Book Description
Photoshop is one of those programs that's so cool you just want to dive right in and start creating–but by plunging in head-first, without any guidance, you're likely to miss a lot. There's a solution: With this book, you learn by doing, getting your feet wet immediately as you progress through a series of hands-on projects that build on your growing Photoshop knowledge. Simple step-by-step instructions, review questions at the end of each chapter, and a companion CD with all of the book's project files make learning a breeze as the Adobe Creative Team takes you on a self-paced tour of the image-editing powerhouse. This bestselling guide has been completely revised to cover all of Photoshop CS2's new features, which include advanced tools for digital photographers, such as a new Spot Healing Brush for correcting scratches or blemishes, and Smart Sharpen for fixing photo blurring. Photoshop CS2 also includes loads of new creative tools, such as Vanishing Point and Image Warp. This comprehensive guide starts with an introductory tour of the software and then progresses on through lessons on everything from Photoshop's interface to more complex topics like color management, Web graphics, and photo retouching.
Customer Reviews:
The Title Says It all.......2007-08-17
If you want to go back to your school days and have no interaction with the subject matter then this book is OK. But to work on your photos and learn what you want to do to them forget it. Way to structured, more suited to a textbook in a real class room where you can ask the teacher "how do I do this", forget it.
UGH! Frustrating and too project driven........2007-08-06
I imagine this book would be fine for someone who has never used Photoshop, and just wants to be walked through a tiny bit of the program. This was a required text for a graphics class on electronic imagery, and I found it to be frustratingly limiting, to say the least.
For instance, one project has you going into a folder to access the background and other images for a collage. This is fine if that is what you want to do, but what if you want to find your own background, add your own images, or heaven forbid, explore some of the possibilities with the huge selection of tools Photoshop offers? This book covers just a tiny portion of a drop in the proverbial bucket, and I found myself supplementing this text with SEVERAL other books, as it is a very "think inside the box" kind of text. There are a myriad of ways to do things within the Photoshop program. (Just one of the great joys, in my opinion, of working with Photoshop) I don't believe this book in any way, shape, or form, relays that to the reader.
If you are looking for a good introductory text for Photoshop, keep looking! This one is sadly lacking!
Nice.......2007-07-05
This is an excellent product for any beginner. I had no clue about CS2 until I started this book. This should be in your library if you're using CS2
Adobe Photoshop CS2 Classroom in a Book.......2007-06-10
This book is the worst photoshop book I have ever used! In almost evey lesson he leaves out intructions. He acts like you did the lesson before. He does eveything the hard way. I hate this book and I would not give it a star. It takes forever to finish and I have to go to my NAPP help to do it the right way. I have not learned anything from this book. Don't buy it. Deb
Amazing.......2007-06-09
Along with the disc, the step-by-step instructions to do certain exercises, is just what I needed!!! This book was a requirement for school, and I know I'll be using it for a VERY long time to come!!!
Book Description
How often have you wished you had access to the team behind your favorite software--in this case, Adobe Illustrator--so that you could really pick their brains about all of its coolest features? With this book, you do. In these pages, the Adobe Creative Team gives you a guided tour of the graphics powerhouse, Adobe Illustrator CS2. Best of all, it does so at your pace. Whether your beautifully designed graphics end up in print, the Web, broadcast video, or even cell phone displays, this book shows you how to get them there--easily, elegantly, and efficiently. You'll find step-by-step, project-based lessons in all of Illustrator's key features, including those that are new to CS2: Live Trace, Illustrator’s powerful bitmap-to-vector tracing tool; Live Paint, a revolutionary paint tool that lets you apply color to vector graphics intuitively and easily; the new Control Palette, which makes tools easier to locate and select, the Adobe Bridge file browser, tighter integration with Photoshop CS2, and more. Each chapter contains a project that builds on your growing knowledge of the program, while the companion CD includes all the files you need to complete the book's lessons.
Customer Reviews:
Low rating not product, but Amazon crappy service!.......2007-10-03
Two different orders made on same day, Amazon charged me for product twice and sent me two copies of the book I had ordered. I despise overseas customer service! Could not understand them, period! Website said they would not need verification of my account since I had contacted them through the website, Wrong! I am curious I they were dinking around or if the website is wrong. I do not trust them now with my information. Second attempt got english speaking person, maybe American, but seemed the be standoff-ish as if they could tell I had called before. Said my problem could have been a cookie that was on my computer from the Amazon website and this was why the item was sent twice. Given a couple of drawn out solutions. Very frustrating! Found link to send book back to Amazon as a wrong ordered item. I was not given this option on the phone. I want them to have their property back and I want it done quick so I don't have to pay interest on the charge on my account for this item. Absolute nightmare! I could have bought local, saved money and my time! I'll go elsewhere!!!!
SEE SPOT RUN.......2007-09-29
I signed up for a computer graphics illustrator class at the college and after the first week almost dropped out. A friend sugested I buy ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CLASSROOM IN A BOOK. With the aid of the book I learned the program, applied my creative skills, completed the class with an A grade. The ADOBE CLASSROOM IN A BOOK series has been a real help to me.
