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

Color

Computer graphics, by their very definition, are a visual medium and as such rely on color to be seen. A color space is the range of colors that can be generated from the primary colors of a device. For example, imagine you are creating an oil painting. Say you had a tube of red, a tube of yellow, and a tube of blue, and you mixed them together in every conceivable ratio, then all the resulting colors would be the color space for that set of three tubes. If your friend did the same thing with slightly different reds, yellows, and blues, they would produce another color set unique to them. If you both mixed a green from equal parts of your own blue and yellow, you would get green that was 50% blue and 50% yellow, but because you both started with slightly different versions of blue and yellow, the resulting greens would be different.

The same applies to computer screens, printers, cameras, and anything else with a colored screen or print. The color you consider green on one...