Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/08/17/01:02:07
This is the longest Post I've ever made. It was originally going to the
Allegro Mailing List but I decided that there probably a bunch of people
here that would like the info as well.
I have both books and I can tell you, that you are not going to learn 3D
programming from Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book, but you
are going to learn much more recent graphics techniques. I sugest the
Black Book if you understand 3D programming and are capable of using the
information given. The Black Art of 3D Game Programming will teach many
topics and details of 3d programming more in depth even if its older
information you can't be picky when you start. I read through the Black
Book and got to the 3D section and I had to stop because I couldn't grasp
the information inside without more knowledge of 3D. I bought the Black
Art about a week of more ago and have reached the 3D section of the book.
There is also a big price difference for what you get and alot of overhead
in both books. The Black Art is $49.95 (us) and $72.95 (cdn), The MA GP
Black Book is $59.99 (us) and 83.99 (cdn). Well its not that big of a
difference, and you can probably pick them up slightly cheaper, Its pretty
expensive here is Canada, I ordered the Black Book from Amazon.com and got
it for $47.99 (us). That is not why the price makes a difference there is
also alot of mumbo jumbo before you start with the 3d information. Here are
some of the chapters from the books to help you decide witch would be
better for you.
Chapters for the Black Art of 3d Game Programming.
Intro:
You should note if you have Ticks of The Game Programming Gurus you may be
disapointed because the book up to 3D seems like a recap of everthing they
covered in that book, for instance the PCX loading code is the same and
only loads only 320x200 bitmaps like the Book before. Thats one thing about
Andre Lamoths books, is he doesn't make re-usable code, meaning its all
very specific to the task which makes it kinda frustrating sometimes, plus
the code is all 16bit and when he does use 32bit its with Watcom, So some
of the lower-level stuff like Interrupts is handled differently in DJGPP,
you can understand the code and writing but will need to change it for
DJGPP is all. There is some new info in all the review but it was stupid
to start at such a low level, since anyone who wants to learn 3d should
understand 2d fist. His book Trick of the Game Programming Guru's was
released in 94 and this is Black Art in 95, there's no technical changes in
much any of the information except things are a little more in depth in
some areas. Tricks covers a ray caster and the book doesn't give you near
enough information to fully understand it because I have a feeling they
filled up most of the page count explaining the easier stuff at the
beginning. Anyway Tricks if very brief in alot of things but still a good
book, and pretty cheap compared to Black Art.
So anyway here are the chapter for Black Art.
Chapter 1: Genesis of 3d Games - history and info
Chapter 2: Elements of a Game 21 - game loops
Chapter 3: THe Mysterious VGA Card 47 - basics
Chapter 4: Waking the Dead with Animation 105
Chapter 5: Communicatin with the Outsize World 205 - input devices
Chapter 6: Dancing with Cyberdemons 267- sound
Chapter 7: The Magick of Thought 345 - AI
Chapter 8: The Art of Possesion 401 - is multitasking and interrupts
Chapter 9: Multiplayer Game Tequniques 453
--= 3d starts =--
Chapter 10: 3D Fundamentals 543
Chapter 11: Building a 3D Graphics Engine 631
Chapter 12: Solid Modeling and Shading 701
Chapter 13: Universal Transformation 783
Chapter 14: Hidden Surface and Object Removal 803
Chapter 15: Clipping and Rendering the Final View 827
Chapter 16: Voxel Graphics 933
Chapter 17: Optimizing the 3D Engine 991
Chapter 18: Kill or Be Killed 1115
(note: Chapter 18 is an overview of game made with the infomation)
Chapter from Michel Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book:
I'm not going to go over every chapter since there's like 70!, the Book is
about 1300 pages long and the Black Art is about 1100 pages. The first
part of the book cover assembly optimization and some C optimization, it is
very in depth, note: you cannot learn Assembly Language from this book, you
will learn to use it better though. It has 286-386, 486 and Pentium
Optimizations and changes, including info on the Pentiums V-Pipe. Most of
the beginning is made of example programs which he shows you then changes
them to optimize and then changes them again, then goes into assembly
language and compares the results. There is alot to be learned but the
information is very dense and will make you go crazy after reading too
much...Also this book is mostly a collection of articles he wrote in Dr.
Jobs Journal, which date back to around 92. So be warned some information
is unusable and some graphics stuff covers video modes which will never see
the light of day again. He spends alot of time talking about stressing out
the VGA resolutions and has stuff on Mode X which is interesting but even
that mode it too low-res to be any good anymore. There is alot of 16 color
graphics mode code, which is also unusable. You will learn the VGA very
well if you pay attention and how to modify it.
Part II Chapters p. 421 // graphics stuff
(in depth stuff about the VGA for afew chapters)
Chapter 23 Bones and Sinew - intro to VGA
Chapter 24 Parallel Processing with the VGA
Chapter 25 VGA Data Machinery
Chapter 26 VGA Write Mode 3
Chapter 27 Yet Another VGA Write Mode
Chapter 28 Reading VGA Memory
Chapter 29 Saving Screens and Other VGA Mysteries - EGA 16 color...