Great Book.......2007-09-22
I really like this book because it helped me learn new things that wasn't taught in school. I which I had bought this book and others like it before I spent so much money going to graphic design school online.
If you are interested in learning graphic design, get this book.
Thorough, Easy to Follow.......2007-09-14
This books gives a very thorough walk-through of Illustrator CS2. If you already have knowledge of other design software, or have lightly used Illustrator previously, the chapters are set up in a methodical manner that are easy to follow and cover all of the options available in this powerful software. The book comes with a CD containing practice files, which further enhances the learning experience.
Over the past year I had taught myself how to use Illustrator, but going through this book has completely raised my level of expertise.
It does help if you are not a complete novice, but if you are, you will learn everything you need to know to create vector art.
Good Intro to CS2.......2007-09-09
I have CS2 and found this to be a solid introduction to the basics of this complicated program. Much in the tradition of the Photoshop7 book. Do every lesson 2-3 times if you are new to Photoshop.
Customer Reviews:
Good But Content Diluted, Concept-Elucidation Blurred?.......2007-08-15
Yes it is indeed a sad enterprise when an author--runs out of steam. Begins to repeat; begins to dilute. A near-universal in visual art, also in literature. Mark Twain's early travel books ran dynamic, rich--but then at least one later work slowed to show results of fatigue and the end of inspiration. We can call it an issue of Specific Gravity. What is the amount of material compared to the word-count? One speaks of "op-ed books" today, full-length treatments whose gist and essence could have been presented in, say, 1000 words.
Edward Tufte's invaluable first three books show this proportionate packing with material. Just possibly, this fourth and latest book--shows dilution, watering-down, inappropriate repetition. At least one other reviewer has made this point; I suspect so.
But let's accentuate the positives of Tufte's vision--even if imperfectly presented here. New here (among good stuff such as "sparklines") is the indispensable attempt at explicating universal principles of design. Above the Concrete Particulars, the flux of graphs, charts, pictures, etc., what Conceptual Principles can guide us? And the half-dozen issues he identifies, are helpful.
However, the presentation of them is not. Tufte employs Menard's famous graphic of Napoleon's 1811 Russian campaign to illustrate the principles. However, in terms of sheer Information Elucidation, two errors seem to occur.
First, number of examples. To convey difficult concept, more than one example, illustration, instance is needed. We lack a "rounded ensemble" (in my system's terminology) of several and varied instances to better cinch the point. Example: someone trying to convey the idea of a map as more than just an image of the earth's surface, of presenting knowledge, referenced chromosome maps in genetics, weather maps in meteorology, animal range maps in zoology, magnetic field maps in geology, and wiring diagrams in engineering. [Geographer Peter Gould is even better in elucidating how maps are not terrestrial but conceptual, representing relationships between things. He references "maps" of emotional states of married couples, South Pacific geobotanically, New Zealand "in changing aircost space," intellectual winds blowing through psychology journals, my gosh, world journalism, Shakespeare, influenza...] Bravo, a rounded ensemble cinches the concept with polypod footings. Too bad Tufte fell short here as the multiple instances ploy is actually similar to Tufte's own excellent tactic of "Small Multiples."
Second, comparison/contrast, or rather,Tufte's non-use of this keystone principle of thinking-writing-communicating. Only the excellent Menard graphic is shown; he should have either shown a bad attempt by another of the same subject, or created a "ruined" version also of Menard's, given a flawed example. This dualism for each of his universal principles. One thinks of Tufte's own dictum, statistics always asks, "compared to what?" Or, "He who knows not a foreign country knows nothing of his own." Or, to teach freshmen students good qualities of poetry, give a first draft or inferior poem on the same subject as well as Yeats' excellent final-draft "The Old Pensioner." Or give even a triad: as in, a too-lightly- inked graphic, a just-right density, and then an over-inked graphic.
So much for better elucidation of Key Principles. This is more important than the issue of irrelevant items, such as the issues of introductions and of sculptures. A little charity here; it's hard to exclude one's own enthusiasms. But Convergence to Point is also a principle of good communication.
"At least a quintet [of books] is projected," states Tufte. But let him await the wellspring re-filling itself with Heavy Water, not diluted dew. And please use comparison-contrast and multiple examples to cinch point.
Just incredible........2007-07-18
As always Professor Tufte's work in this area just continues to astound me. I have read- and re-read - the other works and this is arguably the most succinct and tight one yet. It operates equally well from 30,000 feet as it does through a macro lens....very well laid out, beautifully executed and remarkable approachable for a wide range of professionals outside the design and graphics industry.
Tufte B-sides?.......2007-07-01
This fourth book in Tufte's series on visual information resembles a disappointing B-sides/greatest hits collection instead of an essential new work. It includes a full reprint of Tufte's recent PowerPoint pamphlet and frequent discussion of topics from earlier books (for example Minard's chart of Napoleon's march into Russia). The final chapter on Tufte's sculptures seems especially misplaced. New material includes exploration of Sparklines, word-sized graphs interspersed among normal text. In the Graphics Press tradition of superior aesthetics, this book contains richly printed images and text on thick paper.
