Recommended CG books (submit yours)

[ShadowM8]

A great begginers book would be the 3D Math Primer for Graphics and game Development by Fletcher Dunn. Covers all the major concepts behind 3D Math quite indepth.

And on a sidenote if you want a stronger graps of your traditional skills this is a handy little book to have called: Perspective Made Easy by Ernest Norling.

[ThE_JacO]

A great begginers book would be the 3D Math Primer for Graphics and game Development by Fletcher Dunn. Covers all the major concepts behind 3D Math quite indepth.

And on a sidenote if you want a stronger graps of your traditional skills this is a handy little book to have called: Perspective Made Easy by Ernest Norling.

it would be easy if you could describe why and what you liked in the book you reccomend.
IE, staying in the realm of maths for CG:
Essential Mathematics for Computer Graphics Fast
is a book I often reccomend because it's well written, introduces linear algebra and some basic algorithmical solutions with a direct application to CG and without overcomplicating anything, and is written in such way that it's half reference and half teaching.
it also focuses on the abstract concepts and their visual representation, so it doesn't require any other knowledge (like coding) to be fruible.

3D Math Primer for Graphics and game Development
is a book I read (bought it by mistake) and found quite bad actually.
Not too surprising from wordware anyway, they seldomly have good editing and revision work on their books it seems.
the concepts are explained only half the way, in more depth then Vince's book in most cases, but usually starting in the middle somewhere.
the author gets lost very easily, and the book is advertised as a maths book but is actually in the form of a coding primer, guiding the reader through the process of writing his own C++ libraries to perform some operations.
it basically sits on a fence, being too shallow and badly written to be a good coding book, and too tangled and random to be a good maths for beginners book.
I'm definitely not a PhD in maths, but I know enough linear algebra and C++ to cruise through a book like this, and found a fair few mistakes, some in the path he's decided to take to teach (very bad progression through the subjects), but most in the presentation.

I'd rather reccomend Vince's book and the addition of a good programming book over math primer any day of the year.

after that you can gradually move up to
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mathematics-3D-Game-Programming-Computer-Graphics/dp/1584502770/sr=1-12/qid=1156907387/ref=sr_1_12/202-5383847-4859021?ie=UTF8&s=books
Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics
which focuses on a mix of pseudocode and practical code examples, and yet provides the background maths with full on proof, and has more hands on real world examples (camera handling, particle sprites etc.)
it's a very good book, with a ton of practical knowledge in it and some brilliant work done on stringing it together, but it's definitely too hard to stomach for the uninitiated and it does assume you have knowledge of some fundamentals.
it's basically a good book to tie together and deepen your knowledge after you scratched the surface with some other more basic books.

Beginning Math and Physics for Game Programmers
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beginning-Math-Physics-Game-Programmers/dp/0735713901/ref=pd_sbs_b_4/202-5383847-4859021?ie=UTF8
has been reccomended by a few people I'd trust, and would roughly be placed in tier two, together with the previous one, but I haven't personally read it nor intend to, so you'll have to find somebody else for first hand reviews.

Computer Graphics: Mathematical First Steps
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Graphics-Mathematical-First-Steps/dp/0135995728/ref=pd_sim_b_2/202-5383847-4859021?ie=UTF8
same as the above

there's a couple more worth mentioning, but amazon's search engine, which used to rock, apparently now sucks sweaty donkey testicles, so I'll have to post when, and if, I find the titles.

[JDex]

The Art and Science of Digital Compositing (http://www.amazon.com/-Art-Science-Digital/dp/0121339602/sr=1-1/qid=1156909034/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2995754-2962229?ie=UTF8&s=books) by Ron Brinkmann
The Good Book of Ron. I've only made it through about 65 pages and have already learned a ton that has helped me with the FXTree (and compositing/PS work as well) and it has given me deeper insight into what to consider when building out multi-pass renders.


Matchmoving: The Invisible Art of Camera Tracking (http://www.amazon.com/Matchmoving-Invisible/dp/0782144039/sr=1-1/qid=1156909197/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2995754-2962229?ie=UTF8&s=books) by Tim Dobbert
Must have if you'll be doing any camera match work... I can't speak from experience (yet) but many of my fellow Pixel Corps members recommend this book constantly.


Digital Lighting and Rendering (2nd Edition) (http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Lighting-/dp/0321316312/sr=1-1/qid=1156909285/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2995754-2962229?ie=UTF8&s=books) by Jeremy Birn
The Good Book of Birn. Must read material if you do any CG lighting. Recently updated.

I'll add more later... my collection is all packed up.

[Sbowling]

Not trying to steal this thread, but does anyone have any good recommendations on jscripting books? I've looked through amazon and pretty much haven't seen anything. Something that is a good reference and somewhat relative to XSi would be great. Most of what I've foud regarding Jscript and VBscript seem mostly related to dealing with the web and don't seem to translate over to XSI very well.

