Resources - Books

Well the books that I've got is:

Game Architecture and Design, by Coriolis Press (Now no longer printing books, so grab this one if you can, I saw 1 copy in Melb when I was there).
Game Programming Gems 3, by Charles River Media

in addition to that I have the usual Maths textbooks from my Uni studies.

I wanted to get Realtime Rendering 2nd Edition but it wasn't in the shop when I came with cash. I'll try to get it in the new year if I can. Code Complete by Microsoft Press is also a highly recommended book that I want to get, even though its not game specific.

quote:Originally posted by Jacana

Just curious about what types of books people have using to help them along the way. I have picked up a few books that I need to read through as well as a few for reference.

Here are some of my recommendations:
Effective C++ (Scott Meyers) (any part of the series): http://www.aristeia.com/books_frames.html

and, no matter what you think of Microsoft you can't go wrong with these:
http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/developer/bestpractices/
Code Complete
Writing Solid Code (second edition due out soon - one of the best programming books ever written)
and just about any other book in that series.

Also "Code Complete" http://www.stevemcconnell.com/cc.htm
Which is regarded as one of the best too (it's a toss up between "Code Complete" and "Writing Solid Code" in my opinion!)
There's also "Rapic Development" by the same author.

The Gems Series:
The Games Programming Gems books:
http://www.satori.org/gamegems/ (search the web for a better site)
Games Programming Gems
Games Programming Gems 2
Games Programming Gems 3 :-)

and the Graphics Gems books
http://www.acm.org/pubs/tog/GraphicsGems/
Graphics Gems, II, III, IV, V

That should keep you busy :-)

Edit: You might notice that I've stressed quite a few books that aren't games specific - because (IMHO) 30% of games programming is trying to write good code that is bug-free and solid, and 60% is trying to fix the bugs that you put in there anyway :-) the last 10% is the cool games bit !

I've got Multiplayer Game Programming, Prima Tech, really wasn't happy with it. For a book that cost $140 or so and is some 600-800? pages thick, it contains precious little useful information related to multiplayer, it's not a bad little introductory book to game programming, but if you're actually interested in the multiplayer part, then steer clear.

Game architecture and design, definately worth picking up especially if you are part of a small dev group (like most students etc. would be) and will be working closely with each other on all stages of the project. It is a book that will scale with you as your dev group grows larger in terms of numbers and project size.

Real-Time rendering. IMO this is THE book to get for an overview on graphics techniques that have been used, are currently used, and will be used in the future. Fantastic book, best $140 or so i've ever spent on a programming/game/etc. book.

Data and Computer Communications, Stallings. Not a coding book, but a technical book on networking etc. If you're interested in the networked multiplayer side of things, a book like this will come in handy when it comes time to implement a guaranteed service over UDP :) This book is 100 times more useful than Multiplayer Game Programming for networked gaming.

C++ Programming Language, Stroustrop. Written by the guy who created the language, you can't go wrong :) Definately a good tech book on C++, i wouldn't recommend it to learn from though, it is better as a reference. This is the book i had when i learnt C++ in 2nd year uni, and it didn't make things easy (it can be hard to find what you're looking for when you're not really sure what you're looking for) There are better tutorial books around for learning C++ basics.

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Russel/Norvig. Wanna learn about AI? Get this book. Once again, not a code book, but this will give you all the theory you need behind most AI techniques you will need/use in the near future. About the only thing it doesn't cover in reasonable depth is state machines...(which are fairly trivial anyway)

AI Game Programming Wisdom. Haven't learnt AI yet? Get the book above. If you already have a grounding in AI this book offers techniques for improving your AI. Aimed more at intermediate-expert, a novice AI person will get little use out of this book, as they simply won't understand what the hell they're talking about :)
Covers a lot of areas including A* improvements and various flocking algo's etc.

Real-Time Rendering is an invaluable resource, like i said best book i own. I highly suggest getting a hold of this unless you are an absolute expert guru on graphics techniques :)
If you want to get into AI programming, a modern approach is one of the best texts out there.
If you want to get into multiplayer (or rather, networked) programming, i suggest either picking up a good book on networking with sockets, as it will give you a much better grounding in network theory etc. than any multiplayer book on the market that i am aware of.
Game architecture and design is just a great resource for building a game from the initial concept through to getting that final build out the door. Like i said, for a small dev group, this book will be incredibly useful. (i've spent the last couple days re-reading it while going through the beginnings of the concept/design stage for the NYG project).

I guess it may be interesting to note that many of my favourite books have very little or no code in them at all. I think i prefer these books for a few reasons. They don't take up countless pages with code snippets (this is often not really useful, and makes the book bigger costing more money). I prefer to read and understand the theory, and be able to create my own code from that knowledge, rather than kind of partially understanding the theory, but having a really good code snippet i can paste into my code without really understanding what it does. A follow-on from that, most of the code-free books tend to give much more detailed, and generally better explanations of things than books that are full of code, and also they can pack a heck of a lot more useful information into the same sized book, giving you (IMO) better bang for your buck.
Of course books on code languages are exempt from that little diatribe :)

Hmmm, i should stop letting myself on the internet when i'm tired, i start to blab on and on and on...
CYer, Blitz

Yeah I really recommend the Game Programming Gems books.

LeMothe writes some good books on the basics which are good if you're just starting. They're also a good reference if you're prone to forgetting simple things like I am.

The BEST book that I've found is:

programmers reference c/c++ second edition - by Herbert Schildt

Its such an invaluable reference book. It also covers STL somewhat, which is a good thing. I think its something like $30 too.

Scott.

My recommendations:

Game Programming Gems 1,2,3

I'd skip the Graphics Gems (all 5) if you aren't hard-core on graphics. Albeit, you HAVE to refer to them eventually for common algorithms.

Real-time rendering (Haines/Moller) - classic
Modern C++ design
Design Patterns
RenderMan companion (if you want to do Cg shader writing)
High-performance computing - intro to optimization!!!!!

Any SIGGRAPH paper published in the 80s. The games industry just started using RenderMan-like shaders and etc. all that is well-understood material...