Probably the best book around talking about Babylon.js

Babylon Js has established itself as a premier library for creating 3D experiences, particularly well suited for web and mobile applications. If you are looking for a foundation you can use for augmented or virtual reality, this book will provide it, in entertaining fashion. You'll learn everything in the technical pipeline to create a Space Trucker simulation, from procedural asset generation to 2d UI elements, object interaction, and of course cameras and lighting. Everything a developer or technical artist could want to know is at least discussed, including advanced topics like Ray tracing.

If you are coming from a 3D art background from Blender, Adobe or Adobe Substance, but don't know how to craft a world or choose a game engine, start here. While entertaining and completely hands-on, the first mention of importing assets comes 200 pages in, focusing on the fundamentals you need to navigate the Babylon Js ecosystem and related documentation. By that point you'll have rendered a planetary system so going through the book excersize of creating a game will still deliver visual bang for your buck.

The concepts of Babylon can build to the limits of your imagination, and also give you a foundation to play in worlds like Godot O3DE Unity & Unreal. I'd argue if you want an experience to reach the most people possible, a Babylon Js deployment via web & native mobile is the way to go.

It's a decent book, but there are typos like

entry: «./src/index.js")

in the code on the Kindle edition.

Errors with guillemets instead of straight quotes and missing parentheses make this book hard to use.

When I was brought this book to look at I had no experience with what Babylon.js. As a Software Engineer that has worked with Web and Game Technologies for a significant amount of my career, I was intrigued when I was told it was a framework for 3D games and applications using JavaScript. Having experienced the book now, I found that it does an excellent job of both entertaining the reader and explaining concepts like extending the physics available in the game engine. The book is an easy read, given the subject matter, which is that of building a 3D Game that runs in a WebGL enabled browser window. The book steps you through Design and implementation of the game from the earliest planning documents through to publishing on a major App store and even throws in some best practices on how to structure code to keep it maintainable.

All together, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I recommend it for anyone that has at least a little JavaScript knowledge, the desire to build games, and the interest to do it using web technologies.

As someone who has been interested in building browser-based games for some time, I was excited to dive into this book and see what it had to offer.

From the very first chapter, I was blown away by the level of detail and clarity of the explanations. Josh does an excellent job of breaking down complex concepts and presenting them in an easy-to-understand manner. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced developer, you will find value in this book.

I really appreciate how comprehensive this guide is. Josh covers everything from setting up your development environment to deploying your game to the web. Additionally, the book includes numerous examples and code snippets that help to illustrate the concepts being discussed.

Overall, this book is great for anyone interested in building browser-based games. Whether you are just starting out or looking to take your skills to the next level, this book is an invaluable resource=)

I am currently reading and writing a review for Going the Distance with Babylon.js: Building extensible, maintainable, and attractive browser-based interactive applications using JavaScript by Josh Elster.

Key Highlights of the book:

- Has fun browser interactive Playground samples!

- Goes over the Node Material Editor – no shader code required

- Super detail oriented and helping me get up and running with Babylon.js!

- Uses modern Javascript practices.

I think beginners (to both game dev & BabylonJS) will get the most out of this book. If you're primarily interested in just learning about BabylonJS as an engine, there's a lot of sections you might want to skip (such as how state machines are used in games, or how to build & maintain your UI etc). But I think the book is still great as a reference if you're familiar with other engines and want a deep, well informed and well written dive into BabylonJS and its tooling & ecosystem. The chapters are all written in a way that makes it easy to jump into one without having done all the previous ones.

What I love most about this book is how complete it tries to be in terms of both (1) teaching you the technical parts you want to know (2) as well as the workflows that professionals rely on to prototype quickly and actually get stuff shipped. I believe both are equally valuable, and that going through this book sets you up surprisingly well to working in a game studio/with other professionals.

The author covers a lot of things that are usually left out in online tutorials, like how to architect your game so that it's easy to change, extend, & fix. Or for example, not just how to get physics working, but how to optimize it for large scenes & manage its lifecycle, and most importantly, when it's worth the time/effort to make these optimizations. These are the kinds of things you usually only learn by working on lots of different game projects, and the author did a great job picking a fully featured game project that he guides you through that covers sufficient complexity that's pretty close to a real game.

I think the book does a great job towing the line between teaching you fundamental theory & practical tips. There's a quote in there that I think sums it up pretty well: "Our objective will be to provide a solid basis of the principles, grounded in a practical usage scenario."

I have been enjoying my time with Going the Distance with Babylon.js: Building extensible, maintainable, and attractive browser-based interactive applications using JavaScript by Josh Elster. Whether you are a new or experienced software engineer this book offers many fun and interactive playground samples. With in-depth explanations throughout the book, I never felt lost or confused. I am excited to continue my journey and complete the rest of the book.

A great journey through Babylon.js' ecosystem.

The book is wonderful for people getting started with 3D on the web or people looking to expand their toolset. Highly recommended :-)

Full disclosure - I have reviewed this book before published and am in the book's credits. And I stand behind the 5 stars!

No wonder more and more people refuse to buy tech books and try to download them illegally as pdfs.

The print quality of the book is so poor, it would have been better to buy the pdf from the publisher and print it myself in a printshop.

Don't bother buying the printed piece ...