A s you surf the Internet, learning how to make the next big 3D game, you inevitably come across references to “matrices” and “vectors”. If you have not had the pleasure of taking any math courses beyond high school, you… читать далее

Now, after all that, you get to learn about the coolest thing in quater­nions: interpolation. Interpolation is very important when working with 3D models. Imagine that you are working on a game that includes enemies who patrol an area, back… читать далее

A s I browse various Internet forums, read mailing lists, and even just talk to various people about 3D models, this format seems to come up a lot. The questions “How do I load 3ds models?” and “How do I… читать далее

You know all about matrices now, so you can move on to the second concept, vectors. Vectors are one-dimensional arrays of numbers. In 3D graphics and games, most vectors have two, three, or even four compo­nents, one for each axis,… читать далее

Now that you have a nice, textured model, you can start writing the code to animate it onscreen. Animation of a keyframed model such as an MD2 essentially involves drawing the frames one after another. You can take the approach… читать далее

‘ NOTE ^ Euler angles are probably the most familiar, and in most cases, the most practical way to represent the orientation of an object. A set of three Euler angles specifies the rotation around each axis, X, Y, and… читать далее

Look at your arm. Extend your limb out in front of you and take a look at it. Your arm has several bones, two main ones, and a bunch more in your hand and fingers. Move your fingers around, just… читать далее

Just what is a matrix you ask? Well, simply put, a matrix is a rectangular array of numbers. A few examples of matrices are shown in Figure 1.1. You know what they look like, but just what are they good… читать далее

Figure 2.9 A 2D representation of what SLERP and LERP do. SLERP interpolates along the arc of the circle, whereas LERP interpolates along a straight line from start to finish. Linear interpolation is by far the easier of the two… читать далее

J ust about everyone has played, or at least seen, Half-Life. This groundbreaking game from VALVe software became an instant success, eventually spawning the insanely popular counter-terrorism mod Counter-Strike (www. counter-strike. net). Figure 8.1 shows Half-Life in action. Figure 8.1… читать далее