Need to solve problems quickly to develop creative projects to time and to budget? Want to hone your Flash skills so you can concentrate on your animation? Then How to Cheat in Flash is for you! Chris Georgenes shows how to work from the problem to the solution - from the viewpoint of an animator who has been commissioned to create a job and is working to a deadline and to a budget. With his in-depth knowledge of the little-known secrets used by the pros to produce creative, professional animations, Chris is the go-to guru for designers and animators who want to create great animation, applications or motion design with Flash. Fully updated for CS5, How to Cheat in Flash CS5, is a goldmine of artistic inspiration, timesaving practical tips, tricks and step-by-step workthroughs that you'll wonder how you survived without it. Each techniques is designed as a double-page spread so you can prop the book up behind your keyboard or next to your monitor as a visual reference while working alongside it. Many of these workthroughs are real-world client projects, with the source files supplied for you to open and explore. With these real-life professional projects you'll discover how to: bring objects to life with cool motion effects, make it rain, snow or set your world ablaze, develop flash mobile applications and many more tips and tricks not found anywhere else!

Matchmoving has become a standard visual effects procedure for almost every situation where live action materials and CG get combined. It allows virtual and real scenes that have been composited together to seamlessly appear as though they are from the same perspective. This authoritative step-by-step guide from one of the best matchmovers in the business allows you to master this technique that has been called the foundation upon which all VFX work stands. Author Erica Hornung (sr. matchmover for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Matrix: Revolutions, and more) imparts her techniques, tips, and wisdom from the trenches that will have you matchmoving like a true professional in no time. Lessons in the most popular matchmoving software (Maya, Boujou, and others) are included, as well as tips and techniques for surveying on set, dolly moves, and operating nodal cameras. Individual chapters dedicated to object and character matchmoves show you how to matchmove for shadow casting, adding weapons and other objects, focusing on center of gravity, as well as complete CG character support. The downloadable resources include Quicktime examples of techniques shown in the book, as well as project files that allow you to master these techniques yourself by working alongside the lessons featured in the text.

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.

A global information revolution has begun. Converging communications and computing technologies are forming information superhighways, linking people and information interactively, at any time, in any place, via a combination of multimedia, digital video, sound, graphics, and text.
The challenge now is to understand the needs of people as the users of information superhighways and develop products and services that use the technological advances to positive effect. This is the first book to examine these issues. It shows that by focusing on users, a range of multimedia applications emerge which make more imaginative use of computing and bandwidth than the products of the current focus on application development, such as"video on demand."The book emphasizes the point that the information revolution will be driven by users, not the multimedia industry.
Information Superhighways is essential reading for those working in the communications, computing, and media industries, and in multimedia. It will also be of interest to students and practitioners in psychology, computing, and human-computer interaction.
Key Features
* Foreword by best-selling author Nicholas Negroponte, Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Senior Columnist for Wired magazine
* Discusses the importance of the coming information age
* Outlines need for innovation in regulatory policy
* Presents the idea of using multimedia to design organizations
* Describes multimedia-supported group working
* Gives discussion of designing media space
* Provides coverage of issues in user-centered multimedia development

Used from Broadway to Britain's West End, QLab software is the tool of choice for many of the world's most prominent sound, projection, and integrated media designers. QLab 4: Projects in Video, Audio, and Lighting Control is a project-based book on QLab software covering sound, video, lighting, and show control. With information on audio, video, and lighting system basics and the more advanced functions of QLab such as show control, network capabilities, projection mapping, video effects, and cue cart integration, each chapter's specific projects will allow you to learn the software's capabilities at your own pace. In addition to the text, a companion website hosts project files, instructional videos, and 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.

