Game Programming Gems
by Mark DeLoura · first published 2000
42% recommend58% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short expert-written articles on game programming topics such as collision detection, AI, and graphics tricks; useful for software engineering practice and seeing how other developers think about systems.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…since we're programmers, and games are cool (for some values of games, and some values of cool), therefore, I'm going to recommend that take a look in that area for algorithms and techniques. The book Game Programming Gems (the first one) has a chapter on collision detection. http://www.amazon.com/Game-Programming-Gems/dp/1584500492/ Article to start with: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1234.asp As…
on “Ask YC: Radar Collision Detection Algorithm?” ↗…piece of software from beginning to end with commentary and supporting code in a giant book that you can touch and feel and flip through the pages of. Also very much worth shouting out Mark DeLoura's 'Game Programming Gems' series -- I'm not sure how it even happened, but I got a chapter published in the first volume while being a 17 year old kid who had zero professional experience in any industry of any kind lol (I just…
on “Black Art of 3D Game Programming (1995)” ↗I've read or owned several of those books at one point or another. Some opinions: The Game Programming Gems series has a wonderful variety of articles, and even though many of the graphics tricks are no longer super useful the software engineering and exposure to how other people think about systems is very…
on “Books For Game Developers” ↗…knowledge. Some examples of places to look/things to search for implementations or similar/better: -GDC Slide Decks -Game Programming Data Structure/Performance Books -Game Industry Publications - ex: Game Programming Gems -EA STL -Game Dev Sites -Any available source to various engines/games in the last many years should have more than a few inside Moreover, this is also a common thing in a lot of embedded and high-performance…
on “Facebook's std::vector optimization” ↗…rasterization. There is value in the bits on BSP and visibility, but it's probably only a third of the last ten (of 70) chapters. That said, there's probably more relevant worth in those bits than any Game Programming Gems books :). Abrash is a great writer and, even if you skip the deep technical dives and code listings, the book is still worth reading.
on “Video/audio from Mike Abrash's CGDC 1996 talk on programming id's Quake” ↗You might want to check out the "AI Game Programming Wisdom" series. I think at this point, there are four of them. "Game Programming Gems" is another series worth checking out (I think there are 8 at this point); each book normally has a section on game AI. The books are a series of articles written by industry practitioners solving a…
on “Game AI vs Traditional AI” ↗…got a copy of Ian Millington's AI book that I need to finish reading. So far it seems to be very good. It's not as example-driven, but it seems to have good breadth on real-world game AI topics. The Game Programming Gems series is worth reading through, if, as others have noted, a little dated in places. The general game design and AI sections hold up better than some of the high-performance math and graphics tweaks…
on “The Game AI Programmer's Bookshelf” ↗I have formative (to my interest in programming) memories of going to Barnes & Noble and cracking open those huge Graphics Gems and Game Programming Gems books. Just an amazing wealth of topics and tricks and I learned something new on every page. Red Blob Games [0] is the closest thing in spirit these days but I do miss those books. [0] https://www.redblobgames.com/
on “Graphic Rants: Nanite Tessellation” ↗Former Nintendo dev Mark DeLoura wrote a series of books called "Game Programming Gems". (http://www.satori.org/game-programming-gems/) Do these books still contain valuable concepts, considering where games are today, the engines that are available, etc?
on “Ask HN: Game Programming Gems series still of value?” ↗Implementation: Game Programming Gems 6. (Or possibly 5) :) And Thief really is a prime example, because it comes with an editor that exposes the component system. That completely covers the "here's what a game looks like in it" angle. There's…
on “Anatomy of a knockout” ↗Speaking for the ones I have on my shelves: --- The AI Game Programming Wisdom and Game Programming Gems are not revision of the same things. They're just part of the same series; the format of the books is more akin to a collection of articles (all by different authors from the industry), grouped by topic.…
on “The Game AI Programmer's Bookshelf” ↗…understand its environment and make the best choices within the context of it's given priorities. The "AI Game Programming Wisdom" books I own the first 2 volumes of. They're the same format as the "Game Programming Gems" (or "Graphics Gems" before that). That is, a series of articles written by many different authors on a smorgasbord of topics. Pros : Wide and sometimes highly-specific coverage and many code samples.…
on “The Game AI Programmer's Bookshelf” ↗I authored one of the 55 chapters/articles in "AI Game Programming Wisdom 4." Just like the "Game Programming Gems" series, each book 1-4 is a separate collection of articles by various authors on various topics in game AI. The books are much more practical than textbooks, contain a lot of great video game-specific…
on “The Game AI Programmer's Bookshelf” ↗I "invented" navigation meshes in 1995, along with, I'm sure fifty other people. Then I read about them in Game Programming Gems in 2000. So five years before someone thought "Hey, I should publish this!" (wish I had!) But it was apparently invented in the 1980s for robots. For games, the catalyst was 3D games consoles.
on “Database “sharding” came from Ultima Online? (2009)” ↗…only being able to be accessed and modified by the container giving out handles. In C++, you'd likely see operator* and operator-> overloaded for usage. This technique is described in the original "Game Programming Gems" book. Not 100%, but on usage, the handle checks the magic against what's currently in the data-structure to let you know if the handle has been freed and/or reused. Since handles are opaque, you can…
on “Memory Safety Without Borrow Checking, Reference Counting, or Garbage Collection” ↗