What is a good starting project to get up to speed with vectors and vector math? [closed]

Question

I have been getting into games programming recently. However, all I have made so far (in order) is Snake, Breakout and Tetris.

I want to take on a bigger project, and some research has led me to research vectors. I'd like to know what a good starting point would be to get up to speed with vectors and their associated math.

Answer 1

I guess that anything that has free (rather than tile-based) movement is a good start - in fact you could deal with Breakout's ball using vectors. I would definitely start with 2d rather than 3d.

I'm in a similar position and have written something like Asteroids as a first project. Problems that can be handled with vectors include:

• player vehicle's free 2d movement
• player vehicle's rotation (and thus acceleration and firing) independent from direction of travel
• player's bullets affected by the firing vehicle's movement
• movement of asteroid fragments after a sucessful bullet hit

I have also written AI for the player vehicle; the aiming part of this must take target movement (leading) and own movement into account, which again are good vector problems.

Answer 2

Most physic games uses vectors. Try to start with one that you like:

Ball Colisions:

• Snooker
• Golf
• Marbles

Free moves:

• Race
• Asteroids
• side-scroller

Math Curves:

• Angry birds style
• GunBound style
• Trow something as far as possible

These are just some ideas.

Answer 3

You are obviously interested in rendering related math. This and a lot more has been well packaged into Mathematics for Programming Computer Graphics.

Answer 4

This seems to be some nice article about vector maths : http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/vector-maths-a-primer-for-games-programmers/

Vectors really aren't a big deal even if you're bad at math :)

They can be used in plenty of games, I suggest you choose something involving a bit of physics.