Reddit mentions: The best computer simulation books

We found 74 Reddit comments discussing the best computer simulation books. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 34 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

1. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation

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  • MIT Press MA
The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
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ColorWhite
Height9 Inches
Length8 Inches
Weight1.99959271634 Pounds
Width0.98 Inches
Release dateJanuary 2000
Number of items1
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2. Plasma Physics via Computer Simulation (Series in Plasma Physics)

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Plasma Physics via Computer Simulation (Series in Plasma Physics)
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Weight1.54984970186 Pounds
Width1.14 Inches
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4. Digital Lighting and Rendering (2nd Edition)

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Digital Lighting and Rendering (2nd Edition)
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Length7.25 Inches
Weight1.90038469844 Pounds
Width0.75 Inches
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5. Introduction to Algorithms (Eastern Economy Edition)

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Introduction to Algorithms (Eastern Economy Edition)
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Weight3.659673310223 Pounds
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6. Fluid Simulation for Computer Graphics

Fluid Simulation for Computer Graphics
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Weight1.00089866948 pounds
Width0.82 Inches
Release dateOctober 2015
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7. Introduction to the Design and Analysis of Algorithms (3rd Edition)

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8. Unity 3D Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide

Unity 3D Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide
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9. Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide

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  • Unity 4.x Game Development by Example- Beginner's Guide
Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide
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Height9.25 Inches
Length7.5 Inches
Weight2.14 Pounds
Width1.29 Inches
Release dateDecember 2013
Number of items1
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13. Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems

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Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems
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Weight2.8880556322 Pounds
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14. Practical Maya Programming with Python

Practical Maya Programming with Python
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Release dateJuly 2014
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15. Twin Otter Extended Inside Out: An Almost Aviation Guide

Twin Otter Extended Inside Out: An Almost Aviation Guide
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18. Modeling Life: The Mathematics of Biological Systems

Modeling Life: The Mathematics of Biological Systems
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Length8.9 inches
Weight24.56390523204 Pounds
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20. Matrix Population Models: Construction, Analysis, and Interpretation

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Matrix Population Models: Construction, Analysis, and Interpretation
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🎓 Reddit experts on computer simulation books

The comments and opinions expressed on this page are written exclusively by redditors. To provide you with the most relevant data, we sourced opinions from the most knowledgeable Reddit users based the total number of upvotes and downvotes received across comments on subreddits where computer simulation books are discussed. For your reference and for the sake of transparency, here are the specialists whose opinions mattered the most in our ranking.
Total score: 18
Number of comments: 9
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 8
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 7
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 7
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 6
Number of comments: 3
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 4
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 4
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 2
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 2
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 2
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 1

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Top Reddit comments about Computer Simulation:

u/VRJon · 10 pointsr/oculus

The stream is posted elsewhere...

It was a giant, fancy SVVR meetup. Highlights for me.

STEM prototypes are starting to come out.
The Nimble Sense guy(s) were there, practically glowing... :)

Samsung was there demoing Gear VR.. Same experiences as Connect I think. Except now it's a buyable product. It got kind of steamed up for me but.. it was a super warm room on a rainy, wet night.. so not really a good test case.

Keith Kaisershot got Tron Light Cycles working on Windows now.. that was huge (for me... as I'm not a Mac guy). Remember that name. He's going to big things in VR.

CastAR was there showing their developer protos. Rumor is 4-5 months until release. I'm a backer.. but I'm still unsure about it. It's cool, but, AR is just different I guess.

Seebright is shifting to the AR space from pure Mobile VR (probably a good idea). I love these guys. They are so positive. Another nice thing is that they are open source/open idea/free access model. So, as they say 'no walled gardens'. Give them a look if you haven't yet. Simon Solotko SPOKE. That guy doesn't even need a microphone. I want to drink his brand of coffee though, he's amazingly energetic.

Jaunt was there and are about to release a bunch of stuff. New camera coming, more deals... I think they've really 'broken through' at this point and will start getting a lot of attention from the big names. VR Cinema is probably the first major consumer killer app. We all thought it was games, I think it's going to be movies, at least at first. Of course, I could be wrong.

EleVR was there. Open source VR video. I guess I'd say it's not as polished as Jaunt but with good reason but it's pretty good over all and it's open so.. what's not to like? Not sure how they afford to work on this full time but it's a good thing for them to be into.

Tactical Haptics was there showing the Ghostbusters demo which is a lot of fun. Basically, it's a Hydra with their Tactical Haptics grips making you feel the pull and shake of a 'slimer' ghost that you take down with a Ghostbuster gun. It's very compelling.. I really want them to get integrated with Stem, or have Oculus buy them, or something.. They really have a good, practical and SAFE solution for hand/grip haptics. I even think their tech could work on a glove if they could shrink it down a bit.

UploadVR is doing a big event in January in San Francisco. 1500 people geeking out over VR. Good times.

