Physics for Games Developers

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. This book serves as the starting point for those who want to enrich 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. Many specific game elements stand to benefit from the use of real physics, including: the trajectory of rockets and missiles, including the effects of fuel burn off; the collision of objects such as billiard balls; the stability of cars racing around tight curves; the dynamics of boats and other waterborne vehicles; the flight path of a baseball after being struck by a bat; and the flight characteristics of aeroplanes. You don’t need to be a physics expert to learn from “Physics for Game Developers”, but the author does assume you know basic college-level classical physics. You should also be proficient in trigonometry, vector and matrix maths (reference formulae and identities are included in the appendices), and college-level calculus, including integration and differentiation of explicit functions.