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

Adding keyboard commands

Once you’ve worked with mouse events, keyboard events are a breeze. In fact, key presses have fewer events associated with them than a mouse, though you can use multiple keys at a time for complex commands. But basically, a key possesses the down and up events. With respect to graphics environments, keys are used to influence what is going on in the scene. The most common keys in games, for example, are the arrow keys or WASD for moving an object and the spacebar for jump or fire. An example of combination keys would be holding down the Shift key while using the arrows to make the object move faster.

In the following exercise, you will program keys to move an object in the 3D environment.

Let’s do it…

To move a 3D object, we can use the Transform class and modify the position of the model when a key is pressed. To achieve this, follow these steps:

  1. In the Transform class, we will be adding a new function that will move an...