Master the game before your friends! The Big Book of APEX LEGENDS provides all the information and strategies to dominate the latest free-to-play battle royale game, no matter the platform. Abundantly illustrated with color screenshots, the guide presents: basic information on weapons, gear and loot; essential combat techniques; tips to master your Legend's abilities; offensive and defensive tactics; advanced techniques and strategies and much more!

Character rigging is the method with which you create a system for animating a character. A rig is represented by two primary mechanics: the skeleton, consisting of hierarchical rotations to drive the motions, and a skin, or method of deforming the geometry that makes up the character model. Essential Skills in Character Rigging is a beginner's guide to learning and understanding the essential aspects of character setup, evaluation, skeletal construction, and deformation. Borrowing from the author's extensive experience in the field, it presents the primary theories, constructs, and objectives for constructing a basic rig from the ground up, just as it would be done in a professional studio. The book explains the basic elements of hierarchies, skeletons, kinematics, deformation, skinning, and creating relationships between nodes. It gives hands-on experience with taking a completed character model and setting it up with a skeleton with kinematics and soft-skin deformation. It also gives specific instructions on using inverse kinematics systems, and how to set up the essential mechanics of a human rig with these systems. All of these lessons are conducted using a simplistic, conversational style that keeps technical and mathematical jargon to a minimum. The book also includes video tutorials corresponding to specific modules. Essential Skills in Character Rigging takes aspiring character artists through the vital components in the process of taking a 3D character model and turning it into an animatable rig that is ready for production in film or games. It identifies the universal fundamentals at work behind character rigging, and the practical complexities of the process are broken down into simple steps that are easy to comprehend and execute.

From Windows Solitaire to Bejeweled to Wii Tennis, casual games have radically changed the landscape of games. By simplifying gameplay and providing quick but intense blasts of engaging play, casual games have drawn in huge new audiences of players. To entertain and engage the casual player, game designers must learn to think about what makes casual games work, from game mechanics to narrative content. Through the close examination of a number of casual games, you will learn how to inject the necessary game design elements into your casual games and give your designs the complexity and strategy they need to hook gamers. You will learn:

Quickly emerging from the fast-paced growth of mobile communications and wireless technologies, pervasive games take gaming away from the computer screen and back to the three-dimensional world. Now games can be designed to be played in public spaces like shopping malls, conferences, museums and other non-traditional game venues. Game designers need to understand how to use the world as a gamespace-and both the challenges and advantages of doing so. This book shows how to change the face of play-who plays, when and where they play and what that play means to all involved. The authors explore aspects of pervasive games that concern game designers: what makes these games compelling, what makes them possible today and how they are made. For game researchers, it provides a solid theoretical, philosophical and aesthetic understanding of the genre. Pervasive Games covers everything from theory and design to history and marketing.

A compilation of key chapters from the top Focal game art books available today - in the areas of Max, Maya, Photoshop, and ZBrush. The chapters provide the CG Artist with an excellent sampling of essential techniques that every 3D artist needs to create stunning game art.Game artists will be able to master the modeling, rendering, rigging, and texturing techniques they need - with advice from Focal's best and brightest authors. Artists can learn hundreds of tips, tricks and shortcuts in Max, Maya, Photoshop, ZBrush - all within the covers of one complete, inspiring reference.

Only by finding and focusing on a core mechanism can you further your pursuit of elegance in strategy game design.Clockwork Game Design is the most functional and directly applicable theory for game design. It details the clockwork game design pattern, which focuses on building around fundamental functionality. You can then use this understanding to prescribe a system for building and refining your rulesets. A game can achieve clarity of purpose by starting with a strong core, then removing elements that conflict with that core while adding elements that support it.Filled with examples and exercises detailing how to put the clockwork game design pattern into use, this book is a must-have manual for designing games. A hands-on, practical book that outlines a very specific approach to designing games Develop the mechanics that make your game great, and limit or remove factors that disrupt the core concept Practice designing games through the featured exercises and illustrations

Practical Algorithms for 3D Computer Graphics, Second Edition covers the fundamental algorithms that are the core of all 3D computer graphics software packages. Using Core OpenGL and OpenGL ES, the book enables you to create a complete suite of programs for 3D computer animation, modeling, and image synthesis. Since the publication of the first edition, implementation aspects have changed significantly, including advances in graphics technology that are enhancing immersive experiences with virtual reality. Reflecting these considerable developments, this second edition presents up-to-date algorithms for each stage in the creative process. It takes you from the construction of polygonal models of real and imaginary objects to rigid body animation and hierarchical character animation to the rendering pipeline for the synthesis of realistic images. New to the Second Edition New chapter on the modern approach to real-time 3D programming using OpenGL New chapter that introduces 3D graphics for mobile devices New chapter on OpenFX, a comprehensive open source 3D tools suite for modeling and animation Discussions of new topics, such as particle modeling, marching cubes, and techniques for rendering hair and fur More web-only content, including source code for the algorithms, video transformations, comprehensive examples, and documentation for OpenFX The book is suitable for newcomers to graphics research and 3D computer games as well as more experienced software developers who wish to write plug-in modules for any 3D application program or shader code for a commercial games engine.

