This book, written and edited by members of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Game Writing Special Interest Group, follows the acclaimed Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing to deliver practical advice from seasoned veterans on the special challenges of writing for first-person shooter games (FPS), role-playing games (RPG), and everything in between, including massively multiplayer online games, real-time strategy games, sports games, horror games, serious games, casual games, handheld games, and more. Game writing samples are included with the book, and more are available online.

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

SC-FDMA for Mobile Communications examines Single-Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA). Explaining this rapidly evolving system for mobile communications, it describes its advantages and limitations and outlines possible solutions for addressing its current limitations. The book explores the emerging trend of cooperative communication with SC-FDMA and how it can improve the physical layer security. It considers the design of distributed coding schemes and protocols for wireless relay networks where users cooperate to send their data to the destination. Supplying you with the required foundation in cooperative communication and cooperative diversity, it presents an improved Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT)-based SC-FDMA system. It introduces a distributed space-time coding scheme and evaluates its performance and studies distributed SFC for broadband relay channels. Presents relay selection schemes for improving the physical layer Introduces a new transceiver scheme for the SC-FDMA system Describes space-time/frequency coding schemes for SC-FDMA Includes MATLAB (R) codes for all simulation experiments The book investigates Carrier Frequency Offsets (CFO) for the Single-Input Single-Output (SISO) SC-FDMA system, and Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) SC-FDMA system simulation software. Covering the design of cooperative diversity schemes for the SC-FDMA system in the uplink direction, it also introduces and studies a new transceiver scheme for the SC-FDMA system.

For all those surfers who have slowly grown disenchanted with Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser, "Don't Click on the Blue E!" from O'Reilly is here to help. It offers non-technical users a convenient roadmap for switching to a better web browser--Firefox.

The only book that covers the switch to Firefox, "Don't Click on the Blue E!" is a must for anyone who wants to browse faster, more securely, and more efficiently. It takes readers through the process step-by-step, so it's easy to understand. Schools, non-profits, businesses, and individuals can all benefit from this how-to guide.

Firefox includes most of the features that browser users are familiar with, along with several new features other browsers don't have, such as a bookmarks toolbar and window tabs that allow users to quickly switch among several web sites. There is also the likelihood of better security with Firefox.

All indications say that Firefox is more than just a passing fad. With the USA Today and Forbes Magazine hailing it as superior to Internet Explorer, Firefox is clearly the web browser of the future. In fact, as it stands today, already 22% of the market currently employs Firefox for their browsing purposes.

"Don't Click on the Blue E!" has been written exclusively for this growing audience. With its straightforward approach, it helps people harness this emerging technology so they can enjoy a superior--and safer--browsing experience.

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!

Until now, no other book examined the gap between the theory of algorithms and the production of software programs. Focusing on practical issues, A Programmer's Companion to Algorithm Analysis carefully details the transition from the design and analysis of an algorithm to the resulting software program. Consisting of two main complementary parts, the book emphasizes the concrete aspects of translating an algorithm into software that should perform based on what the algorithm analysis indicated. In the first part, the author describes the idealized universe that algorithm designers inhabit while the second part outlines how this ideal can be adapted to the real world of programming. The book explores analysis techniques, including crossover points, the influence of the memory hierarchy, implications of programming language aspects, such as recursion, and problems arising from excessively high computational complexities of solution methods. It concludes with four appendices that discuss basic algorithms; memory hierarchy, virtual memory management, optimizing compilers, and garbage collection; NP-completeness and higher complexity classes; and undecidability in practical terms. Applying the theory of algorithms to the production of software, A Programmer's Companion to Algorithm Analysis fulfills the needs of software programmers and developers as well as students by showing that with the correct algorithm, you can achieve a functional software program.

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.

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.

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.

