Game Physics Book

Game Physics
1st edition

1 A Brief History of the World: A Summary of the Topics
2 Basic Concepts
3 Rigid Body Motion
4 Deformable Bodies
5 Physics Engines
6 Physics and Shader Programs
7 Linear Complementarity and Mathematical Programming
8 Differential Equations
9 Numerical Methods
10 Quaternions Appendices A Linear Algebra B Affine Algebra C Calculus D Ordinary Difference Equations

A Summary of the Changes for the 2nd Edition:

Naturally, Chapter 1 (Introduction) will be rewritten based on the contents for the second edition.

The chapter on Physics Engines needs a significant rewrite. The goal will be to describe how to implement a classic rigid-body physics engine. And there will be source code to go with it, illustrating a generic collision detection system to go with the collision response people seem to associate with a physics engine. I will also include a new section on ragdoll physics, and there will be source code to go with this.

I plan on inserting a new chapter (chapter 6 below) that will contain descriptions of various papers of interest in game physics. In particular, I will review publications by Ronald Fedkiw, Jos Stam, and James O'Brien, choosing a few of each to describe and to implement in source code and include on the CDROM for the book. This new material fills the void in the 1st edition - not much discussion of applications of particle systems, fluids, or gases. The chapter on shader programs (old Chapter 6) will be discarded in its entirety.

Chapters 7 through 10 and Appendices A through D form the mathematical heart of the book. The appendices are effectively background material that a reader will be exposed to at a university. The chapters 7 through 10 are more advanced topics. I believe it is reasonable to break the book into two parts:

Part I -The Physics

1 Introduction
2 Basic Concepts
3 Rigid Bodies
4 Deformable Bodies
5 Physics Engines [rigid body concepts]
6 Particles, Fluids, and Gases [deformable body concepts]

Part II -The Mathematics

7 Linear Algebra
8 Affine Algebra
9 Calculus
10 Quaternions
11 Differential Equations
12 Difference Equations
13 Numerical Methods
14 Linear Complementarity and Mathematical Programming

The idea is that Part I is readable immediately by anyone having a reasonable mathematics background. Portions of Part II can be read, as needed.

The chapter on Linear Complementarity will be rewritten to omit the Lemke algorithm, replacing it by a discussion of iterative methods to solve LCP.

The 2nd edition will contain a lot more source code. And, as mentioned previously, we should include CD-ROM icons in the margins to let readers know that there is source code to illustrate the concepts.