Rapid advances in 3-D scientific visualization have made a major impact on the display of behavior. The use of 3-D has become a key component of both academic research and commercial product development in the field of engineering design. Computer Visualization presents a unified collection of computer graphics techniques for the scientific visualization of behavior. The book combines a basic overview of the fundamentals of computer graphics with a practitioner-oriented review of the latest 3-D graphics display and visualization techniques. Each chapter is written by well-known experts in the field. The first section reviews how computer graphics visualization techniques have evolved to work with digital numerical analysis methods. The fundamentals of computer graphics that apply to the visualization of analysis data are also introduced. The second section presents a detailed discussion of the algorithms and techniques used to visualize behavior in 3-D, as static, interactive, or animated imagery. It discusses the mathematics of engineering data for visualization, as well as providing the current methods used for the display of scalar, vector, and tensor fields. It also examines the more general issues of visualizing a continuum volume field and animating the dimensions of time and motion in a state of behavior. The final section focuses on production visualization capabilities, including the practical computational aspects of visualization such as user interfaces, database architecture, and interaction with a model. The book concludes with an outline of successful practical applications of visualization, and future trends in scientific visualization.

In this unique book the author explores the history of pioneering computer art and its contribution to art history by way of examining Ernest Edmonds' art from the late 1960s to the present day. Edmonds' inventions of new concepts, tools and forms of art, along with his close involvement with the communities of computer artists, constructive artists and computer technologists, provides the context for discussion of the origins and implications of the relationship between art and technology. Drawing on interviews with Edmonds and primary research in archives of his work, the book offers a new contribution to the history of the development of digital art and places Edmonds' work in the context of contemporary art history.

Vintage Games explores the most influential videogames of all time, including Super Mario Bros., Grand Theft Auto III, Doom, The Sims and many more. Drawing on interviews as well as the authors' own lifelong experience with videogames, the book discusses each game's development, predecessors, critical reception, and influence on the industry. It also features hundreds of full-color screenshots and images, including rare photos of game boxes and other materials. Vintage Games is the ideal book for game enthusiasts and professionals who desire a broader understanding of the history of videogames and their evolution from a niche to a global market.

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.

The Art of Type and Typography is an introduction to the art and rules of typography. Incorporating the industry standard-InDesign-for typesetting from the outset, this book serves as a guide for beginning students to learn to set type properly through tutorials, activities, and examples of student work. Encompassing the history of typography from ancient times to widespread modern use, The Art of Type and Typography provides context and fosters creativity while developing key concepts, including: The history of type; Terminology; Classification; Measurement; Spacing; Alignment; Legibility; Hierarchy; Layout and Grids; Page Elements; InDesign tools and style sheets. Writing clearly and to the point, Mary Jo Krysinski brings over 30 years of design experience to this essential guide. With a glossary, sample class activities, additional online resources and a beautiful clean design, this book is the perfect introduction for a beginning typography student, and a handy reference for those needing a refresher.

This book is a comprehensive guide to buying and developing multimedia in the most cost-effective manner. Focusing on the human factors in producing multimedia, rather than just the software, Buying and Selling Multimedia Services is aimed at both buyers and sellers of multimedia services and draws on real-world anecdotes war stories from project diaries and first-hand experience, to provide examples of the key ideas delineated within the book. These are true stories culled from 25 years of working on both sides of the desk as a purchaser of creative services for a Fortune 500 company and as a producer and seller for one of the largest multimedia production shops in the country. This book helps the multimedia producer and buyer to recognize flaws in past performances and to anticipate situations in future projects in order to save money and eliminate boardroom confrontations. Accusations, altercations, and recriminations can be avoided and the bottom line enhanced with the production of an effective product targeted to a receptive audience. Souter examines the skills necessary to both the producer and the purchaser of multimedia, allowing each to see the others' problems and viewpoints. Viewing the multimedia project from both sides, as both buyer and seller, Souter highlights the issues which will allow for effective communication between parties, resulting in a better product and a more creative relationship among all involved. In the second part of the book, Souter provides a comprehensive guide to all the digital formats available, to help the buyer and the developer select the most appropriate for a given project.

Discover the tips, tricks and techniques that really work for concept artists, matte painters and animators. Compiled by the team at 3dtotal.com, Digital Painting Techniques, Volume 1 offers digital inspiration with hands-on insight and techniques from professional digital artists. More than just a gallery book - within Digital Painting Techniques each artist has written a breakdown overview, with supporting imagery of how they made their piece of work. Beginner and intermediate digital artists will be inspired by the gallery style collection of the finest examples of digital painting from world renowned digital artists. Start your mentorship into the world of digital painting today with some of the greatest digital artists in the world and delve into professional digital painting techiques, such as speed painting, custom brush creation and matte painting. Develop your digital painting skills beyond the variety of free online digital painting tutorials and apply the most up to date techniques to your digital canvas with Digital Painting Techniques for Animators.

