modelling side of lightwave, with a few forways into actual animation - if you need a guide to learning complex animation tools and skills in lightwave, you'll need another book to support you.

I do recommend this book as a very good way to get your toes wet when it comes to Lightwave, though if you can afford it, nab the 8.0 version as it doubtless has lots more new and useful material. I studied multimedia at university and this book did save me a few times when I was lacking in inspiration for how to get my models to be the shapes I needed.

I mean that...it was an OK book. I learned some useful stuff but I would never give it five stars. As a newbie to LW I found 'Inside Lightwave' much better. There are a few more books out there I would think about getting before you get this one.

This is a quite clear book, at least in the writing, because its size seems to be too small to display the screenshots clearly. Add to that the fact that it is printed in black and white and the difficulty to read some images worsen, since they don't have the necessary contrast to resolve items that result in a very similar tone of gray when converted from color to B&W. To be fair I have to say that Tim has a nice writing style. His book has helped me to start to understand LW, which is a huge piece of software.

I recently decided to pick up 3D modelling and animation as a hobby. Having chosen to use Lightwave, I started reading the Lightwave manual and got somewhere close to page 400. Even then, I noticed I still could not model a single object which was rather frustrating. I then decided to purchase this book (based on the reviews I read at amazon.com). It's a wonderful book and Mr. Albee has done a remarkable job. Clearly written, easy to understand and very entertaining. Each time I pick it up and sit in front of the computer, I find it hard to put it down. Now that's the only problem I have with the book - it's so good, it's addictive. If you're new to Lightwave (like myself) or if you intend learning Lightwave, I'd advice that you make this one of the first books you obtain (or rather Essential Lightwave 8 which would soon be out).

I received my book about a week ago and have been reading it. I want to model and only wish this was the first Lighwave book I purchased. I love this book.

I am an avid tech book reader, especially about any technology related to game programming.

I found this book to be an outstanding reference for math related to game programming.

I think the authors are very good at explaining and focus on the core concepts instead of getting mired in the details.

I particularly liked the sections on rigid Body Dynamics - I needed a good overview to conceptually understand the implementation.

I'm a computer science and digital arts student. I've found this book to be an excellent primer on the math that I haven't gone in-depths with for some time. The first few chapters provide excellent background materials to the actual mathematical basis for the following chapters.

See my other review. I bought this book and the other. I got stuck in that other book. I am learning linear algebra for the first time. This book is doing it! Although it gets quite abstract at times, and seems to be presenting the subject as if it is not related to 3D programming (like solving equations for an n-dimensional space), and it explains something and then says it is not used in 3D programming, it explains the concepts extremely well, and although it may take a while for a new concept to sink in for me, I do not find myself having to go elsewhere for help.

One note though, I tried to email one of the authors to find out about errata for the book and never got a response. I did eventually find it though. Don't expect the authors to be available. They do not have a message board.

The book presentation is very good but the presentation of the material 'jumps right in there' with a good review and is very technical and a bit difficult to follow. It is an excellent book for someone that remembers their basic math, if your rusty, take a refresher course first.

Do you know the history of quaternions? About a century ago, they were investigated, as an exercise in pure, abstract maths. Yet in recent years, people in computer graphics found this very useful in defining certain types of rotations. Interested? Well, this book has a good, clear section that explains how they are used. That requires only some basic knowledge of trigonometry and complex numbers.

Much of the book is like this. Though perhaps with concepts more readily apparent than quaternions. Ideas drawn from three dimensional analysis. But with topics that are not typically in maths courses, relating specifically to graphical displays. Like different types of tesselations, different shaders and texture maps.

Some physics also shows up in the book. Often related to ray tracing and approximating the effects of light on a surface.

Nothing too hard, despite some remarks by other reviewers. The really advanced and specialised material, like applying Monte Carlo methods, has been omitted. This is essentially a basic text. You should have mastery of this material to do useful contributions in graphics.

Unrelieved dreariness and misery. I kept on reading hoping the story would pick up and there would be at least one bright spot or two but there was none. There was no pleasure in reading this book.

I believe I read this book some years ago, but forgot that I had, as Joyce Carol Oates has rewritten it. It is a wonderful story about migrant farm workers living during the depression, and what one of the characters, Clara, the daughter, does to get away from this miserable existence to a place where she feels she has some power. In essence, this book is the story of a woman who is realized by the company she keeps (the men in her life)...all of them are interesting characters, and bring out both of her worst and best values ...The ending is devastating, profound...and a surprise...Joyce Carol Oates has written a riveting story in her 30s, and has rewritten it so well, and so profoundly that you can't imagine not being part of the people and places she takes you into...