[ThE_JacO]

JS and VBS are languages that always revolved around the web and, eventually, very, very minimal system side work. The consequence is that all you find for them, with the possible exception of a reference like the nutshell series, is pretty much useless.

Python on the other hand is being used for a number of things, has a large 3rd party support that takes many forms, and only recently made it to some prominence for weboriented applications, which is why you have masterfully written books for mid-beginner stages like "learning python", and some more extensive and challenging literature (although presently outdated) like programming python.

Not that you would really -need- any, considering the amount and quality of resources you can find online.

your only bet at present time is the O'Reilly Javascript book and Helge's scripting dvds from 3dtutorial.com
the rest you'll have to figure out yourself, unless you switch to python (which I won't discuss further to avoid derailing this thread).

[mr Bob]

Essential renderman fast
Advanced RenderMan creating CGI for motion Pictures
Any book on MEL ( your going to need it at some point )

Film Directing shot by shot Visualizing from concept to screen

It all depends where you want to go with your career.If youwant to be a lighter/shader TD knowing renderman is a must.There's nothing better than the sdk and HTML help .If you want to learn a thing or 2 read that at bed time !

B

[solarflare]

I am reading this:
http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Mathematics-/dp/155860863X/sr=8-3/qid=1156962375/ref=pd_bbs_3/002-4201635-5395211?ie=UTFE
Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications: A programmers Guide

It seems to be good (I am about 1/3 the way through), but I think it would be similar to the Mathematics for 3d Game Programmers that Jaco recommended. Has anyone used both of these able to compare them? I saw them both in the book store and looked through them for a bit and finally decided on the one I posted. Mainly it appeared to be a bit more technical, and it also had nice glossy paper :).

I have a pretty good mathematical background, but not much in the way of programming or 3d, so this book has been very helpful. The authors spend a lot of time introducing the math and terminology, but they also focus on algorithms (a lot of stuff done in C++), and speed. For example, they talk about several ways of doing the same operation on a matrix, and point out why you would use one algorithm in one case, and the other in a different case (based on speed and simplification).

[mocaw]

Film Directing shot by shot Visualizing from concept to screen



I like going with that book for a traditional and informative stance, and coupling it with the DVD series on camera work here:

http://www.hollywoodcamerawork.us/

I guess, like you said though, it depends on who you are and what your focus is as to if these will be relevant.

[Atyss]

Essential Mathematics for Computer Graphics Fast
is a book I often reccomend because it's well written, introduces linear algebra and some basic algorithmical solutions with a direct application to CG and without overcomplicating anything, and is written in such way that it's half reference and half teaching.
it also focuses on the abstract concepts and their visual representation, so it doesn't require any other knowledge (like coding) to be fruible.

3D Math Primer for Graphics and game Development
is a book I read (bought it by mistake) and found quite bad actually.
Not too surprising from wordware anyway, they seldomly have good editing and revision work on their books it seems.
the concepts are explained only half the way, in more depth then Vince's book in most cases, but usually starting in the middle somewhere.
the author gets lost very easily, and the book is advertised as a maths book but is actually in the form of a coding primer, guiding the reader through the process of writing his own C++ libraries to perform some operations.
it basically sits on a fence, being too shallow and badly written to be a good coding book, and too tangled and random to be a good maths for beginners book.
I'm definitely not a PhD in maths, but I know enough linear algebra and C++ to cruise through a book like this, and found a fair few mistakes, some in the path he's decided to take to teach (very bad progression through the subjects), but most in the presentation.



Mathematical/technical correctness aside, I found Essential Mathematics [...] Fast way too *FAST*. In fact I didn't even finish it. Keep in mind I fall in the category of severely math impaired, I could barely pass a pre-school exam with success. Somehow visualizing vectors is almost impossible for me, so we're not even going to talk about matrices. Hell, even a SIN function is still something extremely abstract to me......

I found most of the concepts barely explained, and their purpose not clear. Some examples are extremely confusing (like those under Compound Angles). I found the examples under "Cartesian Vectors", "Scalar Products" and "Vector Product" to be amazingly undrinkable. The use of single letters like to describe variables and constants makes things very difficult to absorb. I felt many examples needed comments line by line, which was not the case.

In the end I was so frustrated that I turned to the 3D Math Primer book and got much higher satisfaction. I wasn't interested into the C++ examples so I will not comment on those. I liked very much the structure and the approach of the 3D Math Primer book, I think it was much more suited for someone that sucks at maths like me. No matter how correct or incorrect is the information delivered in the book, I think it is a much better approach to teaching.

It is clear that the Essential [] Fast book will please those already very familiar with the concepts presented, which was not my case.


