Essential Maths For Beginner Gamedevs - Which Math is Useful?

There's plenty of tutorials on learning maths for gamedev, but why and where is this maths actually useful? Here, I try to give examples of how and when different types of mathematics pop-up, and how they are actually used when making a game. I have added links throughout the video and below if you want to learn these topics in more detail, but hopefully this will make you aware of the different areas of maths used in gamedev! ---------- Tutorials and Learning Resources for each topic covered (I have tried to include one video, one blog and one interactive thing to account for different types of learners!): Numbers +, -, x and ÷ are used frequently! The good thing here is that even if you aren't the best at doing sums quickly, the computer is! As long as you recognise when you should be using each operation, you'll be fine (e.g. subtract some health when your player takes damage). Brush up on BODMAS! It's important to know what order more complicated calculations will calculate in - while remembering that you can use brackets to specifically order the way a sum will resolve: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/num/bodmas.html Discrete Maths An umbrella term for lots of maths. Wikipedia splits it into 17 sub-topics (which are all individually still very broad): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_mathematics#Topics_in_discrete_mathematics You will almost definitely do a discrete maths course at university, if you do CompSci or a related degree. You could learn about any of these sub-topics for years. Logic Video tutorial on boolean logic (its for GMS2, but the logic and concepts apply universally): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmrOYwN10bQ&ab_channel=SamSpadeGameDev Coordinate Systems Most 2D games use an x and y-axis - 3D games will use the z-axis too. Here's what I mean when some are inverted: https://twitter.com/FreyaHolmer/status/644881436982575104 Video on non-Euclidean games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFEIUcXCEvI Blog on non-Euclidian games: https://zenorogue.medium.com/non-euclidean-geometry-and-games-fb46989320d4 Trigonometry Tutorial on angles (also vectors and some other topics too): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPfxjQ6sqrc An interactive visualisation of trig: https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/trig-interactive-unit-circle.html Pythagoras Theorem Video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uthjpYKD7Ng&ab_channel=MathHelp.com Article/guide: https://www.mathsisfun.com/pythagoras.html Vectors Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OqwrxTtThY&ab_channel=ThePhantomGameDesignsThePhantomGameDesigns Professor Dave's intro to vectors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBSCMTYaH1s&ab_channel=ProfessorDaveExplainsProfessorDaveExplainsVerified Blog/guide: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarcBeaujean/20200518/363095/Vector_Maths_for_Game_Dev_Beginners.php Vector Normalisation Khan Academy blog with interactive example at the bottom: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/programming-natural-simulations/programming-vectors/a/vector-magnitude-normalization Video tutorial on normalisation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fn03DIW3Ak&ab_channel=FireflyLecturesFireflyLectures Dot Product Dot product video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcxfxvYCL1g&t=342s&ab_channel=LookingGlassUniverseLookingGlassUniverse Codeer’s Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E_Kx9ROX08&t=183s&ab_channel=CodeerCodeer Interactive dot product visualisation: https://maththebeautiful.com/dot-product/ Cross Product (Advanced Topic) Video explanation of the cross product by Professor Dave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPnWm-IXoAY&ab_channel=ProfessorDaveExplains Article/guide on cross product from Maths is Fun: https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/vectors-cross-product.html Visualisation: https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/vectors-cross-product.html Quaternions (Advanced Topic) Blog: https://developerblog.myo.com/quaternions/ Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mXL751ko0w&ab_channel=Sutrabla Graph Theory This is a broad topic. Wikipedia gives some good insight into the variety of uses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_theory#Applications Tutorial series on finite state machines by MATLAB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yicg2TTMPs&ab_channel=MATLABMATLAB Interactive Path Finding: https://qiao.github.io/PathFinding.js/visual/ --------- Remember to Subscribe! Follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/madbookstudios Join the madbook discord: https://discord.gg/JYqFddm Check all my FREE games on itch: https://madbookstudios.itch.io/ --------- Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:30 - The Problem 1:15 - The Solution 1:52 - Calculus Not Needed for Making Games 2:19 - Numbers 3:38 - Discrete Maths 4:44 - Logic 6:40 - Coordinate Systems 8:09 - Trigonometry 10:17 - Pythagoras Theorem 10:58 - Vectors 12:51 - Vector Normalisation 14:31 - Dot Product 16:01 - Cross Product 16:51 - Quaternions 18:26 - Graph Theory 19:42 - Recap ---------- #math #gamedev #mathingames #indiedev #gamedevmath