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- Verified Buyer
I beg you: do not try to read *any* 3D Game Programming book without checking out this baby first! Really, unless you are a math major already graduating from college, or a very wise industry professional, this book will be useful. For example, I am a second year college student and I already passed ODE, Linear Algebra and Calculus courses, my university is one of the most wildly recognized in Latin America for being very strict on mathematics, physics, and chemistry, so I can say that I feel pretty content with my skills. Still, this book worked wonders for me. Yes, yes, yes, this IS very basic, no doubt, but It's not only about the brute knowledge on mathematics and geometry that's important for graphics programming, but also how to apply those concepts, and why these are important. We all know vectors, we all know linear algebra, but we really don't know how to do AABB vs. plane intersection tests with them do we?I can't even begin to imagine how useful this text would be to high school students. I mean, to be exposed to this material before going to college can only be awesome. They have some basic knowledge of Linear Algebra before even dreaming to taking such a course? Nothing beats that! Well, maybe grabbing a real, fully fledged Lineal Algebra textbook like Grossman's, but nothing beats the fun of knowing you are reading a video game/3D graphics book!!!Furthermore, I read Frank D. Luna's brilliant Introduction to 3D Game Programming in DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach, and had no problem what so ever. I even skipped the "Mathematical Prerequisites" part. THAT's how good this books is!!!There's Dover Book for Ordinary Differential Equations, Grossman for Linear Algebra, Larson for Calculus, Sears-Zemansky for Physics, and there is Fletcher Dunn & Ian Parberry's for an introduction to 3D Math...My only disappointment with this book is that it lacks the answers for one third of the exercises. Oh, and there are a few typo's here and there, buy honestly, what book really doesn't? (Most of the errata is published anyways in the book's site: [...]). I also want to leave this clear one more time: the book is basic in kwoledge, where it excells is in the very clear presentation of that knowledge.
