Chapter 4. Math
Mathematics is an unavoidable part of video game development. Like it or loathe it, you need to use it, acknowledge it, and even downright embrace it to get anything done.
This chapter explores some of the most common math-related problems you’ll encounter when developing games using Unity.
Note
This isn’t all the math you’ll need for game development: far from it! But it’s enough math to help out, and we’ve done our best to structure it around the problems you might want to solve using the math, rather than the math itself.
Ever wondered what a vector is? Or how to use a matrix? What about a quaternion? We’ll cover them here, while also touching on common math problems in game development, like calculating the angles and distances to something else in your Unity-based game.
Tip
Nothing in this chapter is unique or specific to game development with Unity. We do cover things from a Unity-centric perspective when we talk about code, but everything here is just plain old math for game development.
Read on for just enough math for game development.
Tip
We can’t more highly recommend Paco Nathan’s Just Enough Math video series, also from O’Reilly. Check it out if you want to learn even more math.
4.1 Storing Coordinates of Varying Dimensions Using Vectors
Problem
Game development involves a lot of coordinates of varying dimensions:
-
One-dimensional coordinates, such as
1or-9 -
Two-dimensional coordinates, such as
8,3or-1,4 -
Three-dimensional coordinates, ...
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