Fifth Edition?

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    • RE: Fifth Edition?

      That's a great question. I can tell you that if you look at history, eventually there will be a fifth edition of Game Coding Complete - but as to exactly when that happens is a bit murky.

      The 4th edition is still only about 16 months old, so if you look at the other books it has quite a bit of life left in it.

      The composition of the 5th edition has lots of likely additions - not the least of which could be mobile, but boned character animation is also a huge missing link in my opinion, as are many other important game technologies.

      The already arm bending size of the 4th edition is pressing both readers and the publishers limits on page count, so getting enough content in there for a respectable few chapters on mobile development might be a challenge. Perhaps it needs it's own book. :)

      Of course, there is the issue of getting time to do it too! It may surprise everyone, but Rez and I are crunching just like most other game developers out there, and hardly have time to do laundry. But, that does change with time.
      Mr.Mike
      Author, Programmer, Brewer, Patriot
    • Originally posted by rickvanprim
      That's a thought Mike, you could do a sequel instead of a new edition. Basically taking all of the "basic" concepts of GCC 4th edition, and then adding to it, such as porting to mobile, bone character animation, profiling tools, etc.

      James


      You could have a series, lol. GCCM (mobile), GCCPC, GCCC (console), GCCF (facebook).
    • I love that idea - now all we have to do is get some fool to do the work.

      :)
      Mr.Mike
      Author, Programmer, Brewer, Patriot
    • I pitched an idea a while back about doing a book based on the GCC architecture that really focused on gameplay. It would go through half a dozen common game genres and talk about how they are generally implemented. Some genres might be Platformer, First-Person Shooter, Real-Time Strategy, Turn-Based Strategy, RPG, and Simulation. When I was first starting out, I would have killed for a book like this.

      -Rez
    • I'd buy that :D
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    • I pitched an idea a while back about doing a book based on the GCC architecture that really focused on gameplay. It would go through half a dozen common game genres and talk about how they are generally implemented. Some genres might be Platformer, First-Person Shooter, Real-Time Strategy, Turn-Based Strategy, RPG, and Simulation. When I was first starting out, I would have killed for a book like this.


      Gameplay Coding Complete? Sounds awesome!
    • If i sat down i could probably think of a longer list. The only request that immediately comes to mind would be refactoring the SceneGraph to use an OcTree. Not that complicated and would probably take 3 pages max to discuss in the book.


      If you two are looking to take GCC in a different direction here's my 2 cents.

      If you guys somehow found the free time (probably a lot of time) and
      If your publisher crunched the numbers and determined this was worth your effort and
      IF you guys were so inclined
      what I think would be fantastic would be for you two (plus some help probably) to sit down and seriously rebuild GCC so that it is a low-end professional grade engine instead of a high-end educational engine. Honestly, GCC is probably the highest quality learning engine out there and with enough effort I think it could be both that and usable for professional projects as well. Specifically, I think it would be wonderful if for the Fifth edition you

      1) Massively updated/debugged the code base, GCC2 perhaps? Would be nice if GCC2 built for desktop windows/linux and mobile devices. If you were bonified bad-asses you could include instructions to easily convert to PS4 also. You Might actually be able to negotiate with Sony to semi-support this since they supposedly genuinely want serious indie-dev on the PS4. I've never negotiated with Sony before so that might be crazy talk though ;)

      2) Allow purchasing GCC licenses so titles can be published with GCC. One of the biggest complaints that everyone has about UDK, Unity, etc... is that you don't have access to native. GCC could be that engine.

      But as mentioned above, that would be ALOT of work, so I doubt we'll see this any time soon....
    • I personally think although that would be really cool, would be way outside of the scope of what I thought GCC was meant to be, I think if the source code doesn't cleanly match the book for the most part newbies will get confused, can you imagine for every 1 referenced line of code in the book 20 surrounding it with stuff that the book had no room to mention? I mean that is a huge engine and task you described. I like GCC the way it is, it just needs expansion into other systems, especially into missing content, like how to get basic animation going, I discovered this myself, but it would be nice to have something to work with from scratch as a new game developer.
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    • RE: Fifth Edition?

      Originally posted by mrmike
      The already arm bending size of the 4th edition is pressing both readers and the publishers limits on page count, so getting enough content in there for a respectable few chapters on mobile development might be a challenge. Perhaps it needs it's own book. :)


      As long as you publish a Kindle edition you have my permission to write as many pages you need! :D
    • I would buy those books right away :) because at the end of the day GCC is (for me) one of the best game programming books. I learned a lot from it. So hopefully you can continue by writing another book with advanced topics in it.
    • I just got back from performing a show downtown followed by celebrating that show, so this post will likely be a bit scattered.... you've been warned. ;)

      I'm not sure we'd do anything different with the license, nor would we make a professional quality engine. Making a professional quality engine would take years of dedication and is counter to the core philosophy of the book, which is that we're teaching concepts and backing it up with examples. It all comes together in a neat little starter engine (Mike calls it "an engine on training wheels"). Every chapter of GCC provides you just enough information to get you started and pique your interest. For example, if you really want to learn about AI, you're not going to learn a huge amount in the AI chapter. I give you only a small taste. There are entire books dedicated to game AI that are fantastic, like Artificial Intelligence for Games by Ian Millington and Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI by Dave Mark. The same can be said about graphics, sound, event systems, etc.