We all got a free Google Cardboard for showing up. (yay!) That was very nice.

I bought a really nice book about VR history from a VR pioneer. It's called: Sex, Drugs and Tesselation. I paid the guy $65.. it's available on Amazon for $30. I feel a bit put out by that!

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Drugs-Tessellation-Revealed-CyberEdge-ebook/dp/B00OMGG5BG/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418418869&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=virtual+reality+sex%2C+drugs+and+tesselation

EH.. I'm over it.. :)

Speakers:

Alt-Space was there, no big developments to announce so if you're up to speed on their beta, that's where they are at. Very polished IMHO... still trying to figure out how the java integration will work but it's extremely promising.

Ethereon was a great little talk.. he got a bit drowned out by the rabble rabble of the crowd, but, he had some really valuable game play/game design tips in there... I'd like to pick his brain a bit more.

VRChat was there and dared a huge, complicated demo. It took balls of stone to attempt that and I give them a solid A... Here's why.. The presentation glitches are not their fault... but, a two man team is REALLY developing a great platform for an early metaverse. They are going to release a new SDK that will let devs 'easily' create a connected virtual world. I don't want to gush.. but, although this is rough around the edges still, it has all the hallmarks of something that could catch on and surpass all the big team efforts that are going on out there....

STEM: Amir spoke..for a while.. and presented the first STEM to Karl. Good times. I like the STEM guys.. all of them. I even told Scott (our hero community tech support guy) that they deserve to win in VR just because of how committed they have been to the community. What they are trying to do is hard. I don't know (yet) if it will catch on or if they can solve all the hardware/manufacturing problems they will face. But, let me tell you, if you haven't done the Lightsaber demo with STEM, you haven't ever felt like a Jedi. Star Wars Kid (tm) would blow his gourd over this. Keep working those long hours SixSense Team! I want my STEM!

Stomps was there.. doing stompy things. I've done that a bunch so I didn't visit them.

Notably Missing: Any of the 'deck based' motion setups.


There was one thing missing and I think we need to give some thought to next year. SVVR is a really great community and I think we should maybe step up next year and do something FOR the VR community. Either raise some money, get VR gear into schools, donate to Child's Play, give Karl, Nana and Bruce a little thank you... I have seen how much they put into it, and yes, they have a lot of recognition in the industry but that doesn't pay the bills.

Oh, I didn't see Crescent Bay this time.. the line was long and I had seen it at OC.. Tried to jump in at the end but got shot down by Security. I did talk to first timers coming out.. they were practically in tears. Tears of joy. :)

Lastly; it was a good time. Worth hydroplaning all the way up 101 during the NorCal "Rainpocalypse"

Any questions? I will expand or answer if I can. Sorry that I missed many people... I'll add as I remember.

u/RealityApologist · 2 pointsr/askphilosophy

>What are some conceptual mistakes that scientists make according to philosophers? Can you recommend me philosophical sources that kind of zoom out at what scientists are doing and what is wrong about it?

I think the most serious wide-spread conceptual problem in science right now is the fixation on "tractability" in scientific problems, and the resulting apprehension about holistic study and robust multi-scale modeling of complex systems. This is a particularly big problem with respect to climate science, and is at the root of much of the suspicion with which climate science is seen, both by some other scientists and the public at large. Fundamental physics (quantum mechanics, particle physics, general relativity, &c.) is seen--sometimes implicitly but frequently explicitly--as the paragon of good science, an ideal of success toward which other sciences strive, and a yardstick by which all other sciences are judged. A particular model, a general theory, or even an entire field of scientific inquiry is evaluated in part by how closely it mirrors the form and function of fundamental physics, and areas of science that differ significantly in appearance and practice from the physical ideal are viewed with suspicion--if not outright derision--by not only members of the general public, but sometimes by scientists themselves. This phenomenon of “physics envy” has been widely recognized inside philosophy (and some of the other humanities as well), but hasn't really been taken seriously inside most of science itself.

Fundamental physics has been extraordinarily successful in predicting and explaining the world around us, and continues to expand our understanding the universe in which we live and our place in it. Physics is, however, not the only science, nor are the formal and methodological virtues associated with successes in the history of physics appropriate models on which to judge the quality of other branches of the scientific project. Physics’ place as the universal ideal for scientific work becomes a problem when it causes us to disdain or reject the results of sciences that study very different kinds of natural systems, and which produce models and theories whose form and function reflect that difference.