I'd strongly recommend the previous three books in the series, esp. the first one 'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information'. Those who already own those three works can probably skip this new volume.
What was I thinking?.......2007-06-08
If I had gone into a brick and mortar store and thumbed through the pages of this book I would never have purchased it. I'm sorry I just don't get all this artsy type fluff that everyone seems to be so "Tufte-Gong-Ho" about. I was expecting a book from a professional business perspective on insights on how to represent various types of data in the correct visual format. One look at the table of contents gives you the impression that's exactly what this book is. However, when you look at the actual contents, you have pictures and artwork that would never make it in a professional boardroom. The examples are just plain terrible and you would think someone as good as Tufte would be able to represent and communicate concepts in a better format instead of getting nostalgic with historical artwork. Do I really care about David Smith's Cubi XXVI (1965) sculptural volumes! Oh and the slave trade ship pictures on pages 22-23 are a nice touch. Give me a break; I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what the point of those pictures were in explaining a concept. I just hope I can resell this book and try to recover half the price I paid for it. If you are in corporate America trying to make a living adding value to your company's bottom line, skip this book.
Beautiful Evidence.......2007-05-07
This book should be reviewed by anyone who writes reports or gives presentations. I especially like the author's views on corruption of data and facts.
Average customer rating:
- A Very Helpful Book
- Haven't Used it just yet...
- If you want to know how to make a MOD or GAME... Get This...
- Very good book
- Top Notch Book!
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Mastering Unreal Technology: The Art of Level Design
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Game Level Design (Game Development Series)
ASIN: 0672326922 |
Book Description
Let your imagination run wild in the world of Unreal Technology. Mastering Unreal Technology: The Art of Level Design knows no boundaries as it shows you how to build custom mods, maps and levels with the Unreal engine. Its tutorial format will give you immediate results through the tips and demos provided from the industry's top level designers. Learn to create your own characters, weapons and gaming environments, as well as how to go beyond the Unreal environment and export custom elements from 3D modeling applications. A CD that contains the Unreal Engine, graphics, examples and code is also included, giving you everything you need to create custom levels in Unreal or build your own games and virtual environments. Mastering Unreal Technology will help put you on the cutting-edge of gaming technology.
Customer Reviews:
A Very Helpful Book.......2007-09-21
I am a Game Art Development student, and this book has been indespensible in aiding in my understanding of the Unreal Editor. Without this book, I'm sure that it would've taken me waaaaayyy longer to get things done than the limited time that I had. Even though the book is more expensive than the game itself, it is a must have for any aspiring modder or game creator.
Haven't Used it just yet..........2007-08-04
I just bought this book, and although It seems like it's going to be great, my major problem is finding either Maya PLE 5.0's registration number, or Maya 7.0 PLE and its registration number.
the Autodesk site only has Maya PLE 8.5 to download and there are only plug-ins for Unreal for Maya 5.0 PLE and Maya 7.0 PLE (note: there is no version for the regular Maya)
So it kind of leaves you stuck with nothing to use. There is also nothing on the net about it either.
If you want to know how to make a MOD or GAME... Get This..........2007-05-12
Wow, it Big, It heavy and yes my Friends it is a red Brick, But it well worth ever cent and every page. Packed full of Useful Information and Helpful Tutorials it writen with the Lamen in mind. and take you into the Skills needed to make almost a full game. The one thing it lacks is the swcripting language section. But this is forgivable as it would make the book way bigger and much more complex to read if you a new guy trying to make a few little Deathmatch levels.
Very good book.......2007-04-10
This book is very complete and very easy to follow. Get the videos from 3dbuzz and the planetunreal tutorials and you'll be making great levels in no time.
Also great is the coverage static meshes and character production in maya and export to unrealed.
Top Notch Book!.......2007-03-09
Anyone who wants to learn how to use the Unreal Engine should buy this bible, yes it is a bible, because without this book you would be lost, the second cd to the Unreal game which is all videos really isn't enough, this book will cover everything about the Unreal!
Definitely a good buy!
Book Description
The Game Maker's Apprentice shows you how to create nine exciting games using the wildly popular Game Maker game creation tool. This book covers a range of genres, including action, adventure, and puzzle games--complete with professional quality sound effects and visuals. It discusses game design theory and features practical examples of how this can be applied to making games that are more fun to play.
Game Maker allows games to be created using a simple drag-and-drop interface, so you don't need to have any prior coding experience. It includes an optional programming language for adding advanced features to your games, when you feel ready to do so. You can obtain more information by visiting book.gamemaker.nl.
The authors include the creator of the Game Maker tool and a former professional game programmer, so you'll glean understanding from their expertise. The book also includes a CD containing Game Maker software and all of the game projects that are created in the book--plus a host of professional-quality graphics and sound effects that you can use in your own games.
Customer Reviews:
It is a treasure, priceless.......2007-10-03
I am one who has no knowledge at all about programing. This book was so useful for me to learn game programing. It is very easy as it teachs you in a step-by-step way plus there is a helpful icons beside each step. The language is simple and easy. In addition to a CD that contains all the files necessary for the learning. Thanks to this book I made my first ever game within hours. I hope there is a second volume that teaches more complex game programing.