I am a very big Joyce Carol Oates fan, however, I was a little dissapointed in this one. Don't get me wrong it was still a good read and included her trademark detailed description, as well as intricate character development. The problem for me was mainly the ending. It almost seemed like Oates could not think of a way to tie everything up neatly so she relied on an over used cliche to be done with it. If you are an Oates fan you will enjoy it simply to see how she revamped one of her earliest novels, but I would not suggest this one to those who are new to her work.

The plot was all right, but I was most impressed by Ms. Oates's lyrical use of language. She has the ability to transform the most mundane actions, feelings, or settings into something that seems really unusual or noteworthy just by describing it a certain way. I love the way the the main character, Clara, sees the world...it is very refreshing and unusual. I can't really tell if the awesome descriptions throughout the book are because of Clara's candid and innocent way of seeing the world, or because of Oates's special way with words. It's nothing big really. Throughout the book, she notes the little things, like how the migrant farm workers don't care how they look while picking fruit, and how they make weird faces as they think things to themselves or how they mumble sorta as they replay conversations that theyve had in their minds. But for me, it's the little things like that that make a book really come alive. This novel is full of really sweet quotes, and the language just really blew me away.

This book has recently been rewritten by Ms. Oates. I am reviewing the original version. I suggest that you begin with this one, and move on to the revision if you like this edition.

A Garden of Earthly Delights looks at life's challenges as seen by an exploited, powerless woman who lacks a religious foundation . . . but has a crude beauty and appeal that are irresistible to men. Through her eyes, we see the importance of being self-confident and focusing on the main chance . . . whatever that might be. In the process, her heart is darkened and her life damaged by the hard choices she has had to make. That darkness and damage seep out of her to contaminate those around her. In the end, a fresh young beauty leaves behind her a morass of rotting vegetation.

The book has three parts. In the first part, we meet Clara Walpole who is the much-loved daughter of her father, Carleton Walpole, who is a rough and tumble migrant farm worker who drags his wife and family behind him like torn cobwebs as he focuses on his own pleasure. The family gradually disintegrates under the pressure of the hard living and Carleton's inability to provide loving support. In the second part, Clara develops relationships with two other men as a teenager after she leaves her family. In the third part, Clara devotes her life to her son, Swan (aka Steven), who must stake a life for himself in Clara's husband's family. Each of these parts is written like a novella, but the three are connected through Clara.

The first part struck me as extremely fine writing of the sort that reminded me of John Steinbeck's novels about migrant farm workers. Unlike Mr. Steinbeck, Ms. Oates has a way of capturing only moments and events that crystallize our understanding of her characters and their lives. To me, reading this part was like occasionally glimpsing through a peephole into someone's life . . . but only at the most revealing moments. Interestingly, Clara often doesn't quite know what's happening since she has had both a deprived childhood and is a child. You as the reader have to interpret what is happening, which makes for a story element that makes the book read a little like detective fiction. This aspect of the book reminded me of William Faulkner's writing about the Snopes. If the book stopped with part one, I would have rated it as five stars and praised the book to the heavens. But I would have wondered what happened next to Clara.

In the second part, we find out how a young teenager builds a life for herself through the aid of Lowry, the man who helps her escape from her family. To me, Lowry is the most interesting character in the book. Ms. Oates reveals his nature very slowly, and he brings many surprises to the story. Although deeply flawed as a person, he tries to do the right things for Clara . . . and ends up leaving her at a very difficult crossroads. From her experiences with him, she learns the duality of love/hate that comes to dominate her life. This part of the book is very fine and I highly recommend it.

In the third part of the book, Ms. Oates seems to fall into clichés. Everything is so foreshadowed that I felt like I could have written out the plot in detail before reading it. There were few surprises, and those were unimportant. I would have enjoyed the book much more if I had skipped this part. I would rate the third part as a two star book if it were a stand-alone. Unless you feel compelled to find out what happens to Clara and her son, I suggest that you consider skipping this part. Perhaps you could read the first 25 pages to see how it sits with you.

As I finished the book, I came away thinking how important it is that those who are deprived of love and care receive attention from everyone else. One of the book's lessons, however, is that such attention must be effective . . . rather than simply well-meaning . . . or it will do more harm than good.