Written for the new generation of hobbyists and aspiring game developers, HTML5 Game Development from the Ground Up with Construct 2 shows you how to use the sophisticated yet user-friendly HTML5-based game engine Construct 2 to develop and release polished, two-dimensional games on a multitude of different platforms. The book also covers the foundational knowledge of game analysis and design based on the author's research and teaching experiences at DigiPen Institute of Technology, James Cook University, and other institutions. The author first helps you understand what really matters in games. He guides you in becoming a better game designer from the ground up, being able to play any game critically, and expressing your ideas in a clear and concise format. The book then presents step-by-step tutorials on designing games. It explains how to build an arcade-style game as well as a platformer integrating some physics elements. It also shows you how to create a more complex puzzle game the author's own published game, Turky on the Run. Lastly, the book discusses different ways to deploy and monetize games across several platforms, including Facebook, iOS, Android, and web-based marketplaces. Sample Construct 2 project files for the games designed in the book are available on the author's website. Integrating hands-on guidance with theoretical game design concepts, this book gives you a solid foundation in game development. It will help you advance in your journey as an indie game developer.

With a vast selection of typefaces now available, there is no excuse for using boring typography in web design. The New Web Typography: Create a Visual Hierarchy with Responsive Web Design shows you how to implement web-safe fonts to create visually appealing and multi-browser-friendly websites while encouraging you to develop designs that express your own unique typographic voice. This book discusses general principles for choosing typefaces for on-screen display and tips for creating a visual hierarchy that works on monitors, tablets, and smartphones. It shares some of the authors' personal experiences to illustrate situations where one font would be more effective than another in giving readers an optimized experience that includes quick download times and an overall aesthetically pleasing presentation. Since good typography is good web design, font selection is a critical aspect of web design. The New Web Typography is more than a simple overview of web typography. It provides practical advice and examples that help you make good decisions in choosing fonts for web design.

Game Programming for Artists provides a foundation for artists and creatives to jumpstart learning to program their own games. It is an accessible and conversational guide focused on three areas: basic programming, understanding game engines, and practical code for commonly employed game systems. The best way to get into games is to make one, and this book will help artists do that!

Written as the successor to Virtual World Design: Creating Immersive Virtual Environments, this book carries the ideas brought forward in its predecessor to new levels of virtual world design exploration and experimentation. Written by an Emmy award-winning designer with 22 years of experience creating virtual environments for television and online communities, Extending Virtual Worlds: Advanced Design for Virtual Environments explores advanced topics such as multi-regional design, game-based sims, and narrative structure for environments. The book provides bedrock knowledge and practical examples of how to leverage design concepts within the intertwined structures of physics engines, level of detail (LOD) systems, and advanced material editors. It also shows designers new ways to influence the experience of virtual world visitors through immersive narrative and storytelling. With over 150 illustrations and 10 step-by-step projects that include the necessary 3D models and modular components, it delivers hours of stimulating creative challenges for people working in public virtual worlds or on private grids. By using this book, novices and advanced users will deepen their understanding of game design and how it can be applied to creating game-based virtual environments. It also serves as a foundational text for class work in distance learning, simulation, and other learning technologies that use virtual environments.

In the world of web design, if one wants to create a successful web site, one needs an effective content strategy. Return on Engagement shows web designers and developers how to implement an effective content strategy and how to stay ahead in the rapidly changing industry of web design. It presents best practices in terms of web design through a marketing function: content strategy, SEO, social media marketing, and success measurement to help web designers implement a strategy that ensures success for the site they are building. Return on Engagement shows web designers and developers how to not just design an aesthetically pleasing, functional website. This book shows those professionals how to implement marketing strategies and analysis into their website, thus ensuring its success. Nearly 3 years since the previous edition published, new best practices have been formed. Tools in which web developers use to analyze website metrics have advanced. New social media networks and communities have cropped up. New research in how audiences read and receive content has been done, subsequently refining best digital marketing practices. Return on Engagement features a step-by-step breakdown of how to use new tools, techniques, and technologies. The new edition also includes updated case studies of industry leaders who implement best practices on projects. Return on Engagement also features a regularly updated companion site that offers readers sample content, easy sharing tools, and web-based resources to help measure marketing viability of web properties.

