Wolfgang Engel's GPU Pro 360 Guide to Rendering gathers all the cutting-edge information from his previous seven GPU Pro volumes into a convenient single source anthology that covers real-time rendering. This volume is complete with 32 articles by leading programmers that focus on the ability of graphics processing units to process and generate rendering in exciting ways. GPU Pro 360 Guide to Rendering is comprised of ready-to-use ideas and efficient procedures that can help solve many rendering programming challenges that may arise. Key Features: Presents tips and tricks on real-time rendering of special effects and visualization data on common consumer software platforms such as PCs, video consoles, and mobile devices Covers specific challenges involved in creating games on various platforms Explores the latest developments in the rapidly evolving field of real-time rendering Takes a practical approach that helps graphics programmers solve their daily challenges

3D Character Development Workshop is designed to fast-track comprehension of the concepts, tools, and methods of character rigging so that you can get past the technical hurdles and on to animating! This comprehensive guide is simple enough for non-technical artists to follow, yet presented in a holistic, comprehensive, best-practices approach so professional and student animators and artists can begin designing and animating their own fully-functioning characters.

Learn All the Design & Development Skills You Need to Make Great Games with Unity, the World's Most Popular Professional Game Engine If you want to design and develop games, there is no substitute for strong, hands-on experience with modern techniques and tools. That is exactly what this book provides. Leading instructor and indie game developer Jeremy Gibson Bond covers all three disciplines that you need to succeed: game design theory, rapid iterative prototyping, and practical programming. Building on two previous best-sellers, this Third Edition contains hundreds of improvements across more than 400 new pages, all designed to make it even easier to understand and more useful in modern game development. The five game tutorials have been thoroughly revised and expanded to cover even more best practices for prototyping and development, and all examples now use Unity 2020.3 LTS (Long Term Support), a stable and feature-rich standard for years to come. The new content includes greatly enhanced tutorials, a chapter on Unity's high-performance Data-Oriented Tech Stack (DOTS), new Coding Challenges to help you transition to making your own games from scratch, and tips on next steps after you have finished the book. The revamped website includes playable versions of all example games, plus an exciting new tool that provides immediate feedback on potential errors in your own code. Part I: Game Design and Paper Prototyping Use the Layered Tetrad to understand and design powerful interactive experiences. Explore the core game design practices of paper prototyping, testing, and iteration. Learn effective strategies for staying on track and on schedule. Get tips for finding a rewarding job in today's industry. Part II: Programming C# in Unity Learn C# from the basics through class inheritance, object-oriented programming, and data-oriented design. Part III: Game Prototype Tutorials Implement games across five genres: arcade, casual physics, space shooter, solitaire card game, and top-down adventure game. Each game is designed to be easily extensible into your own projects.Take three games from prototype to "first playable" through new extended tutorial chapters that refi ne the games further than in previous editions of the book. NEW! Part IV: Next Steps Tackle the new, growing library of Coding Challenges, a proven method for transitioning from tutorials to creating your own projects from scratch.Get ideas and resources for new projects to tackle on your own.

The success of storytelling in games depends on the entire development team-game designers, artists, writers, programmers and musicians, etc.-working harmoniously together towards a singular artistic vision. Interactive Stories and Video Game Art is first to define a common design language for understanding and orchestrating interactive masterpieces using techniques inherited from the rich history of art and craftsmanship that games build upon. Case studies of hit games like The Last of Us, Journey, and Minecraft illustrate the vital components needed to create emotionally-complex stories that are mindful of gaming's principal relationship between player actions and video game aesthetics. This book is for developers of video games and virtual reality, filmmakers, gamification and transmedia experts, and everybody else interested in experiencing resonant and meaningful interactive stories. Key Features: The first book to define a common visual and interactive language for understanding and orchestrating sophisticated stories in video games Accessible to industry professionals as well as non-developers Featured concepts apply to all media with an interactive component including: transmedia, gamification and interactive art The definitive framework for designing interactive stories

