Rating: 
Summary: Excellent terrain book
Review: At first I was put off by the amount of code included with this book. But the more I look through it, the happier I am to have it. The book itself is a great introduction to terrain rendering and game engine construction. The code has a wealth of additional info on things like memory and resource management, random number generation, etc. You do have to enjoy reading code, but the rewards are worth it. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: If you're not a newbie 3D developer, this is THE DX9 book
Review: Basically, I'm a professional OGL/D3D programmer and rather because I don't have days to devote to discerning the differences between DX8.x's PS/VS pipeline and the DX9 pipeline, I have found this book to be a great segway into porting to DX9. You don't need any previous DX experience to get a ton out of this book; however, I would recommend some 3D experience prior to indulging in its mysteries. The author writes very practically and well, and explains the problems and solutions to large scale terrain rendering clearly and informatively.I can't recommend this book enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Pompous.
Review: Beware purchasing this book. It's written in such a way that only makes sense if you wrote it, particularly the code (a maze of jargon completely lacking in any clear explaination). And believe me, sticking with it until you can understand it does NOT help. Not only are the methods overly-complicated, they are also piss-poor in terms of performance and flexibility. Three months later, and I'm still angry I bought this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good But Watch HW Requirements
Review: I got my copy of this book today. So far I've read through chapter 6 and have been very impressed. The introduction to 3D concepts is appropriately brief (I hate when an intermediate level book spends 3 chapters on matrices and vectors). I like how Snook ties the terrain into a realistic 3D engine (Gaia). Many authors sidestep this daunting task and just build on top of generic, dysfunctional skeletons. My only critique of the book so far is that it seems to only focus on shader enabled hardware. On my Geforce 2 TI, all of the demos run in software emulation mode (ouch). The first few demos run at .5 FPS. Nothing beyond that will even run. The book is very clear about this requirement from the start, but I still would have liked to see a progression from "antique" hardware like mine to the more advanced shader-friendly stuff. There's still a lot of 3D cards out there that aren't shader enabled so I am hesitant to make this a requirement for my current project (which is why I haven't upgraded my GF2). This book has and will still be useful; it will just take some work discerning what is valid given my conservative requirements. ...
Rating:
Summary: It's awesome
Review: I got this book not knowing anything about terrain programming. However, after reading it I felt very comfortable with the subject and was able to use and extend the gaia engine. The thing I like most about this book is how packed with information it is. Many other books are so watered down that they never delve into deeper issues on the subject. This book, on the other hand, was very potent and informative. I also gained a great deal of knowledge on aspects of game engines such as resource managers, and render queues. All in all, this is my favorite book on game programming. I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: It's awesome
Review: I got this book not knowing anything about terrain programming. However, after reading it I felt very comfortable with the subject and was able to use and extend the gaia engine. The thing I like most about this book is how packed with information it is. Many other books are so watered down that they never delve into deeper issues on the subject. This book, on the other hand, was very potent and informative. I also gained a great deal of knowledge on aspects of game engines such as resource managers, and render queues. All in all, this is my favorite book on game programming. I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Best terrain book available
Review: I picked up this book along with Trent Pollack's 'focus on 3D terrain programming'. Side-by-side, I'd advise anyone to pick up Snook's book. It has more information on terrain rendering and is well written. I'm still finding useful ideas in the sample code to use in my own shareware game. Of all the terrain books I've seen, this one is the best.
Rating:
Summary: serious problem in writing style.
Review: I'm not a native english speaker. But I used to live in US for a while. And also Andre Lamothe's books make big senses to me.
With this background, I conclude that the author of this book doesn't know how to explain something. For example, while explaining quadtree, he doesn't talk anything about setting up quadtree for a terrain data. Instead, suddenly he talks about moving objects around quadtree. Even worse, that moving objects around quadtree doesn't make any sense either. Even worse, he says "oh my terrain engine works". I really don't know what he wants to show us.
It's almost like "focus on terrain ..." book written by a high school kid.
I'd rather dig internet for terrain handling algorithms than buy those two books.
Rating:
Summary: good book for game writers
Review: I've been working on my first game engine for a long time. This book was a big help in teaching all the missing pieces. For new game programmers, this book is really good. You need to know some C++ and Direct X, but the book is still helpful if you don't.
Rating:
Summary: GeForce4 MX 440 not supported.
Review: If you own a GeForce4 MX 440 don't even bother buying this book... None of the code will run. Most of the value presented in this book is based on the code provided on the cd which is of no use to anyone owning a GeForce4 MX 440 cuz it will not run... I also found the code unreadable... but that's just my opinion...
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