Conceptually, I think this mistake can be traced to the work of early modern “natural philosophers” like Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon, who first pioneered the approach that would eventually become standard for contemporary scientific inquiry. Their work, like the work of fundamental physicists today, was designed and constructed with a set of assumptions about the nature and appearance of good science. I usually call the set of methodological assumptions underwriting the physics aesthetic “the reductive-analytic program.” The assumptions of the reductive-analytic program go something like this: the best (and indeed the only) way to understand a system is to decompose it into constituent parts, examine the behavior of those parts in isolation from one another, and draw from this examination general principles about their behavior in situ, and thus understand the system in its entirety. The right way to study anything, according to this way of thinking, is to study its parts: understand the parts, and you’ll understand the whole, synthesizing observations of isolated pieces into a single, unified, elegantly simple theory of a complicated system from a long series of small analyses.

The reductive-analytic program has worked remarkably well. Quantum field theory and particle physics represent perhaps its ultimate apotheosis, though its principles underwrite theories in biology, medicine, psychology, and many other fields. As a result, most educated adults in the Western world--scientists and non-scientists alike--have it in their heads that the reductive-analytic program just is science, and that a science is successful to the extent that it is compatible with this sort of inquiry. Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have pointed to the widespread fixation on “tractability” as guiding ideal to which scientific problems are worth tackling, and which need to be reformulated, writing that “problems that [are] too large or complex to be solved in their totality [are] divided into smaller, more manageable elements.” The reductive-analytic program is markedly less helpful for understanding the behavior of systems with large numbers of diverse and strongly interacting components, systems with intricate structure at many spatiotemporal scales, or systems that exhibit extreme changes in dynamical form in response to small, seemingly inconsequential changes to either their environment or internal states. It is markedly less helpful, in other words, when attempting to understand complex systems.

Climate science is a paradigmatic “complex systems science,” and an illustrative case of how fixation on the analytic-reductive program may be hobbling progress, both in science itself and in sociopolitical applications of scientific knowledge. Complex systems like the global climate resist the methods of the analytic-reductive program; understanding the parts doesn’t always lead to understanding everything about the whole. Instead, understanding the climate system involves looking both at the behavior of small-scale components and at the behavior of the system as a whole, embedded in the sort of active, dynamic context in which we find it. The advent of the anthropocene means that the global climate can no longer be appropriately considered as a system existing separately and independently from human society and civilization. The kind of scientific methods and values necessary for this investigation are, if not outright discouraged, at least rarely taught explicitly in the course of any ordinary science education, unless one pursues a graduate degree in something like non-linear dynamics and complexity theory, something which most people (understandably) do not. This leaves ordinary citizens, political decision-makers, and even most scientists poorly equipped to think rigorously about the nature and scope of the problem we're facing.

If we're going to help people understand the reality of climate change, we'll have to begin by helping people (including scientists) understand some basic features of complexity science, and how the aesthetics of the science of complex systems differs from the aesthetics of fundamental physics and other products of the reductive-analytic program. Among other things, this means that we must help people become comfortable uncertainty, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the possibility that even the most precise scientific investigation might not yield the sort of neat answers and t-shirt ready systems of equations we’ve come to expect from reductive-analytic sciences. In some cases, our best science may not produce a single undisputed model under which all competitors are subsumed, but rather might yield a proliferation of diverse and distinctive models, some of which may appear to contradict one another, and that this model pluralism is something to be welcomed rather than eliminated. In many cases, computational models can be as reliable as real-world experiments when it comes to predicting the future of complex systems, and “science by simulation” should not be treated as a second-class citizen in the world of scientific methodology The results of climate science--like those of any complex systems science--might fall short of providing a single uncontroversial answer to the question of what we ought to do, just as they may fall short of providing a neat set of beautiful and elegant equations that explain our world. This does not mean that these sciences can be discounted, however; rather, it means that scientific investigation must be guided and supplemented by well-reasoned, mutually agreed-upon values.

u/CathulianCG · 3 pointsr/animation

Hey, I'm a CG Lighting artist by trade, I'll let you know some good resources that have helped me.

As a lighter, your goal is things things, Setting the mood/atmosphere, Shaping (making sure you can make out forms of the scene), and Leading the eye (I feel like there is a fourth, but I can't think of it this morning lol)

Some good books to read:

Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter

Light for Visual Artists (hard book to find, but worth finding a copy)

Digital Lighting and Rendering(new edition coming out soon)

Great resources to start and help train your eye, studying films is the next step. Picking apart scenes to understand how and why they lit the scene the way they did, studying photography is a great place to look as well.