This comprehensive resource examines the rapidly-growing esports phenomenon in higher education, bringing the perspectives of players, administrators, and scholars together in one volume to discuss the basics of esports, how to start and maintain successful esports programs, and issues and trends in the field. Esports are a global phenomenon with an estimated audience of 400 million people in 2018. Given their already strong base and rising popularity on college campuses, esports have been referred to as the new college football. This book offers practical insights into how to develop and maintain an esports program that is consistent with institutional purposes and values. The book is helpful to all types of institutions (small to large, public and private, 2-year or 4-year). It draws on current scholarship and the professional experience of the authors, focused heavily on practical advice for higher education professionals. Among the challenges of esports in higher education the book addresses are competition structure, competition climate, child protection, cheating, gambling, lack of reliable relevant data to inform decisions, and the advent of an esports arms race. Some of the opportunities described in the book include student recruitment and success networks with high schools, and partnerships with the esports industry. Done correctly, esports can provide a structured way for all students (on campus, off campus, and online) to engage in both curricular and cocurricular programming that can provide measurable learning outcomes and have a positive impact on retention rates.

This book will introduce you to the controls and steer you towards understanding what Blender can do. With this program you can create 3D models of objects and characters. The objects and characters can be placed in scenes. The scenes are captured by camera and rendered into digital images. The objects and characters can be animated and then, again, captured by camera and rendered to video files. Video files can then be compiled into movies. This book will show you how to make the Blender program go through some of its paces and give you an insight into this fantastic world. You will be shown the controls and given operation instructions allowing you to activate a variety of features.

Beginning 3D Game Development with Unity 4 is perfect for those who would like to come to grips with programming Unity. You may be an artist who has learned 3D tools such as 3ds Max, Maya, or Cinema 4D, or you may come from 2D tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator. On the other hand, you may just want to familiarize yourself with programming games and the latest ideas in game production. This book introduces key game production concepts in an artist-friendly way, and rapidly teaches the basic scripting skills you'll need with Unity. It goes on to show how you, as an independent game artist, can create interactive games, ideal in scope for today's casual and mobile markets, while also giving you a firm foundation in game logic and design. The first part of the book explains the logic involved in game interaction, and soon has you creating game assets through simple examples that you can build upon and gradually expand. In the second part, you'll build the foundations of a point-and-click style first-person adventure game-including reusable state management scripts, dialogue trees for character interaction, load/save functionality, a robust inventory system, and a bonus feature: a dynamically configured maze and mini-map. With the help of the provided 2D and 3D content, you'll learn to evaluate and deal with challenges in bite-sized pieces as the project progresses, gaining valuable problem-solving skills in interactive design. By the end of the book, you will be able to actively use the Unity 3D game engine, having learned the necessary workflows to utilize your own assets. You will also have an assortment of reusable scripts and art assets with which to build future games.

Discover the methods and techniques required for creating immersive design visualization for industry. This book proposes ways for industry-oriented design visualization from scratch. This includes fundamentals of creative and immersive technology; tools and techniques for architectural visualization; design visualization with Autodesk Maya; PBR integration; and texturing, material design, and integration into UE4 for immersive design visualization. You'll to dive into design and visualization, from planning to execution. You will start with the basics, such as an introduction to design visualization as well as to the software you will be using. You will next learn to create assets such as virtual worlds and texturing, and integrate them with Unreal Engine 4. Finally, there is a capstone project for you to make your own immersive visualization scene. By the end of the book you'll be able to create assets for use in industries such as game development, entertainment, architecture, design engineering, and digital education. What You Will Learn Gain the fundamentals of immersive design visualization Master design visualization with Autodesk Maya Study interactive visualization with UE4 Create your immersive design portfolio Who This Book Is For Beginning-intermediate learners from the fields of animation, visual art, and computer graphics as well as design visualization, game technology, and virtual reality integration.

In the past, not being able to program meant not being able to make video games. Now if you can draw a flow-chart you can use powerful State Machine technology to create your dream game! No-Code Video Game Development using Unity and Playmaker will teach you how to substitute flow-charts for code. As a complete course, it uses a project-based approach. The FPS project comes with over a hundred dollars worth of free #gamedev DLC: Unity Packages, Playmaker Templates, Character Models, Animations, Materials, and more! You'll also learn game design documentation and theory, Mecanim, Particle Systems, and UI. By the time you're done you'll have gained the skills needed to create your own dream game, all without writing any code!