Location-based games emerged in the early 2000s following the commercialisation of GPS and artistic experimentation with 'locative media' technologies. Location-based games are played in everyday public spaces using GPS and networked, mobile technologies to track their players' location. This book traces the evolution of location-based gaming, from its emergence as a marginal practice to its recent popularisation through smartphone apps like Pokemon Go and its incorporation into 'smart city' strategies. Drawing on this history and an analysis of the scholarly and mainstream literature on location-based games, Leorke unpacks the key claims made about them. These claims position location-based games as alternately enriching or diminishing their players' engagement with the people and places they encounter through the game. Through rich case studies and interviews with location-based game designers and players, Leorke tests out and challenges these celebratory and pessimistic discourses. He argues for a more grounded approach to researching location-based games and their impact on public space that reflects the ideologies, lived experiences, and institutional imperatives that circulate around their design and performance. By situating location-based games within broader debates about the role of play and digitisation in public life, Location-Based Gaming offers an original and timely account of location-based gaming and its growing prominence.

Fluid simulation is a computer graphic used to develop realistic animation of liquids in modern games. The Art of Fluid Animation describes visually rich techniques for creating fluid-like animations that do not require advanced physics or mathematical skills. It explains how to create fluid animations like water, smoke, fire, and explosions through computer code in a fun manner. The book presents concepts that drive fluid animation and gives a historical background of the computation of fluids. It covers many research areas that include stable fluid simulation, flows on surfaces, and control of flows. It also gives one-paragraph summaries of the material after each section for reinforcement. This book includes computer code that readers can download and run on several platforms so they can extend their work beyond what is described in the book. The material provided here is designed to serve as a starting point for aspiring programmers to begin creating their own programs using fluid animation.

Design and Implementation of 3D Graphics Systems covers the computational aspects of geometric modeling and rendering 3D scenes. Special emphasis is given to the architectural aspects of interactive graphics, geometric modeling, rendering techniques, the graphics pipeline, and the architecture of 3D graphics systems. The text describes basic 3D computer graphics algorithms and their implementation in the C language. The material is complemented by library routines for constructing graphics systems, which are available for download from the book's website. This book, along with its companion Computer Graphics: Theory and Practice, gives readers a full understanding of the principles and practices of implementing 3D graphics systems.

Demystifies the Processes of Game DevelopmentGame Development for iOS with Unity3D takes you through the complete process of Unity iOS game development. A game developer for over 12 years, the author presents production-proven techniques and valuable tips and tricks needed to plan, build, test, and launch games for the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. He walks you through all the necessary procedures, including how to publish your game to the App Store. Encompasses the Whole Range of iOS Game DevelopmentThis practical book begins with advice on writing a game design document and getting Apple developer certification. It then covers the build processes of the Unity Remote application and explains how to use the Unity editor. After focusing on debugging and optimization, the author describes tips for designing and marketing a successful App Store page. The book also features two iOS-ready games to explore, adapt, and play. Source files for the game examples are available at www.crcpress.com. Guides You in Creating a Functional iOS Game Accessible to indie game developers and small- to medium-sized studios, this hands-on guide gives you the tools and knowledge needed to start building and launching iOS games. It helps you create games using Unity3D and publish them to the App Store.

Add professional-level video to your Web communications toolbox with a complete understanding of the process, potential and limitations of Web video. Step up from the mini-cam experience with this solid introduction to professional planning and production techniques, ensuring that your video meets the same standards you set for every other communication program element. Audio, lighting, editing, encoding, are just a few of the essentials you learn how the pros produce top notch video for the Web. The companion Web site includes planning and production templates, demo files, and blog updates to help you put it all to work for you on a daily basis.

See Why Blender Is Right for Your Studio's Pipeline Blender for Animation and Film-Based Production explores why Blender is ideal for animation films. It demonstrates Blender's capability to do the job in each production department. Whether you are a beginner or more advanced user, you'll see why Blender should be taken into consideration in animation and film production. This Blender reference will help you: Manage your projects from start to finish Understand the different stages in any animation production See how studios work and develop their animation projects Describing the versatility and power of Blender, the book shows you why studios should incorporate Blender in their pipeline. It avoids tedious tutorials and incomprehensible examples. Instead, the book guides you toward finding efficient solutions for issues with your production files or pipeline. It familiarizes you with the animation industry and explores the risks involved in choosing Blender as a primary tool in animation studios.

