Hands-On C++ Game Animation Programming: Learn modern animation techniques from theory to implementation with C++ and OpenGL

Gabor Szauer

€26.98 ~~€29.99~~

4 (4 Ratings)

eBook Jun 2020 368 pages 1st Edition

Gabor Szauer

€26.98 ~~€29.99~~

4 (4 Ratings)

eBook Jun 2020 368 pages 1st Edition

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Key benefits

Build a functional and production-ready modern animation system with complete features using C++
Learn basic, advanced, and skinned animation programming with this step-by-step guide
Discover the math required to implement cutting edge animation techniques such as inverse kinematics and dual quaternions

Description

Animation is one of the most important parts of any game. Modern animation systems work directly with track-driven animation and provide support for advanced techniques such as inverse kinematics (IK), blend trees, and dual quaternion skinning. This book will walk you through everything you need to get an optimized, production-ready animation system up and running, and contains all the code required to build the animation system. You’ll start by learning the basic principles, and then delve into the core topics of animation programming by building a curve-based skinned animation system. You’ll implement different skinning techniques and explore advanced animation topics such as IK, animation blending, dual quaternion skinning, and crowd rendering. The animation system you will build following this book can be easily integrated into your next game development project. The book is intended to be read from start to finish, although each chapter is self-contained and can be read independently as well. By the end of this book, you’ll have implemented a modern animation system and got to grips with optimization concepts and advanced animation techniques.

Who is this book for?

This book is for professional, independent, and hobbyist developers interested in building a robust animation system from the ground up. Some knowledge of the C++ programming language will be helpful.

What you will learn

Get the hang of 3D vectors, matrices, and transforms, and their use in game development
Discover various techniques to smoothly blend animations
Get to grips with GLTF file format and its design decisions and data structures
Design an animation system by using animation tracks and implementing skinning
Optimize various aspects of animation systems such as skinned meshes, clip sampling, and pose palettes
Implement the IK technique for your game characters using CCD and FABRIK solvers
Understand dual quaternion skinning and how to render large instanced crowds

What do you get with eBook?

Instant access to your Digital eBook purchase

Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats

Access this title in our online reader with advanced features

DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want

AI Assistant (beta) to help accelerate your learning

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Walt Georgio Apr 23, 2023

I read the kindle edition. This book provides excellent and fairly in depth knowledge if you want to learn animation using C++ and openGL with insights on topics such file formats to store animation data (GLTF in this case), inverse kinematic techniques (CCD and Fabrik) and mesh skinning, to mention a few. Each chapter has working code examples that illustrate the topics involved in animating a character. The book ends with a chapter on baking animations to textures.An interesting and useful read if you're interested in "under the hood" computer animation techniques.

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Aitor Jul 10, 2022

This is the book if you want to learn how to properly program animations from scratch. I have been searching for this knowledge on the internet ages and it was always really hard to find a step by step guide that I could understand.

Jadan Bliss Jul 23, 2020

I absolutely recommend this book. It is a great introduction to core game/technical animation concepts, uses a free open and modern file format (glTF from the Khronos Group), and provides a solid foundation on which to expand. It takes advanced concepts and--between illustration, explanation, and example code--makes them clear enough that the reader can modify them for their own needs with little to no further assistance. This book is a great expansion and companion to the author's blog. The clarity of his explanations on his blog were what convinced me to buy the book, and I'm glad I did.I spent about a week to build everything in my spare time, and went from having zero familiarity with the programming side of modern game animation, dual quaternions, or IK, to understanding and knowing enough to consider the needs of my upcoming game project in modifying the codebase built with this book.My advice to fellow readers: The book moves at a good pace, and it's easy to get caught up in just typing in what's in the book. Take time to look at, and ideally type in yourself, the sample application code (Sample.h and Sample.cpp in each sample application's Code folder) in the download. It's a great way to cement understanding and apply the concepts and techniques presented in the book. When in doubt about your code's behavior, the download also contains compiled versions of all the examples in one convenient program.

mathman54 Oct 16, 2020

I have gotten to chapter 1. The author leaves a lot to be desired. No use of bold lettering for important concepts. He acknowledges that there are going to be beginning users of the book. He does not write for these beginning users. I can troubleshoot basic c++ programs but his text is more for advanced users. He does not give specific instructions for the beginner.In chapter 1 he has you write a .h file. But does not give you what you need to write the file properly. His writing is muddy. I am not impressed with Packt books.I have another book from packt. When I compile the code I get all kinds of errors.

Hands-On C++ Game Animation Programming: Learn modern animation techniques from theory to implementation with C++ and OpenGL

What do you get with eBook?