Also if you can afford it, TD-U has a fantastic online course from a couple of great instructors to help you on your way of understanding CG Lighting. If you can afford the class it will be a great place to start. I took the class last year and it was an AMAZING resource, I didn't know anything beyond the technical understanding of lighting, this course really helped me understand the artistic side of lighting. The instructors are great and very helpful.

anyways, hope that helps, if you have any questions feel free to message me.

u/Second_Foundationeer · 9 pointsr/Physics

Easiest introduction (too simple, but a great overview):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-plasma-physics-controlled-fusion/dp/0306413329/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973723&sr=8-1&keywords=francis+chen+plasma

Better introduction (actually has real mathematics, this is like the Chen book but better for people who want to learn actual plasma physics because it doesn't baby you):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Plasma-Physics-R-J-Goldston/dp/075030183X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973766&sr=8-1&keywords=goldston+plasma

Great introduction, and FREE:
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/plasma.html

Good magnetohydronamics book:
http://www.amazon.com/Ideal-MHD-Jeffrey-P-Freidberg/dp/1107006252/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974045&sr=8-1&keywords=ideal+magnetohydrodynamics

Great waves book:
http://www.amazon.com/Waves-Plasmas-Thomas-H-Stix/dp/0883188597/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974079&sr=8-1&keywords=stix+waves

Computational shit because half of plasma physics is computing that shit:
http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Plasma-Physics-Applications-Astrophysics/dp/0813342112/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974113&sr=8-2&keywords=tajima+plasma

http://www.amazon.com/Plasma-Physics-Computer-Simulation-Series/dp/0750310251/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974148&sr=8-1&keywords=birdsall+langdon

Then there are also great papers, and I posted some links to papers in a previous post, but if you're asking to start, you want to start with Chen (and if it's too simple for you, move onto Fitzpatrick or Goldston). I also forgot to mention that Bellan and Ichimaru also have great books for introductory plasma physics.

EDIT:

I'd also like to add that I love you because this subreddit almost never ever mentions plasma physics.

u/CSMastermind · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

Entrepreneur Reading List


  1. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
  2. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
  3. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
  4. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
  5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
  6. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
  7. Ikigai
  8. Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
  9. Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
  10. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
  11. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
  12. The Web Startup Success Guide
  13. The Best of Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla Marketing Remix
  14. From Program to Product: Turning Your Code into a Saleable Product
  15. This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You
  16. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
  17. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
  18. Startups Open Sourced: Stories to Inspire and Educate
  19. In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters
  20. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
  21. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
  22. Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
  23. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
  24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
  25. Eric Sink on the Business of Software
  26. Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
  27. Anything You Want
  28. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
  29. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
  30. Tao Te Ching
  31. Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
  32. The Tao of Programming
  33. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
  34. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity

    Computer Science Grad School Reading List


  35. All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School
  36. Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
  37. Introduction to Probability
  38. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
  39. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
  40. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery
  41. What Is This Thing Called Science?
  42. The Art of Computer Programming
  43. The Little Schemer
  44. The Seasoned Schemer
  45. Data Structures Using C and C++
  46. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
  47. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
  48. Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
  49. How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
  50. A Science of Operations: Machines, Logic and the Invention of Programming
  51. Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology
  52. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
  53. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
  54. Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
  55. How To Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
  56. Types and Programming Languages
  57. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Elementary Algorithms
  58. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Mathematical Methods
  59. Commonsense Reasoning
  60. Using Language
  61. Computer Vision
  62. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
  63. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

    Video Game Development Reading List


  64. Game Programming Gems - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  65. AI Game Programming Wisdom - 1 2 3 4
  66. Making Games with Python and Pygame
  67. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
  68. Bit by Bit
u/andrewcooke · 7 pointsr/compsci

is "the computational beauty of nature" http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/flaoh/cbnhtml/ still in press?

yup - http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Beauty-Nature-Explorations-Adaptation/dp/0262561271

i have no idea why this book isn't more widely known, but i would strongly recommend it. i always describe it as a "labour of love" because it's clear the author finds the subject awesome and wrote the book purely to share his enjoyment.
it doesn't cover crypto, but does have automata, genetic algorithms, fractals, and complexity theory. it includes code you can play around with, neat pictures, and lots of interesting ideas... if that's a bit fluffy/hands-on (it's more serious than you might think at first glance, so don't dismiss it too easily), gregory chaitin has written a lot on complexity - theoretical and meaty, but also quite readable - and i suspect you'll find that interesting.

crypto tends to be more mathematical once you start getting anywhere. the standard intro/practical references are by bruce schneier - he's got various books out and none of them are hard to read, but nor do they really get deep into anything. i also have koblitz's course on crypto and number theory. it's pretty readable, but also requires a lot of hard work (and may be out of date by now).

[edit: you know, i'm not 100% sure he has genetic algorithms in there and i can't find my copy to check. i'm pretty sure he does, but if that's critical, you might want to check. i would recommend the book anyway...]

u/shizzy0 · 3 pointsr/alife

Most artificial tree/plant evolution uses something like L-systems. L-systems are relatively easy to evolve. Here's a paper that does it, but it uses Mathematica, which isn't particularly popular. If you're looking for a book that touches on this subject, The Computational Beauty of Nature might interest you. Sean Luke's book Essentials of Metaheuristics touches on L-systems, and you can peruse it free.

