learn game development
Sams has always published solid content, and this book does not disappoint. In fact, I think one of the first game development books I read some 20 odd years ago was from Sams. This text on Unreal Engine 4 is comprehensive and worth reading (even if it is a few years old). Here the authors cover many important topics, like installing Unreal, working
Rachel Cordone’s Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Quick Start Guide is the perfect book for people with some programming chops, or users of other engines (like Unity), that want to get up to speed quickly with Unreal. I really liked how the author does not waste time explaining basic things (like what functions or variables are) and jumps to the practical steps for
This is the second book in the new game engine development series by acclaimed author and engine developer, Eric Lengyel. Though it is not strictly necessary to read in order, it is basically one book cut into sections, so you may want to get the first one, as well as the upcoming continuations of the series, to get the most out of it.
Don’t judge a book by its cover. This is a blockbuster tour through WebGL, with many performance optimizations and considerations not commonly found in other texts. Like typical gems collections, each chapter is written by a different author and focuses on one aspect of WebGL coding. There is a lot of coverage here, and I found the authors’ expertise to be second to
Of the top WebGL books I’ve read so far, I think I can say this one is the best. Not only is it well written, but it includes lots of detail about how rendering APIs work, 3d math, lighting concepts, and even some performance considerations at the end. It’s not a very long book, but it covers the fundamentals well. I also enjoyed
Understanding ECMAScript 6 delivers exactly what the subtitle proclaims, the definitive guide for JavaScript developers. While I have been working with Javascript for years now (and particularly ECMAScript when I was developing for Flash) I hadn’t really kept up with the recent developments. JavaScript always seemed to be missing important OOP concepts like classes or inheritance, and the ways to “fake” them with
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
