Develop a compact game-engine-like animation application in C++ using OpenGL 4 or Vulkan while learning advanced animation techniques step-by-step through hands-on implementation in this part-color guide

If you've already read my first book, 'C++ Game Animation Programming,' and want to deepen your skills, this book is the next step. It’s designed for developers who are ready to dive into advanced animation techniques and bring fully immersive worlds to life.

• Learn how to build a game-engine-like skeleton application with modern graphics API
• Gain insights into compute shaders, visual selection, UI creation and visual programming, configuration file handling, collision detection, behavior controls, and more
• Create your own virtual world with naturally acting inhabitants

With two decades of programming experience across multiple languages and platforms, expert game developer and console porting programmer, Michael Dunsky will guide you through the intricacies of character animation programming. to tackle common challenges developers face in creating sophisticated, efficient, and visually appealing character animations.

It shows you how to use the Open Asset Import Library for easy 3D model loading and explore a 3D engine by optimization by offloading computations from the CPU to the GPU. You’ll learn how to implement visual selection and extended camera handling techniques, as well as separating your application into edit and simulation modes. You’ll understand how to store configurations to continue building your virtual world piece by piece. As you work on creating an engine-like application, covering collision detection and inverse kinematics, you’ll discover how to bring your character to life with realistic visuals and fluid movement. For more advanced animation and character behavior controls, you’ll craft truly immersive and responsive NPCs, load real game maps, and use navigation algorithms to roam freely in complex environments.

By the end of the book, you’ll be skilled at designing own interactive virtual worlds inhabited by lifelike NPCs that exhibit natural, context-aware behaviors.

• Understand the basics of the Open Asset Import Library
• Animate thousands of game characters
• Extend ImGui with more advanced control types
• Implement simple configuration file handling
• Explore collision detection between 3D models and world objects
• Combine inverse kinematics and collision detection
• Work with state machines, behavior trees, and interaction
• Implement navigation in unknown terrain

This book is for experienced C++ developers, game programmers, and character animators who already have a basic knowledge of character animation but are curious to learn more. The book assumes advanced C++ knowledge and is ideal for those eager to delve into advanced animation techniques and create interactive virtual worlds.

1. Working with the Open Asset Import Library
2. Moving animation calculations from CPU to GPU
3. Adding a visual selection
4. Enhancing Application Handling
5. Saving and loading the configuration
6. Extending camera handling
7. Enhancing Animation Controls
8. An introduction to collision detection
9. Adding behaviour and interaction
10. Advanced animation blending
11. Loading a game map
12. Advanced collision detection
13. Adding simple navigation
14. Creating immersive interactive worlds