With over 60 all new techniques, Game Programming Gems 4 continues to be the definitive resource for developers. Written by expert game developers who make today’s amazing games, these articles not only provide quick solutions to cutting-edge problems, but they provide insights that you’ll return to again and again. They’ll spark your creativity and inspire your own discoveries.

For the past few years, the game industry has been on an incredible journey of exploration and innovation. In conjunction with this journey, the scope of the Game Programming Gems series has broadened as well. With the variety of new platforms available, coverage has been expanded to include alternative languages and third party APIs. Most code is written in C++, but some interpreted languages (Java and Python) are also represented. The graphics articles make use of OpenGL, DirectX, and the various available shader languages. Volume 4 also includes an all new physics section that teaches innovative techniques for implementing real-time physics that will help you create emergent gameplay. To make searching between all four volumes of the series easy and efficient, we have added a cumulative index.

This new volume is a definite must-have resource for every game programmer’s library!

Section Editors:
Chris Corry, General Programming
Jonathan Blow, Mathematics
Graham Rhodes, Physics
Paul Tozour, Artificial Intelligence
Alex Vlachos, Graphics
Pete Isensee, Network & Multiplayer
Eddie Edwards, Audio

Section Highlights:

General Programming: the science of debugging games, large cross-platform libraries, generic tree container in C++, weak references and null objects, system for managing game entities

Mathematics: using the Mersenne Twister, extracting frustum and camera information, solving accuracy problems in large world coordinates, using the covariance matrix for better fitting bounding objects

Physics (New): algorithms for combat killing, vehicle physics simulation for CPU-limited systems, constraints in rigid body dynamics, interactive water surfaces

Artificial Intelligence: third-person camera navigation, using AI to enhance dramatic tension, NPC decision making, distributed-reasoning voting architecture

Graphics: GPU shadow volume construction for non-closed meshes, perspective shadow maps, shadow buffers, motion capture data compression, terrain occlusion culling with horizons

Network & Multiplayer: efficient MMP game state storage, application of parallel-state machines in a client-server environment, bit packing, time and consistency management for multi-server based MMORPGs

Audio: introduction to OpenAL, real-time lip synching, dynamic variables and audio programming, controlling real-time sound synthesis from game physics

On The CD-ROM
The CD-ROM is packed with source code and listings from the book and demos to compliment the articles. Windows demos were compiled using Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 (.dsw files) or Microsoft Visual C++ 7.0 (.sln files). OpenGL utility Toolkit (GLUT v3.7.6), Sun’s J2SE, and Microsoft DirectX 9 SDK are also included.

System Requirements
Windows®: Intel® Pentium® series, AMD Athlon or newer processor, Windows® 98 (64MB RAM) or Windows® 2000 (128MB RAM) or later required. 3D graphics card recommended for optimal performance. DirectX® 9 and GLUT 3.7 or newer are also required. For Linux systems you will also need the Linux kernel 2.4.x or later, XFree86 4.0, and OpenGL driver, glibc 2.1 or newer. Mesa can be used in place of 3D hardware support.

CONTRIBUTORS
Marwan Y. Ansari
Jonathan Blow
James Boer
Paul Bragiel
Warrick Buchanan
Bill Budge
Waldemar Celes
Chris Corry
Carsten Dachsbacher
Mark DeLoura
Shekhar Dhupelia
Thomas Di Giacomo
Michael Dougherty
George Drettakis
Eddie Edwards
David Etherton
Glenn Fiedler
Peter Freese
Bert Freudenberg
Paul Glinker
Mario Grimani
John Hancock
Søren Hannibal
Matthew Harmon
Oliver Heim
Jim Hejl
Pete Isensee
Toby Jones
Andrew Kirmse
Adam Lake
Jay Lee
Noel Llopis
Thomas Lowe
Frank Luchs
Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann
Carl S. Marshall
Adam Martin
Maic Masuch
Dave McCoy
Ádám Moravánszky
Frederic My
Chris Oat
James F. O'Brien
John M. Olsen
Marcin Pancewicz
Kurt Pelzer
Borut Pfeifer
Karén Pivazyan
Nick Porcino
Mark T. Price
Matt Pritchard
Justin Quimby
Steve Rabin
Graham Rhodes
Thomas Rolfes
Greg Seegert
Larry Shi
Jake Simpson
Roger Smith
Russ Smith
Marco Spoerl
Marc Stamminger
Jonathan Stone
Don Stoner
Thomas Strothotte
Natalya Tatarchuk
Pierre Terdiman
Jerry Tessendorf
Paul Tozour
Joe Valenzuela
Jim Van Verth
Scott Velasquez
Alex Vlachos
Tao Zhang