My two cents
Bernard

[ThE_JacO]

I'm not gonna argue a single line of what you wrote, as we're still in the realm of personal opinions and there's no way I can argue yours :)
the only comment I'd have is that I've pimped essential maths to at least 20 people I'm still in touch with, and right now from where I sit I can see it on the desks of half a dozen people around me, every single person thought it was just perfect, and most of them didn't even know much about plain algebra before picking it up.

So, while the primer might work better for some people (it's very process oriented, which might have been what you liked, but it sure isn't a math -primer-), saying essential maths is for those with prior knowledge only is definitely misleading.

as for "variables" being one letter only... duh, that's the way standard math language for these things works :) every book will present you the formulaic approach like that, but we're really talking year5 education there mate.
if you had to define such thing by a verbose naming the result would be utterly unreadable (it's been tried).

Even compositors picked it up and loved it over here, and it's quickly becoming almost as much of a staple as advanced renderman in the places I've worked for.

[Strang]

i have "Essential Mathematics for Computer Graphics Fast". its on my desk and i use it for reference on a regular basis. but it doesn't have good "Application". sure it tells you exactly how to do matrix multiplication, vector addition, etc but why would you want to do these?

there should be more examples that use objects in 3d or 2d space. like rotation of objects to point to other objects, positiong object perpendicular to other objects, and maybe even surfaces...

but i still like the book

[LePetitNick]

I hate doing this but I have to agree with Raff. X-P
The book is very complete, explains all the concepts very clearly and consisely and is really easy to read and digest. It helped me get my first ray-tracing/collision detection algos going in no time and made it heaps of fun at the same time. If you've been to school at least till year 5 and can read and understand words with more than 1 syllable and vaguely comprehend the concepts of addition, substraction, multiplication and division*, you will really enjoy this book and learn heaps.

*minimum requirements

[Atyss]

JacO you won't argue with me but yet you're kind of passionate about this book.... ;-)



>>> saying essential maths is for those with prior knowledge only is definitely misleading.

Not whatsoever. You've just forgotten how though it was to start with this.



>>> as for "variables" being one letter only... duh, that's the way standard math language for these things works :) every book will present you the formulaic approach like that, but we're really talking year5 education there mate.
if you had to define such thing by a verbose naming the result would be utterly unreadable (it's been tried).

So it works in programming but not in maths, yet these books are intended to programmers?

Anyway I always thought single letter names are confusing, especially for a specialized language such a maths.
EDIT: I'm not saying that single letter convention should be dropped. If it is the most convenient approach than so be it. What I'm saying is that *teaching-wise*, extra steps must be taken to clarify *without the shadow of a doubt* their purpose. I didn't feel that was the case with the book we're talking about.


And Nick, not everyone is as good as you as picking maths. Don't forget it.



Bernard

[NRG-Alpha]

i have "Essential Mathematics for Computer Graphics Fast". its on my desk and i use it for reference on a regular basis. but it doesn't have good "Application". sure it tells you exactly how to do matrix multiplication, vector addition, etc but why would you want to do these?

If I understand correctly, things like vetor math and matrix math is fundamental in 3d programming.. Perhaps it may (or may not) be useful in writing simple little scripts, but if someone is to be involved in full blown 3d programming, well, I think one would need to understand these concepts if they are to sucessfully deploy them in 3d development.

I for one am very syched about receiving this book. I have very little base knowledge about the science behind 3d or cg. Sure, I personally have no intentions on coding 3d apps or the like, and I don't know how much of the knowledge contained within the book will help out with scripting (as this very much depends on what scripting you do).. but this extra knowledge can't hurt, and may well prove useful for alot of people.

Cheers,

NRG

[ThE_JacO]

If I understand correctly, things like vetor math and matrix math is fundamental in 3d programming.. Perhaps it may (or may not) be useful in writing simple little scripts, but if someone is to be involved in full blown 3d programming, well, I think one would need to understand these concepts if they are to sucessfully deploy them in 3d development.

there is a common misconception that linear algebra is hard to learn and only useful for hardcore scripting and above.
nothing could be further from the truth, more people then not pick up the concepts in a matter of days, as it's one the most visual and elegant disciplines, with such tight and relevant links to 3D that it benefits anybody from modellers to programmers.

knowing the basics helps understanding everything from shapes and deformers to more complex operations.

there really is no valid excuse to not pick it up.

[Strang]

If I understand correctly, things like vetor math and matrix math is fundamental in 3d programming.. Perhaps it may (or may not) be useful in writing simple little scripts, but if someone is to be involved in full blown 3d programming, well, I think one would need to understand these concepts if they are to sucessfully deploy them in 3d development.

The book is useful to me, it is i just i think it could use more examples pertaining to the stuff i am trying to do in 3d. i still suggest this book and am happy with the purchase

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