Physics for Game Developers

David M Bourg9780596000066, 0-596-00006-5

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 enriching 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. Although you don’t need to be a physics expert to understand Physics for Game Developers, the author does assume you have a basic college-level understanding of classical physics. It should also be noted that the examples are written in standard C and use Windows API functions.