Vectors & Dot Product • Math for Game Devs [Part 1]

Welcome to my four part lecture on essential math for game developers 💖 I hope you'll find this useful in your game dev journey!

This course will have assignments throughout, if you want to maximize your learning, I recommend doing them!

If you are enjoying this series, please consider supporting me on Patreon!

00:00:00 - Intro
00:07:05 - Why math?
00:12:59 - 1D vectors
00:36:13 - 2D vectors
01:09:35 - Vector normalization
01:15:23 - Direction to point
01:23:11 - Length
01:31:49 - Distance
01:44:14 - Point along direction
02:00:45 - Radial trigger
02:26:21 - Dot product
02:44:30 - Examples from my game
03:03:13 - Assignments
03:03:29 - Asgmt. 1 (Radial trigger)
03:05:49 - Asgmt. 2 (Look-at trigger)
03:10:03 - Asgmt. 3 (Space transformation)

Assignments:

✫ Video Production by Higher Vision:

[ellienoether]

Hi Freya, I'm somebody who dropped out of high school and has struggled to grasp math concepts for a very long time. I'm 29 and it has always seemed completely inaccessible to me.

Sometimes your lessons make me cry a bit because I feel like for the first time in my life I'm actually able to comprehend the use cases for this stuff in a way that is both enjoyable to learn and actually useful.

Thank you so, so much for everything you do ❤️💕

[thNoodle]

I cannot thank you enough for this.
I follow you on twitter and you really have made some amazing stuff,
it's so great that we get a literal full workshop's worth of knowledge, straight from your mouth.
Understanding math at this level could easily kickstart a whole life's worth of game development, and so SO few people really understand how to use it,
this series will definitely change some lives. AND I AM READY.
Thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks <3 <3 <3

[GameDevNerd]

These are honestly some of the best game/graphics dev videos on YouTube. I rewatch the math and shader videos all the time because there's so much great information there and it just reinforces it and helps me visualize. It's been a huge help at my day job and in my hobby projects, so I appreciate the hell out of Freya!

[HoshoLegacy]

Sooo cool of you to put this up to youtube! I got so much out of this course the first time around, having the ability to refer to a condensed version of it whenever I want is so extremely very nice. Thank youuuu <3

[macchiato_]

I learned more in a few hours than an entire semester of my vector physics subject during senior high. I agree with your intro statement where teachers really don't know how to make things interesting to students and just assume that everyone is willing to learn subjects voluntarily without giving how it is useful in real world cases or at least making the discussions interesting.

[JayJay-kimi]

I use Godot, but your tutorials are absolutely amazing. Thank you for sharing your time and knowledge to help people like myself learn this stuff. You rock girl!

[the-birbo]

I'm so glad I decided to rewatch this. The first few times I watched, I really didn't understand much beyond the definitions of vectors and scalars, but now that I've gotten some experience with vectors and scalars in games, everything else is starting to make so much sense.

[Marc-tmxh]

Freya you are amazing! I've recently gotten into graphics programming and been delving into more advanced math to fill the gaps in my knowledge, and this is EXACTLY what I needed. 3blue1brown is great, but it can get a little abstract and I always end up thinking "cool, but what can I do with this?". The way you tie it to game dev and give real-world examples makes it much easier to grasp imo. Thank you so much, you're a great teacher!

[FrutigerLemon]

These series are something I've been searching for for a long time. I set a goal to watch every math tutorial and work hard. Thank you for making these videos for strangers like me who need them

[Raccoon]

First minute, and I am thinking, this girl has the same energy of her voice as 3blue1brown. Best of luck to you in the future:)

[jotomato]

As someone from a third world country stuck at home from COVID, thank you for this 🙏 I won’t be able to afford the courses in a million years anyway

[kthulu]

I almost began to cry at how helpful this is. the fact that you started with the basics makes this so so so very friendly and intuitive, i can’t even put my gratefulness into coherent words. thank you infinitely. <3

[elliotpendragon]

if i had someone like you as my math teacher when i was younger i‘m pretty sure my dyscalculia wouldn’t have traumatized me to the point where even the thought of math can be triggering. this is so well explained and soothing and genuinely makes me want to learn. thank you

[dango]

I've been working on a game for almost 2 years with no prior knowledge, and I've been hesitant to learn math-related stuff coz I hated math when I was in school. Eventually, math problems really did appear and I wish I knew these stuff before I did some of those. Now I want to learn more! Thank you for these videos. Amazing job!!

[manueltran]

Took a Vector Calculus course in my college Computer Science program almost 30 years ago. Got an A -- then somehow forgot almost everything. This video brings back good memories. Thanks for the memories.

[cweasegaming]

You have no idea how much this series means to me. Thank you so much

[milad]

Hands down, you're one of the best teachers out there. Pretty much love your energy.

[jeffg]

you got the best game dev explanations out there. have a great skill for explaining quite complicated things in simple terms, which is a skill in itself.

[thehatchery]

Just want to echo what others have said, after years doing 3D artwork and recently trying to learn VEX for Houdini, but not fully understanding vector maths, it's now really clicked after watching this. Just brilliant! Your style of explaining is fantastic. Thank you. Really looking forward to watching all your content.

[killerriot]

It's always a good sign when the teacher is using professional audio gear for a maths demonstration. AKG are underappreciated for sure, being a producing metal musician, I try to help out with production mix on all videos when I can and you know what's up.
So, translating these values, classes, and functions into arrays is difficult for someone that struggles to apply the concepts into code. I'm trying to learn python after a short run of learning c++ basics some years ago, because python is maths and ease of use is more efficient for learning and applying in linux programs.
Thank you for all of these. <3