Chapter 30 Video Est Omnis Divisa - vga split screen
Chapter 31 Higher 256-Color Resolutions on the VGA - 320x400
Chapter 32 Be It Resolved: 360x480 - on vga, pretty neet
Chapter 33 Yogi Bear and Eurythmics Confront VGA Colors
Chapter 34 Changing Colors without Writing Pixels - color cycling
Chapter 35 Bresenham is Fast, and Fast is Good. - line drawing
Chapter 36 The Good, the Bad and the Run Sliced - fast lines
calculates runs...
Chapter 37 Dead Cats and Lighning Lines - optimize run slice Asm
--= Getting into 3D more 2D but things will Apply =--
Chapter 38 The Polygon Primeval
Chapter 39 Fast Convex Polygons 723
Chapter 40 OfSongs, Taxes, and the Simplicity of Complex Polygons
Chapter 41 The Way-Down Polygon Nomenclature Blues - data structure, names
Chapter 42 Wu'ed in Haste; Fried Stewed at Leisure - antialiasing
Chapter 43 Bit-Plane Animation - color stuff
Chapter 44 Split Screens Save the Page Flipping Day - old vid modes
Chapter 45 Dog Hair and Dirty Rectangles
Chapter 46 Who was that Masked Image - optimize Dirty, masked stuff
Chapter 47 Mode X 256 Color VGA Magic
Chapter 48 Mode X Marks the Latch
Chapter 49 Mode X 256 Color Animation
--= 3D Stuff =-- page 931.
Chapter 50 Adding a Dimension
- using mode-x
- 3d drawing pipeline
- 3d example
-i.e there is no introduction
Chapter 51 Sneakers in Space - backface removal
Chapter 52 Fast 3D Animation: Meet X-Sharp
- a 3d mode-x library by M.A.
Chapter 53 Raw Speed and More
Chapter 54 3D Shading
Chapter 55 Color Modeling in 256-Color Mode
Chapter 56 Pooh and the Space Station
- about texture mapping, the title doesn' tell you much
- speed info
Chapter 57 10,000 Freshly Sheared Sheep on the Screen
- fast, smooth, texture mapping
- fixed point arithmetic
- mapping textures accross multiple polygons
Chapter 58 Heinlein's Crystal Ball, Spock's Brain, and the 9-Cycle Dare
- more texture mapping optimization
Chapter 59 The Idea of BSP Trees
Chapter 60 Compiling BSP Trees
Chapter 61 Frames of Reference
Chapter 62 One Story, Two Rules, and a BSP Renderer
Chapter 63 Floating-Point for Real Trime 3D
Chapter 64 Quake's Visible-Surface Determination
Chapter 65 3D Clipping and Other Thoughts
Chapter 66 Quake's Hidden Surface Removal
Chapter 67 Sorted Spans in Action
Chapter 68 Quakes Lighting Model
Chapter 69 Surface Caching and Quakes Triangle Models
Chapter 70 Quake: A Post-Mortem and a Glimpse into the Future,
(oh my god, that alot of typing...)
You see, what it boils down to is to BUY BOTH THE BOOKS!, if you are really
thinking of getting into 3D ofcourse otherwise skip the Black Books because
you will never get that far unless you are. I don't know if optimization
is of big of a deal since OpenGL and Direct3D I take care of most of the
trouble now, but what doesn't kill you makes you a better programmer.
There is definately alot of tasty chapters in the book. I have a feeling
about 40 people in the group will buy it just because of the word "Quake",
yet you must understand this book is very advanced and it doesn't baby you
through it. If you can't afford this book, you can download alot of the
articles on the net but they are not very fun to look at as you code unless
you want to print them out. Oh, I forgot this book also comes with a CD
that has a copy of Zen of Assembly Language an old book that you can't
really find anymore and the foreward is written by John Carmack.
From Dan Gold...I'm never writing this much again...
Thanks for getting this far...
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From: Michael Bourgeous <Yttren AT netscape DOT net>
To: allegro AT canvaslink DOT com
Subject: Re: [SV: [AL] Requesting 3D tutorial]
Date: Sunday, August 15, 1999 11:07 PM
"Johan Henriksson" <jhe AT epsilon DOT telenordia DOT se> wrote:
> >So my question really is: can anyone tell me where I can find a decent
> >step-by-step 3D tutorial (for Allegro and/or in general)?
>
>
> hehehe. It seems that you don't understand that 3D is quite a big
> subject. I would rather recomend you to get a book instead. Check out
> Abrash 3d (something like that) and The black art 3d games programming.
> Also, if you want to do 3d, Allegro is not the right thing. Either learn
> OpenGL or why not have a look at http://o3engine.cjb.net
>
> Hope it helps, CYA
Johan, don't direct this innocent mind to our crappy engine! O^3 sucks!
Also, "The Black Art of 3D Games Programming" is by André Lamothe. The
good book is "Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book", by
Michael Abrash (you guessed it). It has a little in it about how Quake
works, and a 2d BSP system like DOOM's. Attention: the O^3 project needs
more active coders. Please come join the crew. We should be starting
over soon, this time the right way (OpenGl-based instead of software). If
you know some good stuff about 3d, help us out.
Michael Bourgeous
http://fly.to/sts
yttren AT netscape DOT net
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