So you have a great idea for an iPhone or iPad game, but you've never programmed before. Where to start? Here With GameSalad, you can design, build, and publish a 2D game in the App Store using an easy-to-use, no-programming-requiredgame creation tool. Learn GameSalad for iOSshows you how to set up your development environment and how to create a variety of simple 2D games from a breakout-style game to an arcade shooter to a maze game. You'll also learn how to use GameSalad to create a non-game app as well.This book also takes you beyond game development into getting your game into the App Store, using iAd, and marketing your game.A clear, step-by-step approach to GameSalad for the complete beginner Create fun, complete, and fully functional game projects An idea to App Store publishing guide What you'll learn How to set up your game design environment How to design a complete game from idea to publication with GameSalad The basics, but also some of the more advanced functions of GameSalad How to submit your game on the App Store How to start promoting your game Who this book is for

If you have web development experience or no programming experience at all, you'll be able to design, build and publish a game with the help ofLearn GameSalad for iOS. Table of Contents PreparingYour Design EnvironmentYour First Game from Scratch: The Pong GameFinishing Pong: Scoring and Game Interaction Break a Wall: Implementing Comments, Accelerometer Movements, LifeManagement, and Pause Making a Shoot 'Em Up Game: Carrot Invader LearningGravity, Basic Physics and Camera Controls: An Angry Birds-like Game, Part I Creating a Game Menu and a Particles Effect: An Angry Birds-like Game, Part II Graphics and Sound Effects: Labyrinth Bonuses, Game Center, and iAd: Break a Wall Device Internal Clock and Cyclic Movement: Non-Game Apps Submitting Your Game to the App Store Introduction to Game Promotion

Games live and die commercially on the player experience. Games User Research is collectively the way we optimise the quality of the user experience (UX) in games, working with all aspects of a game from the mechanics and interface, visuals and art, interaction and progression, making sure every element works in concert and supports the game UX. This means that Games User Research is essential and integral to the production of games and to shape the experience of players. Today, Games User Research stands as the primary pathway to understanding players and how to design, build, and launch games that provide the right game UX. Until now, the knowledge in Games User Research and Game UX has been fragmented and there were no comprehensive, authoritative resources available. This book bridges the current gap of knowledge in Games User Research, building the go-to resource for everyone working with players and games or other interactive entertainment products. It is accessible to those new to Games User Research, while being deeply comprehensive and insightful for even hardened veterans of the game industry. In this book, dozens of veterans share their wisdom and best practices on how to plan user research, obtain the actionable insights from users, conduct user-centred testing, which methods to use when, how platforms influence user research practices, and much, much more.

Silent Hill: The Terror Engine, the second of the two inaugural studies in the Landmark Video Games series from series editors Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, is both a close analysis of the first three Silent Hill games and a general look at the whole series. Silent Hill, with its first title released in 1999, is one of the most influential of the horror video game series. Perron situates the games within the survival horror genre, both by looking at the history of the genre and by comparing Silent Hill with such important forerunners as Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil. Taking a transmedia approach and underlining the designer's cinematic and literary influences, he uses the narrative structure; the techniques of imagery, sound, and music employed; the game mechanics; and the fiction, artifact, and gameplay emotions elicited by the games to explore the specific fears survival horror games are designed to provoke and how the experience as a whole has made the Silent Hill series one of the major landmarks of video game history.

Game Audio Implementation offers a unique practical approach to learning all about game audio. If you've always wanted to hear your sound or music in a real game then this is the book for you. Each chapter is accompanied by its own game level where you can see the techniques and theories in action before working through over 70 exercises to develop your own demo level. Taking you all the way from first principles to complex interactive systems in the industry standard Unreal Engine (c) you'll gain the skills to implement your sound and music along with a deep transferable knowledge of the principles you can apply across a range of other game development tools. The accompanying website (www.gameaudioimplementation.com) includes: 12 downloadable demonstration games A unique exercise level for you to develop for your portfolio An up-to-date online bibliography with further reading for each chapter A free sound library with hundreds of game SFX

We are living in a world full of games. More than 31 million people in the UK are gamers. The average young person will spend 10,000 hours gaming by the age of twenty-one. The future belongs to those who play games. In this ground-breaking book, visionary game designer Jane McGonigaI challenges conventional thinking and shows that games - far from being simply escapist entertainment - have the potential not only to radically improve our own lives but to change the world.