Just Right.......2007-08-27
This book is just what I was looking for for myself and my 12 year old son. We've been dabbling with gamemaker for several years. This is a good springboard for delving deeper with a well-written, easy-to-read guide. A good mix of games. Several good issues are developed with each chapter. The instructions are very explicit, which at times can be a little tedious, but on the other hand, has its benefits. There are good points regarding game theory scattered throughout with good, solid examples all the way through.
The Best........2007-08-09
The Best book for the best program, if I could recommend VOL.2 I would put 3D help in, but that's when GM makes a 3D Shape maker. They use I believe Swift 3D now.
Great.......2007-06-27
It's a great book for anyone who is interested in game development. Very easy to use even for grade school students.
For college-level students, this is a great book to learn GameMaker from and to make prototype games for your game designs in mind.
Excellent value for the price.
-Karlo
Very good.......2007-05-13
This book gives lots of great techniques to use in the creation of your own games. It really covers all aspects of GM6 and has a vast range of techniques which can easily be adapted into any of your own creations.
Customer Reviews:
A comprehensive resource - but not for the novice.......2006-03-15
Truly Matt Pharr and NVIDIA are at the top of their game, and his "GPU Gems" series is certainly the only one of its kind for graphics professionals that are familiar with GPU's and shading languages already, and want to exploit them for the maximum speed and effect achievable using today's technology. It is not a "how-to" book on shading or GPUs or even advanced graphics. There are equations and code interspersed throughout the book, with bits of wisdom that are very instructive for the initiated. However, if you are a home-grown graphics programmer who knows C, or C++, or Java, and even some assembly language, plus you are familiar with image processing and computer graphics techniques, that will probably not be enough to get you through this book. I would say that this is a five star book for high-level professional graphics programmers who work with GPU specifics and shaders daily, and I would say it is a two or three star book for everyone else.
The one section of the book that is pretty accessible to anyone with knowledge of computer architecture and computer graphics would be section 4 of the book, which is about general purpose computation on GPU's themselves. That section has a series of articles that comprise an excellent tutorial on GPU's, what they are, and what they can do. It is the best material in print I have seen on the subject.
If you want a good introduction into the concept of writing shaders plus practice with an actual shading language, try "OpenGL Shading Language, 2nd Edition" by Rost, assuming you already know OpenGL. For a great on-line resource for modeling and graphics that will get you going in the right direction of knowing what the authors of these articles know, type "Elias Hugo" into Google and check out the first address shown. There is a wealth of on-line articles, complete with math and pseudocode, available there. Then, maybe, you will be ready to sift some knowledge from this "GPU Gems" series.
I notice that the table of contents is not shown by Amazon, so I list the articles here:
PART 1:GEOMETRIC COMPLEXITY
Towards Photorealism in Virtual Botany
Terrain Rendering using GPU-Based Geometry Clipmaps
Inside Geometry Instancing
Segment Buffering
Optimizing Resource Management with Multi-Streaming
Hardware Occlusion Queries Made Useful
Adaptive Tessellation of Subdivision Surfaces with Displacement Mapping
Per-Pixel Displacement Mapping with Distance Functions
PART 2:SHADING, LIGHTING, AND SHADOWS
Deferred Shading in STALKER
Real-Time Computation of Dynamic Irradiance Environment Maps
Approximate Bidirectional Texture Functions
Tile-Based Texture Mapping
Implementing the Mental Images Phenomena Renderer on the GPU
Dynamic Ambient Occlusion and Indirect Lighting
Blueprint Rendering and "Sketchy Drawings"
Accurate Atmospheric Scattering
Efficient Soft-Edged Shadows Using Pixel Shader Branching
Using Vertex Texture Displacement for Realistic Water Rendering
Generic Refraction Simulation
PART 3:HIGH-QUALITY RENDERING
Fast Third-Order Texture Filtering
High Quality Antialiased Rasterization
Fast Prefiltered Lines
Hair Animation and Rendering in the Nalu Demo
Using Lookup Tables to Accelerate Color Transformations
GPU Image Processing in Apple's Motion
Implementing Improved Perlin Noise
Advanced High-Quality Filtering
Mipmap Level Measurement
PART 4:GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTATION ON GPUS: A PRIMER
Streaming Architectures and Technology Trends
The GeForce 6 Series GPU Architecture
Mapping Computational Concepts to GPUs
GPU Computation Strategies and Tips
Implementing Efficient Parallel Data Structures on GPUs
Flow Control Idioms
GPU Program Optimization
Stream Reduction Operations for GPGPU Applications
PART 5:IMAGE-ORIENTED COMPUTING
Octree Textures on the GPU
High-Quality Global Illumination Rendering Using Rasterization
Global Illumination using Progressive Refinement Radiosity
Computer Vision on the GPU
Deferred Filtering: Rendering from Difficult Data Formats
Conservative Rasterization
PART 6:SIMULATION AND NUMERICAL ALGORITHMS
GPU Computing for Protein Structure Prediction
A GPU Framework for Solving Systems of Linear Equations
Options Pricing on the GPU
Improved GPU Sorting
Flow Simulation with Complex Boundaries
Medical Image Reconstruction with the FFT
Excellent Second Book in the GPU Gems Series.......2005-12-21
This book is the second installment of the GPU Gems book series by NVIDIA. Just like the first book, GPU Gems 2 is a collection of articles by various authors from game development companies, academia, and tool developers on advanced techniques for programming graphics processing units (or GPUs for short). It is aimed at intermediate to advanced graphics developers that are familiar with the most common graphics APIs. The reader should also be proficient in C++. As with the first GPU Gems book, GPU Gems 2 is not for beginners. For professional graphics and game developers, however, it is an excellent collection of interesting techniques, tips, and tricks.
