Physics for game developers

Reviewed by Alex Restrepo

Physics for game developers by David M. Bourg teaches you most of the basic physics needed to create illusion of reality in a modern game.

This book is well written and gives the impression that you're attending to a college physics class, where the teacher is guiding you through the process of learning.

The book does assume that you have a strong background in calculus. The first half of the book will mostly dig into equations, integrals and all the math behind the physics in the book. You could however, simply skip all derivations and integrals and just take note of the final equations, which, in general, are a lot simpler. But if you want to fully understand the book you will need to sit down and think about the math.

First, the author introduces you most of the concepts used in the book, and from them he starts to explain kinematics, force, kinetics and collisions, giving you all the foundation for the latter chapters of the book in which you will find practical examples and applications to the subjects covered. In the end you will find yourself writing a rather complete physics simulator.

The code in the book is in C++ (as well as the examples ready to download), however you can turn the code easily to any other language, and adapt it to your particular application.

In general a very useful book, a great reference in the world of physics and how to implement them accurately in a computer, also as a place to find numerical solutions to some mathematical problems. Really worth the reading.