/u/green_meklar is right. You can do it however you like, but if you're interested in how others have done it before, check out some of the links I pointed you to. Have fun!

u/wylles · 1 pointr/RealTimeStrategy

The thing is, There are pretty much more then a dozen RTS games out there, and I think Im selling it short, so to buy him a book about RTS games in general is practically impossible, because they vary a lot in theme, and in gameplay, you could become an expert in one game, say, Age Of Empires 3, and be completely obliterated in online multiplayer in Starcraft II, or be an expert in Command & Conquer 3, but struggle A LOT with Homeworld, just because even though all those games share quite a few similarities, they just do not work exactly the same, you could apply some very general strategic thinking of course, but ultimately, you would have to modify the details, for the different intricacies that each game offers.

Just Imagine, Ill tell you some themes and/ or types of games that belong in the RTS category but are kind of different from one another:

Historic (Kind of): Age Of Empires(Medieval), Rise Of Nations (Medieval- Modern Era)

Fantasy: Lord Of The Rings: Battle For Middle Earth 2, Warcraft 3

Scifi: Starcraft 2, Sins of a Solar Empire, Command & Conquer 3, Homeworld, Supreme Commander 1, 2

World War 2: Company Of Heroes 1, 2, Men of War

All these games, being RTS, have similarities, but have features that make them distinct from the others. Some of these Features can be pretty unique, and so any special tactic, or strategic plan you use for one game will almost definitely not work for the other.

So If you would really like to buy him a book, I think you would have to get to know some, or at least one of his favourite RTS games that he is playing, and look for a gameplay guide for that game in particular, I think there are some out there

Well, I hope you have good luck finding that book

I guess you could ask again here when you get info on what game or games he is playing right now, hehe

edit: another thing that I thought you could do is, having known one of his favourite RTS games, you could search for art related to that game, such as posters, Battle unit portraits, map designs, etc. Print them, and have them framed, and also give that as a gift maybe...

Edit 2: Ok, So I got curious, and searched a little, this is what I could find:

Strategy Games: A Strategic Introduction by Steffen Von Urydberg https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JR1QCJS/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_QFbADb53VS8E3

It looks very generalized, but it may cover up, kind of, what you were asking, and relate to all strategy games

Cheers!

u/mangoman51 · 1 pointr/Physics

Hi, I'm about to start a PhD in computational plasma physics in September, concentrating on simulating turbulent transport in the divertor region and the scrape-off layer of tokamaks.

I won a bit of money from my undergrad institution, and I thought it would be fitting to use it to buy some reference textbooks for my PhD. However, although it's easy to find books, it's not so easy to find good reviews of them. I haven't done much plasma physics before but I will be having a lot of lectures on it in September, so I think more advanced books would be more useful, as I will be recommended plenty of resources for the more basic stuff.

Some of the books I've been looking at are:

u/whyoji · 2 pointsr/3dsmax

Vray is not the solution to get a good render.
Vray is a tool you need to learn to get a nice render.

Learning how to light a scene is independent to the render engine you use and is definitely what you should aim for.

Classic but solid one is the book from Jeremy Birn : Digital Lighting and rendering (a guy from Pixar)

If you read this carefully, you'll learn the different type of lights needed to light a set, then how to use them in a 3d package. This book is not related to any specific software. If you understand how lighting works, you can have good result whatever the render engine is.
If you only rely on the automated GI, caustics and whatever fancy effects to light a scene, you'll never have good results.


A good online resource would be itchy's tutorial, that covers similar things as the book above, probably less in detail but cheaper.

This requires to read a lot, to test a lot but is worth the time invested.

Good luck

u/grandzooby · 5 pointsr/compsci

I'm not a computer scientist but I play one on TV. My favorite book in this area is Gary Flake's, "The Computational Beauty of Nature". I've bought it as a gift for several people - it's that good.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Computational-Beauty-Nature-Explorations/dp/0262561271

u/jetxee · 13 pointsr/gamedev

I believe that the most of city simulation games rely on two simulation techniques or their combinations:

  • cellular automata; usually fast, easy to implement, and pretty realistic to simulate spatial phenomena; they're good fit to describe rules of land use and zone development on a grid-like map.
  • multi-agent systems; generally more powerful, can embed non-local interactions and non-spatial phenomena; they're good fit to model social, economics and transport phenomena; or where memory effects (adaptive or learning systems) are important.

    Quick web search gave me a couple of books which might be relevant to learn both approaches:

  • Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems (2011) $141 @ amazon, $0 @ libgen; there's also a chapter on cellular automata in urban spatial modelling.
  • Cities and Complexity: Understanding Cities with Cellular Automata, Agent-Based Models, and Fractals (2007) $37 @ amazon
u/kristovaher · 537 pointsr/reddit.com

I've worked a lot on 3D in the past and photorealism is tough to nail correctly and to be objective in my criticism here, this picture of Wall-E is not really photorealistic. It's a good effort, mind you, but this setup requires little skill in modern rendering engines (for example, you can load a simple scene in 3ds Max, put an object there with mental ray materials, render it and you end up with similar result).