I loved the book. I had only planned to read a couple pages. I so was captivated that I read the entire book in less than 2 hours. Glenda's speech was so uplifting and powerful to me it brought me to tears. I just experienced the same trajedy a couple weeks ago with my brother. Thank you for this book. I believe God used this book to help me through a rough time. I will tell everyone about your book. This book would make a good made for TV movie. You have a new fan.

My talented friend this book was a very moving read. You really have a way of bringing a clear essense to the story chapter by chapter page by page.This book inspires ocassonal readers to read more. This book causes you to look into your own life and ponder or think about what things in life mean the most. I will be waiting eagerly for your next book. God bless you and keep up the excellent writting. You most definitly have a gift for bringing a book to life.

The story was great. Christopher Moore should have gone more into detail with the story because a lot of people can relate to the events and situations that take place in the story.

What a great read! This book is truely refreshing in that it focuses on the important things in life. Family, love, struggles and happiness all wrapped up into this, very easy to read, real novel that speaks to the heart. Christopher, the vision in this book is remarkable.

Can't wait to read more.

Jam.

Ray Peterson works hard, so hard his family barely gets to see him or spend time with him. He has missed important events, like plays and other school events, he even missed one of his daughter's college graduation. Ray grew up struggling so when he had his own family, he vowed to be a good provider. His daughters, Tina, Ashli and Samantha, though they have most of what they desire, have become accustomed to their father's frequent absences. When Ray met Glenda in high school, they became an instant couple. After she became pregnant, they struggled for awhile but gradually their circumstances changed for the better. The story spans a period of about thirty years from Ray's days as a high school student to the time as an adult with grown children.

One of the sub-plots included the growing pains of the three daughters as they navigated through different stages of their lives; school, romances, and careers. Another storyline involved the interracial romance of Ray's mother-in-law after being a widow for many years. When his youngest daughter becomes ill, Ray's deficiently as an attentive husband and father becomes a stark reality. But is it too late to change this workaholic?

Though the author does a fair job with characterization, the writing seems to lack a sense of depth. Moore wrote this as a screenplay and I can see how this could work effectively in that format. I feel this author has potential and would read his next offering.

Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub

First of all this book is so boringly non-visual. Black and White except for the small insert in the middle. The projects need a better step-by-step approach. I found myself having to reread the wordy steps most of the time to find the "key" word I was missing to complete a step. It didn't help that the first tutorial was so incredible boaring and goes on for 139 pages. By the time it was over I lost most interest in continuing. Shorter projects to the point please. YAWN...wake me when this is over. It was nice to have something written down for a change but that was its only benefit for me. I am looking for a book to tell me where things area and what they do period. A Zbrush manual needs to happen.

This is a solid book for anyone using Zbrush. I'm an intermediate user mainly bringing in models from another program and exporting them back out. I've rarely had a chance to play with the 2.5D or a lot of Zbrush's little nuances. Eric has written a book that gets down to the basics is and simple to understand. It's setup in a linear fashion but is still very easy to look up what you are having trouble with and get right to the info you want. I've found that it's a much better source than looking for help or using the Zbrush help. This book is essential for beginners. Straight forward, easy to read and well worth the money no matter what skill level you are with Zbrush, Introducing Zbrush is a worthy choice.

I've been wanting to get into Zbrush for a very long time. I even downloaded the trial version and surfed the web for tutorials. However, the lack of results were frustrating. Not only this book has helped me with the learning curve but also opened my eyes to zbrush REAL potential... it's very exciting. Now I can enjoy this wonderful piece of software.

This book really helped to open me up to all that ZBrush has to offer. Iv'e been working in motion graphics, and now gaming for the last few years, and really only came into contact with ZBrush as a sort of
appendage to Maya. Not really realizing how much it stood on it's own two feet. I really didn't bother to learn much past what it could do for my Maya models, so I'm really glad I picked up this book. Because I only knew a very narrow vision of Zbrush, it was interesting and informative right from the get go. The first tutorial alone touching on aspects I hadn't ever dealt with. I must asume it would be great for beginners as well, as the tutorial are very detailed, and progressively build on each other. Anyhow, it's a great investment for someone who wants to learn ZBrush, and has never used it. Or for someone who uses it as a "plug in", but has never really gotten to know it. It's also worth the price just to get your hands on the great harryhausen Medusa head that's on the DVD. Oh, that's another thing, the DVD is more then a bunch of Zbrush scenes saved at various stages. There are movie files that actually show the sculpting process, macros that play back within ZBrush, as well as a trial version of Zbrush.