The Student Book and ActiveBook has clearly laid out pages with a range of supportive features to aid learning and teaching: Getting to know your unit sections ensure learners understand the grading criteria and unit requirements. Getting ready for Assessment sections focus on preparation for external assessment with guidance for learners on what to expect. Hints and tips will help them prepare for assessment and sample answers are provided for a range of question types including, short and long answer questions, all with a supporting commentary. Learners can also prepare for internal assessment using this feature. A case study of a learner completing the internal assessment for that unit covering 'How I got started', 'How I brought it all together' and 'What I got from the experience'. Pause Point features provide opportunities for learners to self-evaluate their learning at regular intervals. Each Pause Point point feature gives learners a Hint or Extend option to either revisit and reinforce the topic or encourage independent research or further study skills. Case Study and Theory into Practice features enable development of problem-solving skills and place the theory into real life situations learners could encounter. Assessment Activity/Practice features provide scaffolded assessment practice activities that help prepare learners for formative assessment. Within each assessment practice activity, a Plan, Do and Review section encourages supports learners' formative assessment by to making sure they fully understand what they are being asked to do, what their goals are and how to evaluate the task and consider how they could improve. Dedicated Think Future pages provide case studies from the industry, with a focus on aspects of skills development that can be put into practice in a real work environment and further study.

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.

Learn the mechanics that take your game from an idea to a playable product. Do you aspire to be a game designer but aren't sure where to begin? Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers guides you through your initial attempts to design game mechanics. It goes beyond simple description and definition to explore in detail the issues that designers grapple with for every game they create. Learning to design tabletop games builds a solid foundation for game designers and provides methods that can be applied towards creating paper prototypes of computer-targeted games. Presented in a step-by-step format, Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers helps the reader understand how the game design skills that are acquired through creating tabletop games can be used when designing video games. Fully playable games accompany every topic so you can truly understand and experience each component that goes into game creation. Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers includes: Simple, highly focused games that can be played, analyzed, improved, and/or modified in conjunction with a particular topic in the book. Integrated game design exercises, chapter learning objectives, and in-text sidebars to provide further examples to apply directly to your game creation process. A companion website (www.funmines.com) which includes: "print and play" tabletop games, links to online games, game design resources, and articles about designing and developing games.

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.

Software developer and author Karen Hazzah expands her original treatise on device drivers in the second edition of Writing Windows VxDs and Device Drivers. The book and companion disk include the author's library of wrapper functions that allow the progr

Why purchase expensive add-on cards or bus interfaces when you can develop effective and economical data acquisition and process controls using C programs? Using the under-employed printer adapter (that is, the parallel port of your PC), you can turn your computer into a powerful tool for developing microprocessor applications. Learn how to build a complete data acquisition system and such varied applications as a CCD camera controller, a photometer interface, and a wave form generator. The book also covers the enhanced parallel port (EPP), the extended capabilities port (ECP), interfacing analog-to-digital converters, and data acquisition under Linux. This extraordinary software approach to interfacing through the parallel port will be especially appealing to programmers involved in control systems design and device development, as well as to those who work with real-time and embedded systems. ;

Makes Numerical Programming More Accessible to a Wider Audience Bearing in mind the evolution of modern programming, most specifically emergent programming languages that reflect modern practice, Numerical Programming: A Practical Guide for Scientists and Engineers Using Python and C/C plus plus utilizes the author's many years of practical research and teaching experience to offer a systematic approach to relevant programming concepts. Adopting a practical, broad appeal, this user-friendly book offers guidance to anyone interested in using numerical programming to solve science and engineering problems. Emphasizing methods generally used in physics and engineering from elementary methods to complex algorithms it gradually incorporates algorithmic elements with increasing complexity. Develop a Combination of Theoretical Knowledge, Efficient Analysis Skills, and Code Design Know-How The book encourages algorithmic thinking, which is essential to numerical analysis. Establishing the fundamental numerical methods, application numerical behavior and graphical output needed to foster algorithmic reasoning, coding dexterity, and a scientific programming style, it enables readers to successfully navigate relevant algorithms, understand coding design, and develop efficient programming skills. The book incorporates real code, and includes examples and problem sets to assist in hands-on learning. Begins with an overview on approximate numbers and programming in Python and C/C plus plus, followed by discussion of basic sorting and indexing methods, as well as portable graphic functionality Contains methods for function evaluation, solving algebraic and transcendental equations, systems of linear algebraic equations, ordinary differential equations, and eigenvalue problems Addresses approximation of tabulated functions, regression, integration of one-

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.