The book is divided into six parts, each dealing with a different aspect of GPU programming. Compared to the first book, more emphasis is put on the quickly evolving area of general-purpose computation on GPUs (also called GPGPU). In particular, the last three of the six parts of the book are about GPGPU and its applications. The first three parts, however, are about real-time computer graphics.
The first part of the book contains 8 chapters on photo-realistic rendering that mostly deal with how to efficiently render a large number of objects in a scene, which is a necessity for rendering convincing natural effects, such as grass or trees. Two chapters in this part of the book discuss geometry instancing and segment buffering, and another chapter focuses on using occlusion queries to implement coherent hierarchical occlusion culling.
Other interesting topics in this part of the book include adaptive tessellation of surfaces on the GPU, displacement mapping - an extension to the popular parallax mapping used in some current games - that allows to render realistic bumps on a simple quad, and terrain rendering with geometry clipmaps.
Part two of the book consisting of 11 chapters deals with shading and lighting. This part contains highly interesting chapters on deferred shading in the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and computing irradiance environment maps on the GPU in real-time. Furthermore, this part of the book has chapters on rendering atmospheric scattering, implementing bidirectional texture functions on the GPU, dynamic ambient occlusion culling, water rendering, and using shadow mapping with percentage-closer filtering to achieve soft shadows.
The third part of the book consists of 9 chapters on high-quality rendering. Most chapters in this part deal with implementing high-quality filtering in fragment shaders. For example, there is an interesting chapter on filtered line rendering and another chapter on cubic texture filtering. Finally, a GPU-only implementation of improved Perlin Noise is also presented in this part of the book.
The chapters in the fourth part of the book represent an introduction to the fantastic field of GPGPU. The 8 chapters of this part first describe the general streaming architecture of GPUs, and then move on to show how to map conventional CPU data structures and algorithms to the GPU. For example, textures can be regarded as the GPU equivalent to CPU data arrays. There is also a chapter on how to implement flow-control idioms on the GPU and a chapter on optimizing GPU programs.
The 6 chapters of part five of the book are on image-oriented computing and describe a number of GPGPU algorithms for performing global illumination computations, for example by using radiosity, on the GPU. There is also a chapter on doing computer vision on the GPU
The final chapter in this part of the book explains how to perform conservative rasterization, which is important for some GPGPU algorithms to achieve accurate results.
The final part of the book has 6 chapters that present GPGPU techniques to perform a variety of simulation and numerical algorithms on the GPU. One chapter shows how to map linear algebra operations onto the GPU and develops a GPU framework to solve systems of linear equations. In other chapters the GPU is used for protein structure prediction, options pricing, flow simulation, and medical image reconstruction. These chapters show good examples of how the GPU can be used for non-graphics-related tasks.
The book contains many illustrations and diagrams that visualize the results of certain techniques or explain the presented algorithms in more detail. All images in the book are in color, which is definitely advantageous for a graphics book. In my opinion, the excellent quality and also the quantity of images and illustrations is one of the strongest points of this book compared to other graphics books.
The book also comes with a CD-ROM with supplemental material, videos, and demo applications to some chapters. Most of the applications include the full source code, which makes it easy to experiment with the techniques presented in the book. Note that most of the applications run on Windows only and many of them require a shader model 3.0 graphics card.
I highly recommend this book to any professional working as graphics or game developer. It is a valuable addition to my library of graphics books and I will come back to a number of articles in the near future. The focus on GPGPU in the second half of the book is a welcome addition and we can expect to see more and more non-graphics-related applications make use of the processing power in today's GPUs.
Pretty pictures.......2005-06-15
This book is targeted at people who have a good solid grasp of either OpenGL or D3D as well as a grounding in programming languages such as C/C++ or Java. While this much is obvious, the book is still painfully difficult to get anything useful out of.
The problem amounts to the fact that there is no cohesion between chapters - each one is written by a different author (and clearly they have not read each other's material) - there is no reference or introduction but worst of all, no common terms.
Example; What D3D calls a "pixel shader", OpenGL call "fragment shader", but there are also "vertex shader", "vertex program", "pixel program" and "fragment program"... some of these are the same thing while others are wildly different, but I found at least 4 references in this book to what I could only make sense of by substituting another term (the correct one). Each author has written their part from their own view point using their own terms.
The code snippets contained rarely have any comments or even descriptions of how they work.
