Journey Beyond The Docs
Sometimes all a person needs is to know the syntax for a particular component, a no-nonsense explanation of a specific topic. Other times, more context is needed to understand a concept. After all, an isolated code snippet does not an application make (unless it's running in the Playground of course). For those who want or need more context, there's a book for that!
Going the Distance with Babylon.js is a book that bridges the gap between the practical, focused information in the BJS documentation and real-world application development incorporating those concepts.
By the by - it's possible that you or your employer's subscription service has to the title for free as part of your subscription.
Officially Endorsed by the Babylon.js Team
With a forward by David Catuhe (not to mention cover art!) and extensive consultation with the Babylon.js team on both the book's technical content as well as the overall content structure, Going the Distance doesn't just regurgitate material available in the reference docs.
The book teaches you how to build Space-Truckers: The Video Game from start-to-finish. In the process, you'll learn about contributing to Open-Source projects, 3D graphics concepts, simple game AI, and more! Early in the book, there is a lot of attention paid to helping familiarize readers with Bablyon.js and specific coding approaches.
As readers progress though, the pace quickens and the amount of detail changes from explaining sections of code to explaining larger components and concepts. At every step of the way however, there are numerous Playground snippets, links to external resources, and specific pointers to GitHub source code branches, ensuring that there's always a contextual, working sample of code for comparison.
Creativity Unbound
Release any preconceptions you might be carrying about yourself like "I'm not good at math so I can't possibly understand 3D programming!", or "I don't know anything about graphics, this is impossible for me to learn!". None of that thinking will have any traction after you read this book because you'll know first-hand how easy it can be to make what was previously a dream into reality.
The ecosystem of tools that Babylon.js provides remove much of the underlying maths messiness, allowing you to put focus where it matters - on the content. Over the course of Going the Distance's fourteen chapters, you'll be exposed to and learn how to best take advantage of the rich tooling, diverse resources, and incredibly well-documented that are parts of Babylon.js.
Don't worry about getting overwhelmed though! Each chapter focuses on a group of related features and functionality that are used to construct the next part of Space-Truckers: The Video Game. As you progress through the book you'll also be building up the application starting from first principles and ending with a full application that can be published to an app store.
What are you waiting for? GO GET YOUR COPY!!!