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Black Art of 3D Game Programming (1995)

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Re: Black Art of 3D Game Programming (1995)

#11

Post by kevinsync »

I still have this on my shelf and worked through it cover to cover more than once in middle and high school in the 90's. LaMothe was a massive inspiration and, while I'm not totally convinced that these types of project-based instructional books are as relevant in the 2023 world of Github / blogs / etc, I really miss being walked through a complex piece of software from beginning to end with commentary and supporting code in a giant book that you can touch and feel and flip through the pages of.

Also very much worth shouting out Mark DeLoura's 'Game Programming Gems' series -- I'm not sure how it even happened, but I got a chapter published in the first volume while being a 17 year old kid who had zero professional experience in any industry of any kind lol (I just replied to a call for submissions on Gamasutra, was told 'ok code it up and write a paper' and I did. And they printed it!)

Re: Black Art of 3D Game Programming (1995)

#13

Post by SnowProblem »

i_c_b wrote: post #10

Andre LaMothe's prior book, Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus, was literally life changing for me. I was in my late junior or early senior year of high school when it came out. My stepfather had a 386/20 and then later a 486/33, a Borland C compiler, and a generic 700 page "Learn C" book at home, and I had worked all the way through the book. But I couldn't for the life of me figure how in the world to bridge the…

Very similar story here. I was in middle school when the follow-up Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus came out [0]. I read it cover to cover and proceeded to buy as many Premier Press books I could get using money I'd save from doing chores around the house. This wasn't pre-Internet but the best material was by far still in books. My dad would pay $5 per hour so if I worked hard I could buy another book after a weekend of yardwork. Those middle and early high school years were incredible. You could still understand the cutting-edge and a single person could still make something big like RollerCoaster Tycoon or Doom. I made a bunch of games, isometric ones, worlds in D3D and OpenGL, physics sims, learned CS algorithms, made pixel art and 3d models in 3ds max, and even made my way to a game developer's conference as an awkward teenager. The only downside to all this is it pulled me away from schooling. I probably could have gone to a better university and had an easier time the first few years of career had I put just a little more effort into classes, but that's life. No regrets.

[0] https://theswissbay.ch/pdf/Gentoomen%20Library/Game%20Develo....

Re: Black Art of 3D Game Programming (1995)

#14

Post by herodoturtle »

i_c_b wrote: post #10

Andre LaMothe's prior book, Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus, was literally life changing for me. I was in my late junior or early senior year of high school when it came out. My stepfather had a 386/20 and then later a 486/33, a Borland C compiler, and a generic 700 page "Learn C" book at home, and I had worked all the way through the book. But I couldn't for the life of me figure how in the world to bridge the…

Loved reading this, thanks for sharing.

And a shout-out to mode13h. In my case it was BBS and Denthor's tuts that changed my life.

Good times.

Re: Black Art of 3D Game Programming (1995)

#17

Post by ivolimmen »

I owned a copy of this book. I tried a few lines of code but at that point in time it was too difficult for me to fully grasp it. I was still programming in basic at the time and the leap to a different language was too big. I do regret throwing it away...

Re: Black Art of 3D Game Programming (1995)

#18

Post by projectileboy »

wk_end wrote: post #5
projectileboy wrote: post #3

This pops up on HN every few months, and I don’t even mind. At a minimum, read the last couple chapters on the development of Quake. So fun.

Pretty sure you're thinking of Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book (understandable). Abrash was a developer on Quake and the GPBB has a couple of chapters on it at the end IIRC. Whereas: this book was written by André LaMothe, who did not work on Quake. It predates Quake and AFAIK doesn't mention it.

Oh no you are right! My mistake - my first “real” programming job was at a game studio in 1997, and I devoured both of these books (well, and more, including Expert C Programming by Peter van der Linden). Great books.

Re: Black Art of 3D Game Programming (1995)

#19

Post by pixelpoet »

herodoturtle wrote: post #14
i_c_b wrote: post #10

Andre LaMothe's prior book, Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus, was literally life changing for me. I was in my late junior or early senior year of high school when it came out. My stepfather had a 386/20 and then later a 486/33, a Borland C compiler, and a generic 700 page "Learn C" book at home, and I had worked all the way through the book. But I couldn't for the life of me figure how in the world to bridge the…

Loved reading this, thanks for sharing. And a shout-out to mode13h. In my case it was BBS and Denthor's tuts that changed my life. Good times.

As someone who grew up in similar circumstances in the 90s but in South Africa (no home internet, no books, no friends no help at all) and then finally found Denthor of Asphyxia's tutorials (as well as PCGPE and eventually Huge), I was super gutted to find there wasn't really a South African graphics coding scene, it was basically just him :/

Mode 13h changed my life and set me on the course to being a graphics coder today (along with an email from John Carmack!), it's been such an amazing ride with hardware getting exponentially faster every year (RIP to that). I ought to get mov ax, 13h; int 10h tattooed along with 0xa0000, 0x3c8, 0x3c9 or something :)

Re: Black Art of 3D Game Programming (1995)

#20

Post by gdubs »

i_c_b wrote: post #10

Andre LaMothe's prior book, Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus, was literally life changing for me. I was in my late junior or early senior year of high school when it came out. My stepfather had a 386/20 and then later a 486/33, a Borland C compiler, and a generic 700 page "Learn C" book at home, and I had worked all the way through the book. But I couldn't for the life of me figure how in the world to bridge the…

I have such nostalgia for that particular moment in time, and for me it was the Renderman Companion and Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques. The web was still small, and the information density contained in Borders Books or Barnes & Nobel was just completely immersive. Lots of snowy Saturday trips to the mall with my parents and negotiating the purchase of another hefty computer book.
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