Overall I generally felt like I was either reading someone's thesis or a marketing spiel about a particular aspect of some game.
There are many pretty pictures though.
A Focus on Hardware Optimization.......2005-06-01
"GPU Gems 2" edited by Matt Pharr (Addison-Wesley, 2005, ISBN 0-321-33559-7) is a collection of forty-eight white papers that detail cutting edge techniques based on today's latest graphical processing units (GPU). The full color hardcover text is 784 pages and includes a CD-ROM with working demos and source for some of the articles presented in the book. The text retails for $59.99.
The book is divided into six parts: geometric complexity, shading, high-quality rendering, general purpose computation on the GPU, image oriented computing, and numerical algorithms. A part has anywhere from five to twelve chapters. Each chapter is written by a different author but the format and style is consistent. The chapters have an introduction, discussion of the problem or technique, conclusion, and references. The material is presented with color illustrations and occasionally some pseudo-code or code fragments. Generally, the material is extremely current and very approachable to read.
As a sequel to its well received predecessor, the text focuses on taking advantage of the computational power and features of today's high-powered GPU boards. The first part of the book, geometric complexity, emphasizes this with chapters dedicated to batch rendering, using multi-streaming, hardware occlusion, and displacement pixel-shaders. Each chapter illustrates how operations traditionally performed on the CPU can be moved into the GPU for efficiency and greater effect.
The subsequent two parts on shading and rendering continue along the same theme: improved performance by using hardware functionality found on the GPU. Each topic considers the performance ramifications and GPU capabilities when discussing the problem domain of a rendering technique and factors it into the final solution. For example, chapter 10 considers irradiance environment maps for fast lighting - but with a twist - using the GPU to do the calculations in real-time. In doing so, the book's real value becomes apparent.
The fourth part on general purpose GPU computation is an interesting addition to the text. The chapters illustrate methods of offloading traditional CPU tasks by exploiting the inherent parallel nature of modern GPU hardware. Since the book features Nvidia hardware, the architecture and performance capabilities largely focused on their products.
In the fifth part of the book, hardware assisted image creation and analysis is considered. By using context clues from the spatial, texture, or lighting data - additional refinements can be made to a scene prior to rasterization. The topics presented in this part are further refinements of the text's main theme (using the GPU fully) and are specific solutions to uncommon problems - or approaches to rasterization. None the less as GPUs continue to evolve, the topics presented in this section will undoubtedly become more common.
Finally, the sixth part of the book provides several non-traditional graphics examples to illustrate calculating data on the GPU: solving linear equations, options pricing, and numerical simulation - just to name a few. As using the raw floating point power of modern GPU is a growing trend - these sections were quite interesting and well done.
The included CD-ROM contains examples to 28 of the 48 articles in the book. In most cases, the example material includes source code as well as pre-compiled binaries to help illustrate the topic presented in the text. In order to run the majority of the samples, Cg must be installed on the host computer. In addition, the CD-ROM provides access to Nvidia's software development kit, Cg toolkit, performance tools, and several helpful reference links to on-line sites.
GPU Gems 2 provides a cutting edge view of the capabilities found in today's video cards. The selected articles illustrate that every part of the rendering process can be enhanced in some fashion by fully using the underlying hardware. As such, this book is essential to anyone working with modern GPUs.
Another magnificent piece of work.......2005-05-12
The original book was awesome. This book is just as fine of a follow on. The full color on every page, the excellent use of images, and the quality editing all add up to a very fine work indeed. If you loved the second one, buy this one. If high-end 3D graphics are your thing and you haven't read these books yet, buy both.
Amazon.com
One would think that the title of Tomas Moller's and Eric Haines's book, Real-Time Rendering, would be a contradiction in terms. How can such a computationally intensive process as rendering computer graphics ever hope to be done on the fly, in the blink of an eye, without delay--in short, in real time?
The term rendering, as it applies to computer graphics, refers to the mathematically intensive process of creating a picture or sequence of frames based on geometry. The duration of this process is dependent on the complexity of the scene (a forest with many trees and thousands of leaves will take much longer to render than a scene consisting of a white box over a gray background) and the speed of the hardware doing the calculations.
When Pixar's Toy Story was first released, the computer animation community was all abuzz with how it was done, and someone at Pixar mentioned that over 100 SGI workstations were used for rendering the frames over the course of almost two years. Someone else extrapolated this data and figured out that the same movie could have been rendered on one contemporary PC over the course of about 80 years.
The authors deftly answer the question, not only asserting that it can be done, but since this book is a programmer's guide, they list snippets of programming algorithms that help outline how it can be done.
Because the software and hardware is constantly and rapidly evolving due to the insatiable need for more realistic and complex graphics, the book avoids getting too specific. To quote the authors, "The field is rapidly evolving, and so it is a moving target." This lack of specificity doesn't detract from the usefulness of the book, though. Instead, it works at a higher, more abstract level, describing approaches to rendering techniques using generic algorithms. It is up to the programmer to apply these methods to the specific program or system on which it is to be implemented.