Fantasy sports have the opportunity to provide a sporting community in which gendered physical presence plays no role-a space where men and women can compete and interact on a level playing field. Whose Game? shows, however, that while many turn to this space to socialize with friends or participate in a uniquely active and competitive fandom, men who play also depend on fantasy sports to perform a boyhood vision of masculinity otherwise inaccessible to them. Authors Rebecca Kissane and Sarah Winslow draw on a rich array of survey, interview, and observational data to examine how gender, race, and class frame the experiences of everyday fantasy sports players. This pioneering book examines gendered structures and processes, such as jock statsculinity-a nerdish form of masculine one-upmanship-and how women are often rendered as outsiders. Ultimately, Whose Game? demonstrates that fantasy sports are more than just an inconsequential leisure activity. This online world bleeds into participants' social lives in gendered ways-forging and strengthening relationships but also taking participants' time and attention to generate negative emotions, stress, discord, and unproductivity.

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!

Beginning Android C++ Game Development introduces general and Android game developers like you to Android's powerful Native Development Kit (NDK). The Android NDK platform allows you to build the most sophisticated, complex and best performing game apps that leverage C++. In short, you learn to build professional looking and performing game apps like the book's case study, Droid Runner. In this book, you'll learn all the major aspects of game design and programming using the Android NDK and be ready to submit your first professional video game app to Google Play and Amazon Appstore for today's Android smartphones and tablet users to download and play. The techniques contained in this book have been learned by the author, Bruce Sutherland, over a seven-year career which has involved programming on several AAA titles. Versions of these techniques have been used towards shipping game titles on hardware sold by all of the major console manufacturers: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.What you'll learn * How to build your first real-world quality game app for Android smartphones and tablets using the power of the Android C++ APIs as found in the NDK * How to do professional level, quality game design, starting the Droid Runner case study that's used throughout this book to illustrate the key concepts * How to build a game engine * How to write a renderer * How to build the Droid Runner game app with entities, game levels and collisions * How to insert perspectives using cameras and more *How to create or integrate audio into your game app * How to submit to the Android app stores like Google Play and Amazon Appstore Who this book is for This book is for game developers looking to get into Android development for the first time, as well as Android game developers who have never used the Native Development Kit (NDK).

When making games for kids, it's tempting to simply wing-it on the design. We were all children once, right? The reality is that adults are far removed from the cognitive changes and the motor skill challenges that are the hallmark of the developing child. Designing Games for Children, helps you understand these developmental needs of children and how to effectively apply them to games. Whether you're a seasoned game designer, a children's media professional, or an instructor teaching the next generation of game designers, Designing Games for Children is the first book dedicated to service the specific needs of children's game designers. This is a hands-on manual of child psychology as it relates to game design and the common challenges designers face. Designing Games for Children is the definitive, comprehensive guide to making great games for kids, featuring: Guidelines and recommendations divided by the most common target audiences - babies and toddlers (0-2), preschoolers (3-5), early elementary students (6-8), and tweens (9-12). Approachable and actionable breakdown of child developmental psychology, including cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development, as it applies to game design Game design insights and guidelines for all aspects of game production, from ideation to marketing

This entry in the BEA Electronic Media Research Series, born out of the April 2017 BEA Research Symposium, takes a look at video games, outlining the characteristics of them as cognitive, emotional, physical, and social demanding technologies, and introduces readers to current research on video games. The diverse array of contributors in this volume offer bleeding-edge perspectives on both current and emerging scholarship. The chapters here contain radical approaches that add to the literature on electronic media studies generally and video game studies specifically. By taking such a forward-looking approach, this volume aims to collect foundational writings for the future of gaming studies.

Despite the rise of HTML5-based game engines, there is no comprehensive book that compares these engines to help developers decide which one is best for their project. This how-to guide covers game design and development and shows how to distribute an HTML5-based game. The book presents an introduction to game development using HTML5 engines, an analysis of the top engines, example game implementations using the engines, and techniques for packaging and distributing the final app. It also contains code, best practices, and many complete game examples.