game development pro
WebGL Programming Guide is the first WebGL book that I can fully recommend. The authors stick to straight WebGL code (no libraries like Three.js) and explain everything in full detail. Since they focus more on the API than anything else, most of the samples are simple things like colored triangles or spinning cubes, but that is fine to learn the basics. I liked
WebGL: Up and Running by Tony Parisi is a competent first introduction to 3d on the web, and the author does seem to know what he’s talking about. The book is not long, but manages to cover a variety of topics, even the source code for a complete game (simple as it may be). The chapters include: introduction to the WebGL API, setting
I’m a bit conflicted about this book. While there is a lot of good material here, I feel like there were many inconsistencies with the coding style and some errors or confusing explanations that deter from the gems inside. It’s also heavily geared toward complete beginners, making it somewhat of a numbing read for intermediate to advanced programmers. But I still found some
So, as of this writing, I have read all 5 books available on Amazon on the Vulkan API and I would say that Vulkan Cookbook is one of the better resources out there. The format of the book is similar to other “cookbooks” you may have seen, with each recipe essentially describing one technique in a stand-alone fashion. Meaning the steps for each
Introduction to Computer Graphics and the Vulkan API by Kenwright is exactly what the title implies, an approachable introduction to the Vulkan API and graphics programming in general. This book succeeds in the places where some other books on the market fail, by showing straight-forward code examples, explaining graphics concepts simply, and not assuming you are already a graphics guru. While the quality of
Jeremy Birn’s Digital Lighting and Rendering is a masterful treatise on digital lighting and, in my opinion, a must have on your bookshelf if you’re a 3d artist. While the text is clearly aimed at pre-rendered art, for example in animated movies or live-action effects, most of the concepts are fundamental enough to apply to lighting real-time scenes in games, or even more traditional art
Although the Vulkan API has been available for about a year now, it was just at the tail end of 2016 that we started to see books published on the topic. For me personally, I prefer learning from books over just reading documentation, and Vulkan Programming Guide is a fine effort. At 480 pages, it is a comfortable length, and manages to hit on
Learning Vulkan by Parminder Singh is an excellent foray into the Vulkan graphics API and quite a competent book. The text is a reasonable 466 pages, and packs a lot in there. Singh covers all the basics of using Vulkan and goes into great detail at each step of the way. Not only is there actual C++ code shown (a lot of it), but he
Vulkan Graphics API: in 20 Minutes is a short, no-nonsense, introduction to the Vulkan graphics API. Though the title of the book says “20 minutes,” I believe I spent somewhere between 1 and 2 hours to finish it (though I admittedly read pretty slow). This is the type of book I wish there were more of: something short and sweet as a brief
Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications by James M. Van Verth and Lars M. Bishop is a quality math book if I ever saw one. Strangely, the first edition came out in 2004 but the book was kind of off my radar until recently. This third edition was published in 2015 and seems very current. The authors here do a great job