It's not about using HDR environment maps or more dusty materials, even the cleanest of materials can be made very photo-real. Photorealism is not about how clean something is, but how reflective-refractive surfaces are and how properly light has been set up. Light is the toughest thing to nail in any photorealistic rendering.

My own photorealism renderings are not that good either, so I know how tough this is to get right. For example: http://waher.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/soccerball.jpg and http://waher.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/koolitiirurender.jpg

In order to improve, I highly recommend you read through this book which covers subjects about how colors, shadows and light works since more than anything that is the way to get to actually photorealistic renderings:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Lighting-Rendering-Jeremy-Birn/dp/0321316312/

Understanding the physics of light is very, very important.

Best of luck!

u/QuarticSpline · 2 pointsr/math

Of course!


As I mentioned above, my team's job is to maintain proprietary software specifically for our visual effects artists. I'm specifically working on our "gas solver", which is probably exactly what you expect it to be: a solver designed for simulating gas. To be more technical, it's an incompressible Navier-Stokes solver, so it can actually be used not only for gas, but for dust, vapor, smoke, fire (think fluids) - anything whose math can be described by incompressible NS. However, liquids don't fall under this category because of a few mathematical details, the simplest of which is that fluids are first discretized into particles, whereas gasses are represented by a continuous density.

​

If you're curious about the math behind this specifically, you can easily find a ton of papers about this topic. Or, if you're interested, the go-to textbook for this kind of work is https://www.amazon.com/Simulation-Computer-Graphics-Robert-Bridson/dp/1482232839.

​

Hence, someone working my position would need to understand numerical PDE solvers (different types, stability, convergence, complexity/cost), numerical linear algebra (the projection solve of the NS equations is an expensive Poisson solve), and CS. Under "CS" for me, it's required that I know C++, a working knowledge of Python, git, parallelization, etc - all the pretty standard things you'd expect a software engineer to know.

​

What I just described was only my project. Development of other software for simulating other physical phenomenon would require an understanding of very different equations and possibly different aspects of numerical analysis. I've included a few links to papers that are of interest to people on my team:

​

https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cffjiang/research/cloth/paper.pdf

https://disney-animation.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/146/asset/splash_v12.pdf

​

​

​

u/kyoseki · 5 pointsr/vfx

No problem.

A solid understanding of python & logic also helps, but 90% of the dicking around you'll be doing will be in VEX, which is pretty much just vector math.

The handy thing about Houdini is that geometry operators and shaders are both written in the same language, so you can prototype operations in SOPs and then copy/paste the code/VOPs to the shader context and as long as you remember to handle the space transforms (shaders default to camera space, SOPs default to object space) everything just works.

This masterclass on fluid solvers is fantastic, it's what made DOPs really click for me, this is a good example of the math;
https://vimeo.com/42988999

Other books worth reading;
https://www.amazon.com/Fluid-Simulation-Computer-Graphics-Second/dp/1482232839/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480804002&sr=1-1&keywords=fluid+simulation+for+computer+graphics+second+edition - full explanation of how fluid solvers work internally, probably overkill for most artists, but helpful if you want to break things, namely FLIP & Pyro.

https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-RenderMan-Creating-Pictures-Kaufmann/dp/1558606181 (this is quite old and deals solely with the old REYES algorithm, but contains a lot of information on how renderers work internally and a lot of it applies to VEX, which was designed to be very similar to RSL).

https://www.amazon.com/Physically-Based-Rendering-Third-Implementation/dp/0128006455/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480803895&sr=1-1&keywords=physically+based+rendering This is an explanation of the workings of physically based renderers, but it's quite heavy going.

u/The_NightRider71 · 2 pointsr/acrl

The best thing anyone can do is read this book,witten specifically for Assetto Corsa:
https://www.amazon.it/Going-Nowhere-Assetto-Corsa-2016-03-23-ebook/dp/B00NS918M4

cit. "This book is a comprehensive handbook for race driving on Kunos Simulazioni’s Assetto Corsa simulator. It is not a gaming guide. What you will find here are technical topics covering graphics card optimisations, force feedback customisation, simulator configuration, race car dynamics, race car components, car set-up, driving techniques, racing rules, race strategies, race tactics, psychology of race driving, and handling guides for each car type. I also present the cornering lines for all laser-scanned tracks. I describe each track, corner-by-corner and bump-by-bump, with cockpit view screenshots."

I've read this book several times(700 pages on Kindle) and made me faster,more conscious of my limits and a better virtual mechanic.
Recommended for newbies and experts.....newbies find a new world of info,experts will find very useful tips and tricks.

ps
the author update the book at every patch of the game.

u/zero_vektor · 1 pointr/Maya

Maya Python for Games and Film is a great book to get started with, as well as Rob's book from tech-artists.org. The tech-artists site has a really helpful and friendly community as well.

u/webnrrd2k · 1 pointr/programming

The Little Schemer series certainly stands out, as dos SICP.