Real-Time Rendering describes some very complex methods, and this book is not for the average computer graphics creator. However, if you are working in an industry that depends on real-time rendered animation--like the gaming, medical, or military fields--or you are building the next-generation real-time render engine, this book will offer insight and concepts you can use to build some impressive software. --Mike Caputo
Book Description
Building on the success of Real-Time Rendering, this completely revised and updated second edition addresses new developments in rendering realistic three-dimensional images in a fraction of a second. It discusses the latest graphics hardware capabilities, while also presenting theoretical underpinnings and algorithms of lasting value.
The book contains chapters as diverse as:
Transforms
Visual appearance
Acceleration algorithms
Advanced shading techniques (new chapter)
Curved surfaces (new chapter)
With topics including:
Pixel shaders
Subdivision surfaces
Intersection algorithms
Pipeline tuning
Customer Reviews:
Updated Graphics Bible.......2007-02-17
This book not only teaches the fundamental concepts of 3D graphics and lighting, but is also a great reference manual to have around. It is completely API independent and focuses on the theory in order to build an understanding of how things actually work. I would definately recommend this book to anyone interested in graphics programming as it will give you a solid base to work from.
how to live without it.......2007-01-24
Real-time rendering is a perfect resource to bring always :) with you and read something about this world.
I find it really useful and elegant and complete
Everything I was looking for.......2006-03-25
I acually read this book cover to cover theres alot of information in the book and its a great book to refer back to. Its really good as a companion with OpenGL. theres some directx stuff in it too but there seems to be more with OpenGL references.
High level presentation of rendering techniques.......2006-01-01
This is not a book of algorithms on computer graphics methods. Instead, it is a comprehensive high-level survey of rendering techniques for making the graphics appear to occur in real time. This book has a very academic tone to it, and with the exception of chapter 3 which is on matrix transforms, it has precious few implementation details. Some reviewers have called it a successor to Foley and Van Dam's classic text, but I find this misleading. That book is primarily about computer graphics techniques, and is not that concerned with real-time issues. The bibliography of this book is extensive and impressive, and if you are doing research on the subject it is probably essential, especially if you are interested in the subject of virtual reality where real-time presentation is a must. However, if you are just looking for pseudocode or more "cool effects" to insert into a game or graphics program you are writing/programming you would do best to look elsewhere.
Decent survey/reference book.......2005-12-13
I was greatly disappointed with the first edition of this book. There is nothing new herein that cannot be culled from the latest presentations/whitepapers posted on NVIDIA/ATI websites, from the standpoint of real time graphics.
That being said, the book in conjunction with the book's online resources site is pretty much a stand alone reference on the state of the art in rendering techniques today.
Book Description
"An excellent book for beginners as well as advanced 3ds Max users. A valuable reference that covers everything you'd want to know."
--Andre Surya, Award-winning Digital Artist
A favorite of 3ds Max artists from beginners to pros!
Why is 3ds Max Bible a perennial bestselling favorite? Because whether you're a beginner looking for a tutorial to get you up to speed your first day or an expert needing a reference to Max's advanced features, it's all here. Loaded with advice, professional tips, and more than 150 step-by-step lessons, this is the most comprehensive reference-tutorial on 3ds Max on the market, and the one you'll turn to again and again.
* Organize and blend sequences with the new Animation Layers feature
* Explore Sun and Sky, Car Paint, and other new mental ray shaders
* Combine and divide objects with ProBoolean and ProCutter
* Create more accurate dynamic animations with updated reactor tools
* Add greater realism with enhanced and integrated hair and fur tools
* Reference objects, materials, and controllers with XRef
Animate a dancing cartoon moose
Isolate mapping surfaces with the Quick Planar map button
Add realistic motion to your model's hairstyle
What's on the DVD?
You'll find before-and-after example files for every tutorial in the book. The DVD also includes:
* Models and textures to customize for your own designs
* Rendered AVI files of animations used in the tutorials
* All the Max files for every tutorial
* Adobe tryout versions of After Effects(r), Photoshop(r) CS2, Illustrator(r) CS2, and Premiere Pro
System Requirements: See the DVD appendix for details and complete system requirements.
Customer Reviews:
greatest.......2007-10-01
I'm begginer but the book has step by step about the software.
A bible, really... Really great!
Detailed but under-illustrated.......2007-09-17
This is an excellent and highly detailed reference for the program 3ds Max 9. As near as I can tell it mentioned every button and command that 3ds Max has available. My main criticism is that it is highly under-illustrated. While every function and button is mentioned, as a beginner to 3ds Max, I found that I often could not find the command being referred to in the text, whereas a screen shot would have quickly, and clearly shown what I should look for. In addition, since 3ds Max is such a sophisticated and detailed program which is great, it is often not readily apparent how all the various settings and parameters that can be entered for a given effect should be used. This book mentions most, if not all of the parameters, but examples as to how they are used in an actual project would have been good. There are short tutorials on the main features of the program, but these are generally restricted to singe effects. This book is probably for a more advanced user who is familiar with all the commands and knows how to use them to create a 3d scene, but would like a more detailed explanation of various functions in 3ds Max. Definitely well written though, and the DVD with the material and software described in the examples is great.