Create high-quality photorealistic renders of architectural visualizations using 3ds Max and Vray with the project-based tutorials in this book. Learn how to combine lighting and rendering options to end-up with the most realistic final renders possible at a professional level. The tutorials in this book are filled with beautiful full-color images and they teach you how to light both interiors and exteriors and daytime and nighttime scenes. Learn how to save time without sacrificing the quality of your final renders with tips and tricks on rendering with Vray - the most accurate rendering application for 3ds Max. The downloadable resources include all the project files that you need to recreate each of the projects presented within the book. Please note that this book does not support the current versions of 3ds Max and V-Ray. Topics include:

Make More Immersive and Engaging Magic Systems in Games Game Magic: A Designer's Guide to Magic Systems in Theory and Practice explains how to construct magic systems and presents a compendium of arcane lore, encompassing the theory, history, and structure of magic systems in games and human belief. The author combines rigorous scholarly analysis with practical game design advice in the form of a magical recipe book (grimoire). The book gives you an in-depth understanding of the history and structure of magic to make your games richer and deeper. It shows how to set up tables of correspondences and spell components as well as how to write programming code integrating these components as part of game mechanics. It also illustrates how to divide a simulated world into domains of influence (such as alteration, conjuration, and necromancy) and how to use specific rule systems to simulate powers within these realms. Showing you how to weave compelling magic into your games, the book is interspersed with examples that illustrate how to design and program magic systems. Working examples are available for download on a supporting website.

Meet some of the finest 2D and 3D artists working in the industry today and discover how they create some of the most innovative digital art in the world. More than a gallery book or a coffee table book- Digital Art Masters Volume 5 includes over 50 artists and 900 unique and stunning 2D and 3D digital art. Beyond the breath taking images is a breakdown of the techniques, challenges and tricks the artists employed while creating stunning imagery. This volume, much like the previous volumes is not your standard coffee table book nor is it our usual how-to-book. New to this volume will be 5 artist video tutorials. Five artists will specifically detail an aspect of their gallery image from start to finish, offering further technique driven insight and expertise offering 2 hours of additional inspiration. With a click of a mouse, artists willbe able to apply the leading techniques to their own work with access to additional video tutorials, source files, textures and digital brushes at the companion website: http://www.focalpress.com/digital-art-masters/index.html.

Catherine McIntyre, like many fine artists, created traditional art for decades before encountering the versatility of digital imaging technology. Free of her Rotring pens and scalpel, she now uses Photoshop to create her montages. Visual Alchemy explores McIntyre's sources of inspiration as well as her methods, offering an aesthetic guide to composition, color, texture and all of the other means of communication that artists have at their disposal. While these concepts and techniques make use of Photoshop, they will apply to any digital imaging program and indeed to any medium, whether traditional or digital. Featuring McIntyre's own art as well as that of artists around the globe, Visual Alchemy is an invitation to discover the artistic possibilities of picture making through digital montage.

For all of your video and audio blogging business and professional communication needs, this book is it!The Hands-on Guide to Video Blogging and Podcasting provides tremendous value to those content publishers, big and small, that want to create syndicated video blog and podcast content. The simplified, plain talking break-down the authors bring to the book will give everyone the tools to plan, create, and execute a blog/podcast outlet.This book explains these emerging media tools from a professional perspective. Quickly learn the technical aspects of video blogging and podcasting along with their business and financial ramifications.

Since Steamboat Mickey, animators have been creating characters and films that are charming, warm and humorous, allowing people to connect with the animated medium. Animation fans love the characters for a lifetime. This is the legacy of the countless animators and artists who created the classic characters and fun stories, and it is the legacy of Disney Legend, Floyd Norman. Written with wit and verve, Animated Life is a guided tour through an entire lifetime of techniques, practical hands-on advice and insight into an entire industry. This is a vital tutorial in animation's past, present and future for students who are now poised to be part of another new generation in the art form. Apply artistic magic to your own projects and garner valuable insight and inspiration from a True Disney legend. Animated Life is a classic in the making with completely relevant techniques and tools for the contemporary animation or fine arts professional.

