Barnes & Noble.com - Used Books: Game Coding Complete, by Mike McSaffry, Paperback

Synopsis

Game Coding Complete, Second Edition is the essential hands-on guide to developing commercial quality games written by master game programmer, Mike McSahffry. This must-have second edition has been expanded from the bestselling first edition to include the absolute latest in exciting new techniques in game interface design programming, game audio programming, game scripting, 3D programming, network game programming and gam engine technology. All of the code in the book has been completely updated to work with all of the latest compiler technology.

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Biography

Mike McShaffry, a.k.a. aMr. Mike,a started programming games as soon as he could tap a keyboard. After graduating from the University of Houston, he worked for Warren Spector and Richard Garriott, a.k.a. aLord British,a at Origin Systems on Martian Dreams, Ultima VII:The Black Gate, Ultima VIII: Pagan, Ultima IX: Ascension, and Ultima Online. Seven years later he formed his first company, Tornado Alley. Mike later accepted a position at Glass Eye Entertainment, working for his friend Monty Kerr, where he produced Microsoft Casino. Ten months later, Monty asked Mike and his newly assembled team to start their own company called Compulsive Development, which would work exclusively with Microsoft on casual casino and card games. Mike served as the Head of Studio, and together with the rest of the Compulsive folks, produced three more casual titles for Microsoft until August 2002. Compulsive was acquired by Glass Eye Entertainment to continue work on Glass Eyeas growing online casual games business. Mike was later recruited to start an Austin studio for Maryland-based Breakaway Games. Mike is currently self-employed, helping teams build a positive, creative and energetic environment so they can do what they do best - make great games.

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From the Publisher

Mike McShaffry's first edition of "Game Coding complete rapidly became one of the top-selling game programming books and was widely praised by readers around the world. The best description of the first edition comes from two Amazon reviewers; the first proclaiming, "I got the same feeling of enlightenment when reading this one as I did all those years ago when I read the classic book "Code Complete" and the second stating "This is the first game book I have read that I was sorry when I got to the end because there wasn't any more." For "Game Coding Complete, Second Edition, McShaffry returns with many more of his highly popular, shoot-from the hips war stories and expert game programming insight that only a real insider could provide. McShaffry uses his experience as a leading programmer for Origin Systems, Microsoft, and Ion Storm a division of Eidos, to illustrate real-world techniques and solutions, including examples from his recent work on the major game, Thief Deadly Shadows. "Game Coding Complete, Second Edition takes programmers through the complete process of developing a professional quality game using hundreds of insider tricks and techniques developed and perfect by the author from over a decade of game development experience. It covers a range of topics that will appeal to the most discriminating programmers such as key "gotcha" issues that could trip up even veteran programmers. The new edition features expanded coverage of 3D programming, several new chapters on game interface design, game audio, game scripting, game engine technology, code optimization, production and scheduling, plus it now includes a CD-ROM packed with valuable source code and game developmenttools.The appendix offers solid advice on starting your own game company. The C++ language is used to explain specific programming concepts with added discussion of development with C# and Managed DirectX programming.

Details from Seller

ISBN: 1932111913
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Pub. Date: February 2005
Condition:

Comments from the Seller: USA 2005 Soft Cover 2nd, 2005 Fine 906 pages in soft cover the 2005, 2nd edition in fine condition. Appears unused. Looks brand new.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	xiv
	Introduction	xviii
Chapter 1	The Unique World of Game Programming	1
	The Good	2
	The Bad	9
	The Ugly	13
	It's All Worth It, Right?	17
Chapter 2	What's in a Game?	19
	Game Architecture	20
	Applying the Game Architecture	22
	Application Layer	24
	Game Logic	29
	Game View for the Human Player	34
	Game Views for AI Agents	39
	Networked Game Architecture	40
	Do I Have to Use DirectX?	42
	Other Bits and Pieces	47
Chapter 3	Coding Tidbits and Style That Saved My Butt	49
	Smart Design Practices	50
	Smart Pointers and Naked Pointers	58
	Using Memory Correctly	63
	Mike's Grab Bag of Useful Stuff	76
	Developing the Style That's Right for You	90
Chapter 4	Building Your Game	91
	A Little Motivation	91
	Creating a Project	92
	Source Code Repositories and Version Control	100
	Building the Game: A Black Art?	108
	Creating Build Scripts	111
	Multiple Projects and Shared Code	115
Chapter 5	Game Initialization	119
	Initialization 101	120
	Some C++ Initialization Pitfalls	120
	The Game's Application Layer	126
	Stick the Landing: A Nice Clean Exit	148
	Getting In and Getting Out	156
Chapter 6	Controlling the Main Loop	159
	Inside the Main Loop	159
	A Base Class for Game Logic	181
	Can I Make a Game Yet?	183
Chapter 7	Loading and Caching Game Data	185
	Game Resources: Formats and Storage Requirements	186
	Resource Files	198
	The Resource Cache	212
	World Design and Cache Prediction	223
	I'm Out of Cache	227
Chapter 8	Programming Input Devices	229
	Getting the Device State	229
	A Few Safety Tips	235
	Working with the Mouse (and Joystick)	238
	Working with a Game Controller	244
	Working with the Keyboard	251
	What, No Dance Pad?	256
Chapter 9	User Interface Programming	259
	The Human's Game View	260
	More Control Properties	286
	Some Final User Interface Tips	287
Chapter 10	Programming Sprites and Fonts	289
	The Art of 2D Drawing with DirectX	289
	2D Drawing Under DirectDraw	296
	2D Drawing in a 3D World with DirectX 9	312
	Graphics Files Formats	337
	Conclusion	338
Chapter 11	Game Events and Scripting Languages	341
	Game Events	342
	Game Scripting Languages	372
	SendEvent("chapter_done")	383
Chapter 12	Game Audio	385
	How Sound Works	385
	Game Sound System Architecture	391
	Other Technical Hurdles	424
	Some Random Notes	429
	The Last Dance	434
	3D Graphics Pipeline	435
Chapter 13	3D Basics	435
	3D Math 101	436
	Enough Math-Please Stop	458
	3D Graphics-It's Just the Beginning	476
Chapter 14	3D Scenes	477
	C++ Math Classes	477
	Scene Graph Basics	490
	What's Missing?	533
	3D Engines That the Games Industry Uses	534
	Still Hungry?	538
Chapter 15	Collision and Simple Physics	539
	Mathematics for Physics Refresher	540
	Choosing a Physics SDK	547
	Object Properties	549
	Collision Hulls	550
	Using a Collision System	556
	Integrating a Physics SDK	558
	But Wait, There's So Much More	581
Chapter 16	Network Programming for Multiplayer Games	583
	How the Internet Works	583
	Making a Multiplayer Game with Sockets	603
	Gosh, If It's That Easy	636
Chapter 17	Special Consideration for Developing Windows Games	637
	What About Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC)?	639
	What About C#?	642
	Windowed Mode and Full-Screen Mode	643
	Operating System Specific Stuff	657
	"Designed for Windows XP" Logo Program	660
	Conclusion	687
Chapter 18	Debugging Your Game	689
	The Art of Handling Failure	690
	Debugging Basics	692
	Debugging Techniques	707
	Different Kinds of Bugs	723
	Parting Thoughts	734
Chapter 19	A Game of Teapot Wars!	735
	Game Actors	737
	Game Events	740
	The Game Logic	745
	The Game View for a Human Player	756
	The AI View and Listener	770
	The Rest Is Up to You	774
Chapter 20	The Art of Scheduling	775
	Good Schedules, Bad Schedules	776
	The Key to All Schedules: Milestones	777
	Things to Know Before Scheduling Begins	790
	Creating the Schedule	796
	Getting It Right	809
Chapter 21	Everything (You Hate) to Know About Testing	811
	Why Are Games Buggy?	811
	Test Plans	814
	Scheduling Testing	825
	Automated Testing	826
	The Bug Database	835
	Which Bugs Get Fixed?	846
	Statistical Analysis of Your Bug Database	851
	The Testing Team	854
	The Public Beta	855
	A Final Word	857
Chapter 22	Driving to the Finish	859
	Finishing Issues	860
	Dealing with Big Trouble	869
	The Light-It's Not a Train After All	880
	Index	885

Game Coding Complete by Mike McSaffry, Keith Weiskamp

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