Ogre Forums

Hey everyone.

I have started looking into shaders a little bit lately and some other topics of 3d programming. As I am hoping to understand what's giong on under the hood (so I can possibly make some adjustments when needed) I came to realise, that a lot of math is included with all that shader and 3d stuff. I was not surprised by this fact, but I was surprised by the fact that most of this math is what I learned at school not too long ago. And I was even more surprised as I realised that I had forgotten most of it.
Really simple stuff like matrices, sine and cosine graphs and similar things seems like a big mistery to me.

Ok it is maybe not that bad, but I do feel however, that I need some brushup on most of this urgently. Plus I hope to fully understand more advanced subjects like e.g. quaternions once I have regained most of my lost knowledge.

I have looked at certain places on the web like gamedev, the ogre wiki has some neat pages too, but most of the articles around seem to cover very specific topics, not the basic stuff.
So I hope you guys could point me to some location at the web, where a dummy could learn most of the math, which is needed for 3d graphics. Maybe you even know a good book worth reading on these subjects.

Thanks in favor,

Ed

I bought the book Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics because I saw it recommended by various knowledgeable people on this forum.

Most of it is beyond my skill level, so I'm working through a more general and less advanced book as well. It does seem fairly comprehensive though and what parts I can understand have been good.

buckED wrote: So I hope you guys could point me to some location at the web, where a dummy could learn most of the math, which is needed for 3d graphics. Maybe you even know a good book worth reading on these subjects.

www.euclideanspace.com

johnhpus wrote:I bought the book Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics because I saw it recommended by various knowledgeable people on this forum.

Most of it is beyond my skill level, so I'm working through a more general and less advanced book as well. It does seem fairly comprehensive though and what parts I can understand have been good.

Really? It's the most user-friendly book I've found on this subject Indeed, the explanation it gives for the transformation matrices was so easy yet enlightening that I've used it in some lectures and assignments at my college. To me, that book is a must

Don't get the wrong idea. It's not as if I can't understand any of the book.

I just meant to say that though I don't have the knowledge to evaluate most of the book, the parts I understand so far have been good.

Yep yep, got it. It is true that certain things have to be read two or three times before they can be assimilated *nods* Totally agree your point of view.

I also have this book and I can recommend it (assuming its the book by Dunn/Parberry).
Damn, my wife has dropped glue on my keyboard. My keys stick together.

Thanks for the input everyone. I will check out the book you recommend on amazon.

@xavier: Thanks for that link. bookmarked it. This looks like it was the kind of thing I was looking for.

cheers,

Ed

Just to give you another option, I have this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Mathema ... 153&sr=8-3

I haven't got far through it but I've found it great so far. In fact the whole "Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3d Technology" are pretty good

Note: There is actually a newer (2008) version of the book on Amazon - I just linked the one I actually own