Get an inside look at the creation of production-ready creature rigs for film, TV and video games. Garner strategies and techniques for creating creatures of all types, and make them ready for easy automatic use in many different types of media (transmedia): film, TV, games - one rig for all. You will move step by step from idea, to concept, and finally to completion through a proven production-pipeline. "Digital Creature Rigging" gives you the practical, hands-on approaches to rigging you need, with a theoretical look at 12 rigging principles, and plenty of tips, tricks and techniques to get you up and running quickly. This is the definitive guide to creating believe production-ready creature rigs with 3ds Max.The companion web site has all scene files, scripts, tutorials from the book.

Frequently not enough attention is given to producing a comprehensive business case or to producing an economic justification for an information systems investment. In fact many organizations are not clear as to what constitutes a sound business case and how to go about producing one. This Professional level book for the Computer Weekly Professional Series will show how to go about justification for I.T. spend. This book is designed for all those who are involved in the decision to invest in information systems. This book is especially relevant to senior business executives, senior financial managers and IT executives. Business consultants, computer and corporate advisors will also find the ideas and material addressed in this text of particular benefit as will anyone involved in corporate and strategic planning.In addition, senior students such as those working towards their MBAs will find this book of use.A business case is a statement or a series of statements that demonstrate the economic value of a particular intervention, a course of action or a specific investment. A business case is not simply a financial forecast of the hardware and software costs and the expected benefits. A business case for an information systems investment involves a comprehensive understanding of both the likely resources as well as the business drivers which will assist business managers improve their performance and thereby obtain a stream of benefits from the investment.In general there are approximately six steps in producing a business case for an information systems investment.1. Determine the high-level business outcomes that will be clearly and comprehensively expressed as a set of opportunities the organization can take advantage of, or problems that need to be rectified.2

There s no class in art school that can teach you this. Believe it or not, there s a lot more to directing a great animated film than beautiful illustrations and cool characters. You need to bring out your inner creative visionary and take your savvy leadership skills to the front lines being great with a pencil, brush, or stylus is not enough. Tony Bancroft released his inner creative visionary when creating Mulan. In Directing for Animation he shows you exactly how. Pull the right strings to bring your characters to life and center your story by developing the visual cues that lend to your audience s understanding of the plot, place, and purpose. Tony walks you through the process, bringing you behind the scenes of real, well-known projects with a little help from some famous friends. Learn from the directors of Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Ice Age, Chicken Run, and Kung Fu Panda, and see how they developed stories and created characters that have endured for generations. Get the inside scoop behind these major features pitfalls and all.

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!

What really makes a video game story interactive? What's the best way to create an interactive story?How much control should players be given? Do they really want that control in the first place?Do they even know what they want-or are their stated desires at odds with the unconscious preferences?All of these questions and more are examined in this definitive book on interactive storytelling for video games. You'll get detailed descriptions of all major types of interactive stories, case studies of popular games (including Bioshock, Fallout 3, Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, and Metal Gear Solid), and how players interact with them, and an in-depth analysis of the results of a national survey on player storytelling preferences in games. You'll get the expert advice you need to generate compelling and original game concepts and narratives.With Interactive Storytelling for Video Games, you'll:

Create effective cinematography for your games with this film-based approach to creating cinematic games. Cinematic Game Secrets gives game producers, directors, and developers insight into how to make their games more cinematic. Game developers will learn how to create compelling video games by: developing quality stories and characters; visualizing scenes within the game through the eyes of a cinematographer; and using tried and true film industry methods for casting, voice-over, direction, and production.Includes interview with luminaries and leading figures in the field such as Warren Spector (Founder, Junction Point Studios), Bruce Block (Author, The Visual Story), Ron Burke (Founder, GamingTrend), Bob Sabiston (Flat Black Films), Tom Buscaglia (GameDevKit.com), Daniel Erickson (BioWare), Jay Duplass (Director, The Puffy Chair), Ray Pena (Spacetime Studios), Richard Rouse III (Author, Game Design: Theory and Practice), Mathieu Raynault (Artist, 300, King Kong), Donise Hardy (C.S.A.), Patrick Hamilton (President, Wardog Studios), and Marc Schaefgen (Midway Games).