Book Image

Mathematics for Game Programming and Computer Graphics

By : Penny de Byl
5 (1)
Book Image

Mathematics for Game Programming and Computer Graphics

5 (1)
By: Penny de Byl

Overview of this book

Mathematics is an essential skill when it comes to graphics and game development, particularly if you want to understand the generation of real-time computer graphics and the manipulation of objects and environments in a detailed way. Python, together with Pygame and PyOpenGL, provides you with the opportunity to explore these features under the hood, revealing how computers generate and manipulate 3D environments. Mathematics for Game Programming and Computer Graphics is an exhaustive guide to getting “back to the basics” of mathematics, using a series of problem-based, practical exercises to explore ideas around drawing graphic lines and shapes, applying vectors and vertices, constructing and rendering meshes, and working with vertex shaders. By leveraging Python, Pygame, and PyOpenGL, you’ll be able to create your own mathematics-based engine and API that will be used throughout to build applications. By the end of this graphics focussed book, you’ll have gained a thorough understanding of how essential mathematics is for creating, rendering, and manipulating 3D virtual environments and know the secrets behind today’s top graphics and game engines.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
1
Part 1 – Essential Tools
9
Part 2 – Essential Trigonometry
14
Part 3 – Essential Transformations
20
Part 4 – Essential Rendering Techniques

Working with the Model Matrix

The model matrix is the accumulation of the multiplications of the transformation matrices that are to be applied to a point or vector. As we discovered in Chapter 13, Understanding the Importance of Matrices, the order in which the transformations are multiplied is important to the final outcome. Also, at the end of the same chapter, you discovered that in OpenGL, you can obtain the contents of the modelview matrix with the following code:

glGetDoublev(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX)

Rather than using OpenGL’s own methods for moving, resizing, and orienting an object, you can set the matrix manually, and then perform matrix multiplication to apply the transformation to a model as long as you keep in mind the format of the modelview matrix.

These transformations were performed in Chapter 13, Understanding the Importance of Matrices:

glTranslatef(0, 0, -3)
glRotated(45, 1, 0, 0)
glScalef(0.5, 2, 1)

The result of performing these transformations...