Preface

At some point in your game development career, you might need to build a physics engine, modify the source code of an existing physics engine, or even just model some interaction using an existing physics engine. Each of these tasks is a real challenge. Knowing how a physics engine is implemented under the hood will make all of these scenarios a lot simpler.

Building a physics engine from scratch might seem like a large, complex and confusing project, but it doesn't have to be. Behind every physics engine are the same three core components: a solid math library, accurate intersection testing, and usually impulse-based collision resolution. The collision resolution does not have to use an impulse-based solver; other resolution strategies exist as well.

This book covers the three core components of a physics engine in great detail. By the end of the book you will have implemented particle-based physics, rigid body physics, and even soft body physics through cloth simulation. This cookbook aims to break the components of a physics engine down into bite-sized, independent recipes.