This book is a great reference book even for someone that is familiar to Z brush. There are so many features in the program that his book goes into detail describing. The step by step tutorials will help you get started with Z brush. It also touches on the 2D capabilities of the program, something that is often over looked.

I'd read all the reviews prior to this book. Seemed pretty promising, although I wasn't sure how easy it would be for beginners, but I thought I'd take a chance. The book itself was great with the descriptions and the photos to accompany them up until it came time to rig Morfi. Steps were skipped, though I'm not sure if the author simply assumed the reader would know what to do, or if he accidentally left them out. Certain sections tell you to copy and paste multiple times, but don't tell you what to do what the items you've just pasted, and bam!; Instantly you're at a new section, with a detailed summary of what the previous section should have looked like, without showing you how to get there. I haven't even started animating yet, let alone started the more complex model in the second section of the book. If you're looking to model low poly characters, and are somewhat of a beginner, the book is great! For Rigging/Animation I would recommend purchasing a second, more detailed/complete book.

Just finnished reading this book from A to Z. I have to tell you that even do I've been working with LW for some time, I still learned some great tips and tricks.
I highly recommand this Book to anyone who's thinking about 3D animation. I hope that Volume 2 will bring me the same value but I strongly belief that I will love that Book even more.

[...]

The book, 1Cartoon Character Creation Volume 1 & 2, has straightforward techniques approach to Learning Advanced LightWave Skills and Knowledge. I purchased Timothy Albee's Lightwave 3D, "Getting Started Guide" which came with my purchase of the program, LightWave from Newtek. The Book got me started back in 2005. (A general skills book covers a broad range of LightWave. But does not get too deep, which is good for beginners.)

I was very interested in and loved cartooning and character creation in 3D. So I purchased Jonny Gorden's "Cartoon Character Creation-Volume 2". If ya don't know and wanna learn Rigging right, get this book. Jonny be getting off with his techniques in this bad boy. Loved the book.

(Jonny's book covers A through Z in Rigging and Animation mostly plus overviews on general knowledge stuff as well. But since I already learned the basics with "Getting Started" I was able to get deep into Jonny's techniques.)

This book is a great one to have in your Lightwave library, and even if you use another software package you will be able to follow his techniques to help you master the fascinating and technical aspects of animation. Jonny does assume you have basic knowledge of Lightwave 3D and have the ability to move around and understand it's interface. What I loved about this book is that doesn't tell you to do this and do that, He actually explains why! This is from setting up the interface to why he works the way he does. this book goes into great detail explaining how to create a character (and why you create it in a certain way) and how to texture it in a realistic way. I bought also his companion book Volume Two,because as he explains, there is just so much information you NEED to know!
It's great reading and chock full of information, includes a disc with all the files and screen shots to help you along the way.

I brought this book when I was initially learning LightWave and had zero experience. I recommend buying 'Essential Lightwave 3D 8 ' prior or with this book if you are just beginning as this book assumes at least a basic understanding of what the tools are, what they do and where they are located.

I found the book itself to be great. It de-mystifies the entire process of creating a cartoon character from bulbous head to stubby toe. The sections on texturing were particularly nice, going over all the ins and outs of UV mapping, when, where and how.

Now here is the thing that makes this book great. When I purchased this book I was deciding whether to upgrade my LightWave to version 8 or buy SoftImage|XSI. I ended up going with SoftImage and I used this book several times to model entire characters in SoftImage. This made it apparent to me how clear and concise the steps by step processes and detailed images are. I later upgraded LightWave just to model the pig-boy toon featured inside, among other things.

While much of the lessons covered can be found in online tutorials or videos about character modeling, this book is an invaluable reference. I highly recommend it.

Norman Lin's Linux 3D Graphics Programming book is an excellent book for those with a programming background who wish to dive into the world of real time 3D graphics programming. The book is very well written and gives step by step explanations of all the concepts introduced as well as the most of the source code. 3D graphics is a complex subject and the author realizes that (lots of) hand-holding is very helpful in understanding the concepts introduced. This book covers the basics, i.e. rasterization, transformations, projections, and some modelling. In teaching all of these subjects, the author provides what is constantly missing from other books and what I feel is very important in the learning process - rationale for why things are done a certain way. The author clearly realizes this, and this is among the strongest points of the book. Other strong points of this book include:

1) Some books simply discuss the concepts behind 3D graphics without providing incite into actually implementing them, i.e. accessing the screen, creating offscreen buffers, which data structures are best suited for a task. This books, aimed toward novices, does both.