Understand Video Games as Works of Science Fiction and Interactive Stories Science Fiction Video Games focuses on games that are part of the science fiction genre, rather than set in magical milieux or exaggerated versions of our own world. Unlike many existing books and websites that cover some of the same material, this book emphasizes critical analysis, especially the analysis of narrative. The author analyzes narrative via an original categorization of story forms in games. He also discusses video games as works of science fiction, including their characteristic themes and the links between them and other forms of science fiction. Delve into a Collection of Science Fiction GamesThe beginning chapters explore game design and the history of science-fictional video games. The majority of the text deals with individual science-fictional games and the histories and natures of their various forms, such as the puzzle-based adventure and the more exploratory and immediate computer role-playing game (RPG).

The world is becoming increasingly mobile. Smartphones and tablets have become more powerful and popular, with many of these devices now containing confidential business, financial, and personal information. This has led to a greater focus on mobile software security. Establishing mobile software security should be of primary concern to every mobile application developer. This book explains how you can create mobile social applications that incorporate security throughout the development process. Although there are many books that address security issues, most do not explain how to incorporate security into the building process. Secure Development for Mobile Apps does exactly that. Its step-by-step guidance shows you how to integrate security measures into social apps running on mobile platforms. You'll learn how to design and code apps with security as part of the process and not an afterthought. The author outlines best practices to help you build better, more secure software. This book provides a comprehensive guide to techniques for secure development practices. It covers PHP security practices and tools, project layout templates, PHP and PDO, PHP encryption, and guidelines for secure session management, form validation, and file uploading. The book also demonstrates how to develop secure mobile apps using the APIs for Google Maps, YouTube, jQuery Mobile, Twitter, and Facebook. While this is not a beginner's guide to programming, you should have no problem following along if you've spent some time developing with PHP and MySQL.

Written by a pioneer of game development in academia, Introduction to Game Physics with Box2D covers the theory and practice of 2D game physics in a relaxed and entertaining yet instructional style. It offers a cohesive treatment of the topics and code involved in programming the physics for 2D video games. Focusing on writing elementary game physics code, the first half of the book helps you grasp the challenges of programming game physics from scratch, without libraries or outside help. It examines the mathematical foundation of game physics and illustrates how it is applied in practice through coding examples. The second half of the book shows you how to use Box2D, a popular open source 2D game physics engine. A companion website provides supplementary material, including source code and videos. This book helps you become a capable 2D game physics programmer through its presentation of both the theory and applications of 2D game physics. After reading the book and experimenting with the code samples, you will understand the basics of 2D game physics and know how to use Box2D to make a 2D physics-based game.

Virtual environments such as games and animated and "real" movies require realistic sound effects that can be integrated by computer synthesis. The book emphasizes physical modeling of sound and focuses on real-world interactive sound effects. It is intended for game developers, graphics programmers, developers of virtual reality systems and training simulators, and others who want to learn about computational sound. It is written at an introductory level with mathematical foundations provided in appendices. Links to code examples and sound files can be found on the Downloads/Updates tab.

Corona SDK is one of the most powerful tools used to create games and apps for mobile devices. The market requires speed; new developers need to operate quickly and efficiently. Create 2D Mobile Games with Corona SDK gives you the tools needed to master Corona - even within the framework of professional constraints. A must-read guide, this book gives you fast, accurate tips to learn the programming language necessary to create games. Read it sequentially or as an FAQ and you will have the tools you need to create any base game before moving on to advanced topics. The tutorial-based format: Contains step-by-step directions complete with coding and screenshots Is filled with tutorials, tips, and links to useful online resources Includes a comprehensive companion website featuring online exercise files to practice coding, full build samples from the text, additional book details, and more!

This book is written by a professional instructor and founder of CartoonSmart.com, a company specializing in new media tutorials for nearly a decade. The book is a start-to-finish guide for anyone looking to begin iOS development using Cocos2d and Xcode and submit their finished app to Apple. Even if you haven't read code before, you can begin with this book. This book is a handy reference guide, with easy to look-up sections of code snippets, pictures and links to video examples. Features: Code Video examples 5 hours of tutorial videos on Box2d, which can take the reader even further beyond what they learned in the book

Digital interactive audio is the future of audio in media - most notably video games, but also web pages, theme parks, museums, art installations and theatrical events. Despite its importance to contemporary multi-media, this is the first book that provides a framework for understanding the history, issues and theories surrounding interactive audio. Karen Collins presents the work of academics, composers and sound programmers to introduce the topic from a variety of angles in order to provide a supplementary text for music and multimedia courses. The contributors cover practical and theoretical approaches, including historical perspectives, emerging theories, socio-cultural approaches to fandom, reception theory and case study analyses. The book offers a fresh perspective on media music, one that will complement film studies, but which will show the necessity of a unique approach when considering games music.