Table of Contents for Pygame Book
The following is a list of the chapter titles for Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame, and a brief explanation of the contents.
Any questions about the book contents, let me know!
Chapters:
- Introducing Python
Introduction to basic Python. - Exploring Python
Goes a little deeper in to Python, covers Classes. - Introducing Pygame
Explains how import and use Pygame. - Creating Visuals
Covers different ways of drawing to the screen. - Making Things Move
Explains animation, vectors and time-based movement. - Accepting User Input
Covers how to read input devices and connect them to in-game motion. - Take Me to Your Leader
Covers artificial intelligence. - Moving into the Third Dimension
Explains the basic 3D concepts, with samples. - Exploring the Third Dimension
Covers 3D maths and introduces OpenGL. - Making Things Go Boom
Sound and Music. - Lights, Camera, Action!
Covers textures and reading 3D models from files. - Setting the Scene with OpenGL
Covers lighting, blending, fog and other OpenGL features.
Appendices:
- A. GameObjects Reference
- B. How to package Pygame games
October 8th, 2007 at 12:58 am
Hi Will,
I am the Editor-In-Chief of “The Python Papers”. I’d love to include something covering your book in our next issue. If you’d be interested in contributing a little content, I’d love to give you some air-time.
Contact me at tleeuwenburg@gmail.com if you are interested.
Cheers,
-T
October 8th, 2007 at 2:22 am
Very exciting stuff!
I’m very glad to see Appendix B. Please consider either another chapter or appendix to summarize advanced topics. Frankly, knowing the keywords and basic approach will help [give the necessary clues to] those who will proceed from the book to the internet. Examples: Internet Play: PyGame and Networking, Threads, Twisted, Perceived and Real Limitations (side scrollers?), Cross Platform concerns, Beyond CPython: Stackless, IronPython/Mono and Jython?, Screenshots and Printing, Adding Scripting to your Game….better stop before I completely discredit myself. ;-)
October 8th, 2007 at 5:40 am
Hey -
I maintain the pygame website… If you want some kind of coverage there, send me an e-mail and we can figure out a “News item” to post on the front page, or something.
In the meantime, feel free to add mention of the book to the wiki.
-Phil
October 8th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Dean,
Those are all great topics, but the book has gone to the printers and I think I would need another book to do justice to those subjects! Maybe I can cover them in a sequel!
Will
October 8th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Sorry, I hadn’t realized it was in printer. Congratulations! Guess we can chalk that list up to Wiki and Blog entry topics. :-)
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:46 am
I bought this book and it’s awesome :)
I’m on chapter 2.
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:19 am
Hope you enjoy it Bruce! :)
March 8th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I bought a copy of the book a while back and you’ve certainly got me hooked on game programming, but have a question I’d like to ask about the use of 3D with Pygame. Many game development web sites talk about the concepts of “world space” (an entity’s position relative to the game world’s origin) and “local space” (an entity’s position/orientation relative to it’s own origin), but your book does not mention these concepts as far as I can tell (this is not a criticism by the way, just a curiosity). Google does not reveal anything on the topic relating to Python/Pygame whatsoever.
I’ve read that vectors and points can be transformed from world space to local space and vice versa using matrices, but to be honest I don’t really understand why you need local space at all. Most examples talk about local space as being useful when you need to calculate positions of other objects relative to the object whose local space you are using, but as you demonstrate in the book with the soldier/droid example on page 168, this is perfectly possible in what I understand to be “world space”.
I’m fairly certain I’m just missing something due to a lack of understanding (hey, I’m a novice) but I’d be interested to know what your thoughts are on the above. Do you make the distinction between world and local space in your more advanced games, i.e. are they just topics that would not fit in 300 pages? Or are they irrelevant?
Thanks!
March 8th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Hi wdh,
I can’t remember if I used the term ‘local space’ explicitly in the book — I’m guessing I didn’t — but local space is simply the coordinates of a model before they are transformed. World space is the coordinates of the model after they have been transformed. I guess you have already figured that out.
It is possible to work entirely with world space, but sometimes it can simplify certain calculations if you use local space. For instance if you have a complex model of a space ship and you want to test if it has come in to contact with a energy bolt (approximated by a sphere) you could transform all the points in the ship to world space and do the test… or you could transform a single point for the sphere centre to the local space of the ship model. Transforming a single point is obviously quicker than transforming many.
Another example would be a game character with a certain field of view. You may have to transform other objects in to the characters local space to determin if it can see them.
Hope that helps!
Will