2) The author starts out by giving an introduction to graphics under Linux, with background on software as well as hardware rendering (using OpenGL/Mesa as well as the aging Glide API). This is great for those who aren't yet familiar with graphics under the Linux operating system.

3) The code is object oriented - the author dedicates a section to explain the benefits of an object oriented approach in creating a graphics library.

4) Software rendering is stressed, althrough hardware rendering is covered as well. Very important in creating a 3d engine - using OpenGL without understanding how it does the things it does will only get you so far.

5) The book is NOT just Linux specific. Linux is the author's choice of implementation but all the concepts can be applied to other operating system. The object oriented approach allows for the graphics library to be implemented in other OS's - the appendix even discusses compilation under Windows.

6) All tools to get started are available on the companion cd-rom as well as free on the internet. The source code used in the book, the Debian distribution of Linux, the compiler tools and libraries, and the modelling software Blender (for use in the chapter that discusses modelling) are all included.

7) The author is very knowledgable in Linux and is clearly a advocate for the operation system :).

The author assumes you are sufficient in C/C++ programming. This is a fair assumption as you really have to be in order to do graphics programming. Be warned however, that the source code may not compile right away under other Linux distributions besides Debian and newer versions of gcc. Some modifications in the source code (very minor) may be required in order for the code to compile correctly - something you should be able to do. If not, perhaps you should hold off on graphics programming and get some more programming experience first (harsh but true). All in all, Linux 3D Graphics Programming is an excellent introductory book.

To start with, let me just say; I'm a second year electrical engineering / computer science uni student. In Australia. =P

This is a great book.

1) It actually goes into the detail of X11 pixel formats and xshm. As an xlib programmer the generic class to determine pixel formats is great. It is superior is a number of ways to the evil O'Reily books in its dealing with XImage and graphics under linux.

2) It ALSO goes over the basic foundations of 3d programming, and software rendering; as well as introducing the concepts of interfaces using c++ classes (factories, etc).

For anyone who has not done this before, this is an excellent book. For anyone who has: It is probably still worth a read. Unless you are truely a master at linux graphics programming, there's probably something to be gleaned from this book. And if you are a master, why would you buy it?

However, fair warning: This is not a trivial topic. Reading the book end to end will achieve nothing. I have highlighted (in bright yellow marker ;) about 1/2 the book. And spent a lot of time drawing pictures and trying understand what it said. This book requires a fair bit of study. I took me what? About 3 weeks to work through the whole thing.

Having said so, it wasn't hard. I just haven't done much of this before, so I spent a lot of time programming examples to prove that the actually worked. =P

Anyhow: I enjoyed the book. I thought it was worth while. :) My regards to the author!

I have to give the author enormous kudos for tackling this project. Over the course of two volumes (I'm referring to this book and his companion "Advanced" Linux 3D Graphics Programming), he builds, from the ground up, a complete working 3D engine, complete with texture mapping, collision detection and world editing capability.

His writing and explanations on the topics at hand are very well written, and whenever the reader needs a diagram to make sense of something, there's invariably just the right one at hand to help him through it.

It's really amazing, when you step back, to see just what is covered in these books. Not only are all major 3D graphics programming issues dealt with, but the author also takes time to discuss programming topics such as design patterns and why he uses them in his code.

Having said all this, I did find some problems with the books, problems which kept me from giving 5 stars:

1. Some of the code is difficult to follow. Really difficult. The polygon engine created by the author uses double-pointers indexed by arrays, and folks, that gets tough to read after a bit. In particular, I couldn't follow his polygon clipping code very well at all, nor his screen creation code, which involved a lot of bit-shifting, none of which was really explained all that well in the text. A bit of a lapse from the author I thought, very atypical.

2. The author wanted his code to work with fixed and floating point math, and for that purpose he created macros for doing things like multiplication and division. All well and good, but again it hurts readablity to have all of those macros in the code when all you're trying to do is multiply two numbers together. Almost any CPU made in the past five years can handle floating point math very well, and so I don't see the need for fixed-point adjustments in the code. Just an opinion, others can disagree.

