Game programming books...

As a Prima author, I think I should comment. They have insisted that all books in the series which use Windows and DirectX cover the basics of programming in each. Even my book, which uses OpenGL, also covers DirectInput and DirectSound (mainly because they wanted us to show people how to use them together). Honestly, I completely agree with the sentiment that this is a series, so repeating the same material in every book is excessive, but there''s nothing I can do about it. I guess their justification is that most of these books are going to be bought by people with little or no game programming knowledge, so we need to make as few assumptions as possible about what the reader already knows.

Also, to nitpick a bit, Mason, the author of the special effects book, doesn''t help run GameDev.net. He has written for us and helped us cover conferences, and is a very valuable contributor, but he is not currently on the staff.

As the other author of the OpenGL book, I can support what Dave has said about the first bits. But really, the first 3 chapters of the book (if I remember right) are an intro to OpenGL and DX, the basics of Windows programming (really just enough to get you going with OpenGL), and an overview of 3D graphics theory (on a need-to-know basis). Then you get into OpenGL specific topics for the next 10 or so chapters including a chapter on particles and other special effects, before we go into DInput and DX Audio for a chapter each. I did the DX Audio chapter, and I can tell you that I covered very little on sound theory. We cut out DPlay due to time. Then we do some model loading, physics modeling, and finally a simple game engine and the final game itself. I guess I basically just told the overview of the table of contents.

But anyway, while this is a series, we have been required to cover certain topics. I can''t comment on the quality of the book, because I honestly haven''t seen one of the already released books. For that same reason, I can''t comment on how the other authors explained things in their books. But what they did in the D3D book as the AP mentioned is "not the right way", so I can understand frustration on your part.

Kevin

p.s. If we took out the first 3 chapters, DInput, and DX Audio chapters, then we''d only lose about 150 pages in MS Word out of about 750. I don''t know what that equates to in the book format, though.

Alright, I saw the Linux Game Programming book (by Godfree) at the bookstore last night, and I actually have to disagree with the complaints here...I thought the paper was like any other book paper (maybe not as thick as say TOTWGPG, but still good), I thought the code font might have been a little big, but definitely not horrendous. To rephrase that, I thought the code font was readable. The book''s page art was very "techie", which I think relates to game developers. The headings font might be a little too techie, but it''s not that bad. All in all, I was actually pleased, and I''m looking very forward to seeing how my book looks sitting on the shelf in the bookstore.

Kevin