      As for writing a 5th edition, I don't think that will come anytime soon if it comes at all. Then again, I remember saying that about the 4th edition, so who knows? Even still, Mike and I have turned our attention towards other ventures. That's the thing about life. You move forward. We're not going to stop writing, but any new book that comes from us would almost certainly be something completely new. It might use the GCC code-base or it might use something completely different. Who knows? I think the gameplay book would be really cool and clearly there's some interest here, so we might look at that. Or we might do something completely different. :)

      Personally, I love writing and wish I had more time for it. The last big thing I did was Game AI Pro. Game AI Pro is essentially the next version of AI Game Programming Wisdom, so there are dozens of authors, each with one or two articles. I have two articles in that book. One is an introduction to utility theory (similar to the one I did in the AI chapter but MUCH deeper) and the other is a simple scheduling system for background AI (similar to the system we used on The Sims Medieval).

      The book comes out later this month so if you're interested in more of my stuff, check it out:
      amazon.com/Game-AI-Pro-Collect…TF8&qid=1378457542&sr=8-1

      I'm also likely speaking at GDC next year and I still teach at AAU once a week. A big part of my enjoyment comes from this right here. I get to engage with the readers, offer advice, and help them achieve their dream. It's a dream I had too and I completely understand how hard it is to try to learn this stuff on your own. When I was first learning game programming, it was 1996 and the internet was still very young. There were only a couple of books available. I would have done anything to be able to talk to someone who was actually in the field.

      I wonder what would happen if I started up an online class. I could build a curriculum around some subject, do lectures, assign projects, etc. Would people actually pay for this kind of class? I could also do a more casual version where I just hang out for a couple of hours answering questions (that one would be free).

      -Rez


    • Personally, I love writing and wish I had more time for it. The last big thing I did was Game AI Pro. Game AI Pro is essentially the next version of AI Game Programming Wisdom, so there are dozens of authors, each with one or two articles. I have two articles in that book. One is an introduction to utility theory (similar to the one I did in the AI chapter but MUCH deeper) and the other is a simple scheduling system for background AI (similar to the system we used on The Sims Medieval).


      The book comes out later this month so if you're interested in more of my stuff, check it out:
      amazon.com/Game-AI-Pro-Collec...78457542&sr=8-1


      That sounds great! I think I will order that book as soon as my paycheck arrives (I recently got a student job which is also about AI :) ).



      I wonder what would happen if I started up an online class. I could build a curriculum around some subject, do lectures, assign projects, etc. Would people actually pay for this kind of class? I could also do a more casual version where I just hang out for a couple of hours answering questions (that one would be free).


      Depending on how expensive that would be (I'm a poor student after all ;) ), I certainly would join. I really love that idea.
      The casual version, however, is also quite appealing.
      But an online class with Rez... that would be terrific! Absolutely awesome :)


      I think the gameplay book would be really cool and clearly there's some interest here, so we might look at that. Or we might do something completely different.

      That might be a bit off topic -apologies in advance-,
      but does anybode know a book (or alternatively online resource) that is about gameplay programming?
      I've looked for such a book quite a long time now, and I've also looked at various online resources, but somehow, I don't feel fully satisfied with what I've found. About RPG's, for example, I found a lot about Tile Based Maps, but not too much about other stuff.
    • Originally posted by Dendra

      Depending on how expensive that would be (I'm a poor student after all ;) ), I certainly would join. I really love that idea.
      The casual version, however, is also quite appealing.
      But an online class with Rez... that would be terrific! Absolutely awesome :)

      I have no idea what kind of cost would be involved. It depends on the time involved and how much interest there is.


      That might be a bit off topic -apologies in advance-,
      but does anybode know a book (or alternatively online resource) that is about gameplay programming?
      I've looked for such a book quite a long time now, and I've also looked at various online resources, but somehow, I don't feel fully satisfied with what I've found. About RPG's, for example, I found a lot about Tile Based Maps, but not too much about other stuff.

      Not really. Most books are about specialization (AI, Graphics, Networking, etc.) or more general (like GCC). Some really old books do talk about gameplay, like Andre LaMothe's Teach Yourself Game Programming in 21 Days which had four chapters dedicated to just gameplay. Of course, that book came out in the mid 90's, so it's not as relevant today.

      It's this exact reason that I think creating a gameplay book would be really awesome. I would either use something like GCC and expand it, or I'd use an existing engine like Unity.

      -Rez