The Computational Beauty of Nature has some of the best graphics I've seen in a computer book.

I like the clear use of graphics in Sedgewick's algorithm books, too.

u/antonivs · 5 pointsr/programming

A hash table is not a "Java thing", it's a term for a fundamental concept and data structure in computing.

For example, C#/.NET has a Hashtable class, and the C#/.NET docs for Dictionary describe it as follows:

> The Dictionary<TKey, TValue> generic class provides a mapping from a set of keys to a set of values. Each addition to the dictionary consists of a value and its associated key. Retrieving a value by using its key is very fast, close to O(1), because the Dictionary<TKey, TValue> class is implemented as a hash table.

The reason that both the Java and C# docs use the term "hash table", and say that HashMap and Dictionary are implemented as hash tables, is because "hash table" is the name for the concept they're both using. Pretty much all programming languages and operating systems use this concept heavily, as do databases, caching systems, and other kinds of software. Next to arrays, it's one of the most commonly used data structures for collections of values.

You should check out a book like Introduction to Algorithms. It will put your programming-language specific knowledge in a broader perspective.

u/neutronicus · 1 pointr/Physics

> How much would a 3d, eventually VR, electromagnetics simulator/visualizer be used?

It sounds like you're thinking of implementing this yourself? I'm just gonna warn you:

  1. That's a lot of work. And by "a lot of work" I mean literal years for a somewhat-modest feature set.
  2. Interesting 3-D EM problems are computationally demanding, so you'll want access to way more horsepower than just a personal computer.
  3. I also don't know that VR adds much value to EM field visualization, although I admit this may be a failure of imagination on my part.

    Anyway, I don't mean to discourage you. If you want to check out some neat EM simulations, Warp is open-source and has been used to produce a lot of published research results, and googling around leads to me a few other open-source packages (Puma-EM, for example). VSim is commercial, but I know that a) if you're a student and you contact them you can probably get an evaluation license for like four cores and b) the software comes with a ton of example simulations that you can run and play with.

    If you're more interested in implementing the algorithms yourself, this book is a decent introduction.
u/duprix · 3 pointsr/flightsim

Fun plane. Nice pictures. I've been using it on FlyUK's tours and Highland Connect routes. There is also a pretty helpful guide to flying it on Amazon.

u/Vexing · 2 pointsr/Unity3D

This book pretty much compliments itself in that sense. It has the code for everything it goes over in both C# and Java and explains both, from what I can see in the preview. Most other books you'll find in javascript and C# won't have anything to do with unity and will probably go over a lot of unnecessary information.

Most other good books on unity guide you through making a game with the code base. Like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Unity-Development-Example-Beginners-Guide-ebook/dp/B00HJR6RLS/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406571628&sr=1-4&keywords=Unity+Scripting

Not that that's a bad thing. The first book just goes a little more in-depth, from what I can read.

u/wyverniv · 1 pointr/ControlTheory

There's a good introductory textbook on nonlinear dynamical systems and applications to biological systems called Modeling Life that I help teach a class for. It's aimed to be easily digestible for college freshmen so it has some introductory calculus in there but there's also some really nice connections between dynamical systems and real life systems that's outside of what's normally taught in college differential equations courses.

u/ozonesonde · 3 pointsr/askscience
Look at the land versus the oceans. Ocean observations are quite sparse, especially back then*. There is less confidence with the ocean predictions.

So your conclusion that the ocean model is incomplete is quite true. But it does predict the last 50 years quite well, where we had better data. Land data is much more complete (to a point) and there is higher confidence.

I see your reasoning a lot. It can't reproduce this particular aspect, so it must be all wrong. I can understand it, and see where it's coming from, but in the realm of science, this reasoning doesn't make sense. It means that we've missed something, but we've captured most of it. Most of it means a lot. Most of it means that large portions of it are understood. As for the parts that aren't understood, grants and research focuses on those, on the places of high uncertainty, of incompleteness, of doubt.

If you really want to delve in deep, I'd recommend this website* and this book.

