Contacts and Constraints (Paperback)

Better than I expected. Rare to find a technical book this well judged.

I had been on the fence about this one for a while, and I should have bought it sooner. The index and cross-references are surprisingly good, which matters for a book I will come back to. The writing is direct and does not waste space on filler, which I value in a technical book. The author clearly knows the subject deeply and has thought hard about how to teach it. I have already recommended it to two colleagues and will recommend it to more.

Almost excellent. A second edition could easily push it to five stars.

A colleague recommended this and I can see why. It does something that few technical books manage: it respects the reader's time. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. A few of the examples could be more realistic, but the underlying points come across clearly. Some of the diagrams are dense and I had to reread a few sections, though that may just be me. Good value for the price and worth the time it takes to work through properly.

Finally, a book that treats physics simulation with the care it deserves.

I was looking for something that would bridge the gap between tutorials and proper reference material, and this does that well. The early chapters move quickly through material I already knew, but the later sections were genuinely new to me. The chapters on physics simulation are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. Worth the money and the reading time, without hesitation.