Math - Algebra and Equations - Section Wrap-up

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#1

Congratulations on making it to the end of the section!
I hope you enjoyed this exploration into algebra and equations and learnt a few new skills along the way.

Please feel free to leave any feedback on the section here, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Was it too easy or too challenging?
What parts did you find the most and least useful?
Do you feel more or less confident with math following this section?
Did we miss anything that you think should have been covered in more detail?
What interesting problems have you solved in your own projects thanks to the knowledge you’ve gained from this section?

#2

The learning curve (yet another one) was great. I only found 2 points in the section where I found it hard to comprehend, the Intercept Form and Factoring Quadratics. But your answer in the first one really helped me. In the Factoring Quadratics, I just had to replay it 2 more time to understand it.
And thanks to the challenges I can confirm and exercise my understanding of the subjects. I even often start my own challenge by interrupting the video and try to do what I think is gonna be shown. And I don’t remember being that confident and playful when I started learning how to code.

For now I have not solved that much stuff with what I learned. But when I am doing even a bit of math while coding I do it with much more confidence.

I am somewhat new at math, it’s a skill I haven’t touched since high school. And a gap I had to fill for my game programming. So the fact that the flow of this course is so great, even for me… I couldn’t be happier.

If I had one critic about this section is that I would have liked to go back to game stuff more frequently. More than the “lava obstacle” example. To have more example of the uses of curves and equations in games. Things that makes me think “Oh that’s so useful”, “So that’s how you do this!”.

I have to say I can’t wait for the next section, and the ones after. This is really useful, fun and compelling.
Great job!

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#3

Thanks for your feedback @ProvencalG, I’m so glad to hear you got a lot out of the section and are feeling more confident when it comes to tackling problems in your code.
It’s also been great to see you engaging with the challenges and asking questions when you get stuck, so keep it up the good work!

I’ve also taken note of your criticisms on the what could be better and will be taking it on board for the next section. :slight_smile:

#4

So personally, I’m finding this section difficult to work with in terms of code.
Solving quadratic equations with brute force like this is very reminiscent of my time in high school, and perhaps I’m tuning it out, but solving an equation myself isn’t really what I was hoping to learn. I’m finding it distracting really, for me to be working with the variables and solving the math when that is what the code is meant to do. Rather, I was looking forward to learning how to apply equations like this in code, or at least psuedocode, so that I know what I’m actually looking to place into these variables. This was done in the previous section and really brought the whole picture together for me.

To elaborate, let’s say I wanted to be able to draw an arc between free-moving objects A and B, while object C follows the arc from A to B. I’ve seen this used numerous times in games, but how would I translate y=x^2+bx+c into those three different transforms, let alone over time? It was alluded to with the moving volcano example, but then we simply solved the equation again with new explicit values. I’m missing how these equations that we’re solving with explicit values translates to working with several abstract values that can change at any time.

I’ve always been a little slow at math, the B and C student, so perhaps I’m just missing something obvious? I would appreciate any enlightenment you could provide.

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#5

Thank you for your feedback @ArtOfTheNiles, it is very much appreciated.

The main aim of this section was really to get you comfortable manipulating equations, since we’ll be doing it quite a bit throughout the rest of the course.

This kind of math is great in the design stages and would work well for showing the predicted path of objects. But for actually moving those objects at runtime, you’d most likely be turning to the equations for projectile motion. These are somewhat similar to the quadratic equations we looked at, but also incorporate some trigonometry as well.

We don’t specifically cover the physics of projectile motion in this course, but we will give you all the tools you need to be able to take these on for yourself.
I believe there is also a physics course in the pipeline which will cover these equations.

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#6

Actually, I may have spoken a bit too soon. I realized I could get that effect simply by adding the quadratic equation on top of a linear interpolation between the two objects. (So simple, why didn’t it hit me earlier!) Since the quadratic equation already solves for Y, I only have to add it to the Y value of object C while interpolating between A and B. The engine, and I would assume most engines, already provides me with access to things like the distance between two vectors, so I already have all I need to solve the problem. Making it work in real-time is then just an issue of normalizing the distance to 1 so I can calculate X as a percentage of completion versus an actual distance.
It’s not as robust as projectile math, but it solves for the occasion of bouncing between two moving objects without wrecking my neurons.
So yeah, I spoke too soon. I definitely learned something from this section. Though if I had to predict, I’d assume I’m not the only one who would want to see this section related back to psuedocode, even if just to summarize the section. It made the previous section feel more complete, but I’ll know now to let the information marinate for a while and take another crack at it later.
This is actually my 4th GameDev.tv course, and I knew math was a weakness of mine so I decided I should take it. I think I just frustrated myself in a rush to get better at it, but in the end it’s still working, and it’s easier to keep these examples in mind than trains or watermelons or whatever my HS teachers decided to come up with. Keep up the good work, guys.

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#7

Thank you very much . I really enjoyed this section even though I struggled.
Could you recommend some practice questions and answers (practice questions) to further hone what we have learned in this section?

#8

Personally, I like to make up my own problems so don’t have any specific resources I can share for practice questions. A quick internet search for a particular math topic should bring up plenty though.

Alternatively, you could try to solve some game-related problems that might exist in a project you’re currently working on, or just take some of the examples from the lectures and throw some new numbers in there.

desmos.com is a great site for visualizing your equations and you could always use this to help check your answers. Sites like wolframalpha.com and symbolab.com are also good for checking your answers.

#9

Thank you , this is exactly what I needed.

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#10

I found this section a real struggle, I found for somebody who hasn’t touched on the subject much that this was tough to follow and at times made me want to give up on the course as I had to watch through the videos 4 or 5 times to understand what was going on. Even now I’m confused, standard form, intersect form , vertex form all passed over in really short sections with one test question at the end. This very much felt like a refresher course, how are you meant to remember something from 5 minutes of somebody telling you and one question? I understand I could go google a bunch of questions and answers but it would be nice if there were some linked in the resources , or even links to the material on the subject in the resources as it would have been nice.

Sorry to be negative but this section wasn’t enjoyable or easy to follow for me. I was mentally frustrated at not being able to grasp why the formula worked the way it was. I achieved a B at GCSE but have forgotten a lot of the basics and I know some of this stuff should be up there already, maybe it’s being pushed out by other things. So far I think you are good as a teacher but this didn’t compute well.

#11

This subject was really rough. I kind of have a somewhat understanding on what the 3 forms are suppose to do, but memorizing methods to solve or convert the equation is really rough.
I don’t have much faith in myself that I’ll remember the method, but I do hope that I remember that ‘it’s possible’. Power of Google will always surpass my own memorization.

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