* From "The Discovery of Global Warming, Ocean Currents and Climate"
>Through the 1950s, few scientists found much reason or opportunity to study the slow circulations in the depths. Oceanography was a poorly organized field of research. There were only a few oceanographic institutes, jealously isolated from one another, each dominated by one or a few forceful personalities. The funds for research at sea were wholly inadequate to the vast subject. The economics of shipping and fishing supported only studies of practical interest such as surface currents; little data had been gathered about anything else. The field as a whole scarcely looked like solid science. Theories about ocean circulation had what one expert called "a peculiarly dream-like quality."
u/Skote2 · 3 pointsr/compsci

Free textbook online $30 paperback
Https://Opendatastructures.org

Introduction to Algorithms https://www.amazon.ca/dp/8120340078/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_GKcwDbNJ7GDJ2

Design Patterns https://www.amazon.ca/dp/9332555400/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_sMcwDbY6S7ESR

These will cover major computer science concepts but as for actual programming theres books all over the place but they're nowhere near as useful as actually just getting in there and writing some code.
You can start with books like "Thinking Like A Programmer".
Just understand that programming is a tool you should get used to handling regardless of the form and the overarching principals of good software design is what computer science is really about.

u/Dr9 · 1 pointr/Unity3D

I've read it, there is some good intro to the unity IDE. The game developed during the course of the book is a bit overly fussy for an introduction. That said, it does show how to approach the 'unity way' to solve design challenges (e.g. aligning objects to interact correctly in 3d space - the key into the chest lock).

This other book was pretty good - it has some good parts, again it has some good info on the IDE - but also using multiple cameras and masking for some very slick looking effects.

http://www.amazon.ca/Unity-Development-Example-Beginners-Guide/dp/1849690545/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Bouncing between these two books worked well for me.

u/MusaDoVerao2017 · 1 pointr/getdisciplined

You can mix some of your hobbies into one, fellow simracer. Your desire for car knowledge can lead you at being a better driver. Using myself as a example, I have read this book to understand more about race techniques and this one to have a better general understanding of racing. I read them while I was bored at home or in a bus going/coming from college and at home I practiced those techniques.

Not the solution for all of your problems (I cant see a way to mix 3D modelling with anything else), but I hope that it helps a bit.

u/alfiedotwtf2 · 2 pointsr/compsci

Your link looks like a pirated copy of the book. Here's the real one:

​

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Design-Analysis-Algorithms-3rd/dp/0132316811/

​

Levitin's book is great. I'd also recommend Sedgewick:

https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Parts-1-4-Fundamentals-Structure/dp/0201350882

​

There's also a Java version of Sedgewick if that's your thing

u/Erestyn · 2 pointsr/Unity3D

It depends on what you're looking for, really.

If you're just starting out, this is pretty fantastic. It primarily uses UnityScript but has a C# reference at the end of each chapter. I had a lot of fun starting with UnityScript and then porting the code to C# before checking it against the end reference.

u/jaiagreen · 3 pointsr/ecology

The bible of linear algebra applied to ecology is Hal Caswell's Matrix Population Models. Definitely check this out.

If you want to understand the fundamental concepts of linear algebra (linear functions, vectors, matrices, eigenvalues and eigenvectors), I'm going to indulge in some shameless self-promotion and recommend Chapter 6 of Modeling Life. Go slow (we take about 4 weeks to cover most of that chapter) and do the problems. If you want, you can skip the more technical material on diagonalization, but eigenstuff is important. And if you're at a place that subscribes to SpringerLink, you can download the book free.

u/gruskada · 2 pointsr/assettocorsa

I have a DFGT, and just started with racing sims earlier this year. I would start with an easier car like the BMW E30, or the Mazda MX-5 if you have the Japanese pack (definitely avoid 80's supercars to start with). Get good at driving those first. Watch videos, read books like "Going Nowhere Fast in Assetto Corsa" by Amen Zwa. I'd leave the setups alone for now. They are usually reasonable, though tweaking them once you get more familiar will help you shave off some additional time.

With the FFB, I think you are referring to torque steer, which can happen if you gun it with some cars, steering kickback or similar. There's also more resistance to turning as you go faster. That's normal.

Pedals are crap on the DFGT, but the brake pedal at least can be helped with foam blocks. (Skip through the video to get the idea - it's a bit long-winded.) You'll probably want to upgrade at some point. This is certainly not helping with spinning out at the corners.

u/majorashat · 1 pointr/Unity3D

I have read this

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1849695261?pc_redir=1410434094&robot_redir=1

And I think it's a great introduction to Unity

u/Seria17hri11er · 4 pointsr/assettocorsa

Highly recommend the Ebook "Going Nowhere Fast in Assetto Corsa"
https://www.amazon.com/Going-Nowhere-Assetto-Corsa-2017-05-18-ebook/dp/B00NS918M4

u/alexopposite · 3 pointsr/NoStupidQuestions

This is based in large part on earlier, albeit more complex mathematical look at it, work from Gary Flake, i.e. "The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation" https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262561271/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_W89hDbENNDT86

u/QWyke · 1 pointr/3Dmodeling

I got a lot out of Digital Lighting and rendering, especially considering the cheap price.

u/Slinger17 · 6 pointsr/nfl

This is a textbook for one of my classes.

Click the "Kindle" version and see what happens

u/Good2bCh13f · 1 pointr/Unity2D

I know, I know, and I am starting to work through this book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1849695261/ref=pe_226970_122930260_em_r_ti

I had an idea and figured I would try to do it.