3. The sample programs seem a bit lacking. After 300 pages, your reward is to see a program with a few flat-shaded polygons spinning around. It's hard to work up enthusiasm and bull through the book when that's your reward. Sorry if that sounds too harsh!

4. The world editor was written with Perl, and... well, it adds another layer of complexity that maybe didn't need to be there. The syntax gets very scary very quickly.

I could also say something about the fact that the author seems hot to trot for free development tools (Blender for modeling, xxgdb compiler, etc.), when maybe using some low-priced commercial products would have allowed for quicker progress and better results. I'm talking about expensive... tools here, not 3D Studio Max. Again, only one man's opinion here.

Overall, it's a fine two-volume set, and if you want to see a 3D engine built from scratch, take a gander at this and prepare to learn how the magic works. Just don't expect to skate through it with no effort on your part.

=

This is a great book.

1) It actually goes into the detail of X11 pixel formats and xshm. As an xlib programmer the generic class to determine pixel formats is great. It is superior is a number of ways to the evil O'Reily books in its dealing with XImage and graphics under linux.

2) It ALSO goes over the basic foundations of 3d programming, and software rendering; as well as introducing the concepts of interfaces using c++ classes (factories, etc).

For anyone who has not done this before, this is an excellent book. For anyone who has: It is probably still worth a read. Unless you are truely a master at linux graphics programming, there's probably something to be gleaned from this book. >However, fair warning: This is not a trivial topic. Reading the book end to end will achieve nothing. <

Anyhow: I enjoyed the book. I thought it was worth while. My regards to the author!

This book is pretty good to get a novice up and running. Its definately not an advanced book so if you already know thsi stuff skip it.

But for beginners its a good place tro get started

I am always amazed as to how they produce the images. However it is done, it provides great fun.

I think that this is a good product, just like other books that I own. So if you have time to look at it, this will help you relax. If you never been able to see the images have patience sometimes it takes a while read the instruction on how to do it, there are three different ways, so one of those should work for you, it's just a matter of time. Once you are able to see the images it will become easier to see there rest of the pics I remember I used to think that this stuff was fake cause I could never see I spend 3 hours looking at one page and never got it, but it was because I kept trying to look for something, what work for me was to look past the image and that would let the 3d image pop out.

The last book like this that I reviewed was Magic Eye II ;which I reviewed on May 25,2004. That book was published in 1994 ,several years after we first became familiar with these 3-D or Stereograms. This book was published in 2004 and we can see that there has been considerable advances in this artform.The one characteristic of these pictures has been that thay are easy to identify because of the repeatibility of about 6 panels or bands. This has always been a dead giveway.
The thing most noticeable is that the bands are much less obvious.The picture on page 11 is so good that one would hardly suspect as having floating beans within it.The picture on page 33 is very obviously a 3-D picture but at the same time is an excellent "floater".Of all the pictures,the one of the gravel on page 39 was the most interesting to me. It is so good,that one would likely not even suspect it to be a 3-D picture,unless it was in a book like this.I guess the ultimate would be when a picture is created that shows no signs of repeatibility at all. At that point you would have the perfect "hidden picture".
By far the biggest difference with this book in in the claims of how these images can be used to improve vision and all other sorts of things. The book is sprinkled with many testimonials from people who have experienced great things.I have considerable problem with accepting this stuff without the research and science to back it up.Otherwise;it has to remain in the area of "alternative medicine".It does not surprise me that there is a Disclaimer to the claims on page 2.
Nonetheless this is a good book showing how much 3-D pictures have improved since the early 90's.

I was always able to see the "floater" images within the pictures. The books calls this "divergence". When I do it, totally relax my eyes, I see the image within seconds. The problem for me was when I read in this particular MagicEye that I need to practice convergence. In other words, bringing the eyes together, and seeing the opposite of the 3D image. It's like a sunken image. At first, I had pain from doing this. It caused me eye strain, which was similar to eye strain I always feel after reading or sitting in front of the PC for a period of time. Now, after practicing the techniques to increase convergence (i.e. the pencil moving in and out for 10 seconds), I see the image, and more important, no more eye strain! It does work, or at least it worked for me..........

The pictures in this book are good, but beware! About every other page is a full page of text, of self-gloating from the authors! I am sure that their arms are tired from patting themselves on the back; and there are a bunch of stupid quotes from supposed customers of how their pictures cure cancer and the like... I would say that half of the book is a waste of paper because of this. I do not think I would buy this book again, false advertising.