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3D Game Engine Programming Review by Spydrouge
For people who want a teacher
This book is for the following person: A programmer who woke up one day and said "Wow, I'd really like to make a Game Engine. Where do I start? How should I plan this thing out? What kinds of things do I have to implement? What things should I be worried about?"
The code is solid, with just a few exceptions that a good programmer should be able to catch. The author speaks German, so he'll occasionally ramble about the war and whatnot, but overall he's a good teacher. He's answered questions about the tiny problems with his code, but you'll have to check out the forums at his Gaming University website (not his German one. Unless you happen to speak German)
He doesn't go in depth into many things because his book is designed to get you started, and show you all the steps you'll have to take in your game-engine education. That being said, you WILL create a fully functioning first-person shooter engine at the end of the book.
It's written at a reasonably moderate level, so I suggest that you learn DirectX 9 and C++ ahead of time, but once you've done that you're good to go. It provides a good bird's-eye view of the game engine process, shows you how to make each little bit in a modular, reusable way, and puts together a lovely result.
One of the reviews on this page suggests the purchase of the Game Programming Gems series. Now, as nice as that series is (And it is nice), Game Programming Gems is about tiny bits of code that make a project more exciting. In fact, I'd have to say that Game Programming Gems has absolutely nothing to do with Game Engine Design. Heck, it's the polar opposite of 3D Game engine Programming. Gems are fragments- This book is about bringing everything together.
A better suggestion would be to use the Game Programming Gems series to make this book's engine more impressive.