Done it again!.......2007-08-04
I've had two of these books over the years. They are fantastic reference to have.
Excellent.......2007-07-17
Perfect for beginners...after the opening tutorial, step-by-step walkthrough to understanding all aspects of the program. Would reccomend to anyone!
OOPS missing 1059-1154.......2007-06-24
This is a good book, Wiley Publishing messed things up though. It is missing over a 100 pages. As soon as I got it I searched for the chapters on MaxScript and detected the omission. The book itself is great; but the publishers omission is not acceptable. I have informed Amazon about this and hopefully they will recover the missing chapters. The DVD does have a complete version of the book which is very helpful in the interim.
Amazon.com
Digital compositing, defined here as "the digitally manipulated combination of at least two source images to produce an integrated result," is a huge field incorporating 2-D and 3-D still and animated artwork. The Art and Science of Digital Compositing homes in on a specific area--visual effects in film, multimedia, and commercials--and expands on it in a highly precise and technical fashion. The author, Ron Brinkmann, has applied his expertise to many projects, including such feature films as James and the Giant Peach and Die Hard.
Here he teaches aspiring film, video, and multimedia artists how to create mattes; manipulate time; track, view, and analyze images; work with various film and video formats; and understand the issues of quality versus efficiency. Brinkmann concentrates on improving what you've put together by manipulating color, brightness, perspective, lighting, cameras, and more. You can apply much of the introductory information--resolution, bit depth, compression, color, and geometric manipulations--to simple image-compositing projects. But then you're off into Hollywood territory, though the tone is one of serious insight, not whimsical observation. This is essentially a textbook for people who are looking for an in-depth discussion of technology for advanced animation production. As such, it does an excellent job. --Kathleen Caster
Book Description
Computer-generated visual effects are now used extensively in feature films, commercials, music videos, and multimedia. The backbone of this process, the final and most important step, is known as digital compositing. The Art and Science of Digital Compositing is a comprehensive reference that provides a complete overview of the technical and the artistic nature of this process. This book covers a wide range of topics from basic image creation, representation, and manipulation, to a look at the visual cues that are necessary to create a believable composite. Designed as both an introduction to the field as well as a valuable technical reference, this book should be of interest to both novices and professionals alike.
Written by a working professional in the visual effects industry, the book provides over 250 different images and illustrations (including a 40-page color insert) as well as a complete glossary of compositing and visual-effects terminology. Also included are in-depth case studies from well-known films such as Speed, Independence Day, and Titanic.
Balances fundamental "hard science" topics with the more qualitative/artistic challenges which face anyone involved in a digital composition project
Provides examples and illustrations from motion picture work
CD-ROM contains additional composition examples, illustrations, and development software
Includes 32 pages of colour
Customer Reviews:
A must.......2007-06-13
Even if I'm not working in vfx, so I haven't a great experience, I think this book should be in every comps shelf: very simple, well written, it deals with the math under every (even the simplest) operation you can do in your compositing package (it's quite software-indipendent). It explains several wonderful tricks too.
Globally, very useful in my opinion.
An essentrial for all CG artist.......2007-02-24
Ron goes over the very concepts of compositing that are essential to know in the computer graphics feild. I have bought several copies of this book as the disappear from my desk (no longer kept in public view)
Great Book but Where's the CD?.......2007-01-23
This book is exceptional and a must for anyone pursuing this area of interest. The only disappointment I had in purchasing this item is that it is supposed to come with a CD, and the CD was never shipped to me. What's up, Amazon?
A math mad must for Comps.......2007-01-05
That can I say about Mr Brinkman. Well he's one of the God's of compositing and VFX. Mad about the math behind Node based compositing software, which incidentally is a good thing. This is not meant to be a 'Shake' bible as it is supposed to be non software specific. However it uses 'Shake' language and node naming. This is not a criticism as 'Shake' is the meccano kit of compositing. Understand the mode and the math behind it and you can do anything. I would also assume that this will still be relevant when shake is 'reborn'.
This is also essential for other composing software where the math is hidden. If you've ever considered what happens inside that 'magic button' after you've clicked.
I also think that Steve Wright's 'Digital Compositing for Film and Video, Second Edition' is a must too. Another great book from a great man of VFX.
Having not been personally taught by Mr. Brinkman and Mr Wright these books prove to be the next best thing.
Must Have for compositors and digital artists.......2006-07-02
This book is a in depth study of the techniques and technologies involved in the art of compositing. Not sooo technical that no one will understand it, but technical enough that it even explains in detail the algorithms and math used for antialiasing, blurs, the transfer operators like multiply, screen overlay., etc... I am a professional cg artist and highly recommend this book.
Book Description
As pop culture, games are as important as film or television--but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games..
Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance.
Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.
Customer Reviews:
Returned.......2007-08-09
So, this book was written by MIT faculty in an attempt to legitimize games. Their way of legitimizing games was by being as long-winded as is humanly possible.
Needless to say, this book was not very interesting in the least.
Flawed, but still worthwhile.......2007-03-24
While I feel there are some fundamental flaws in their premises, this is still an excellent book about designing games. The issues it brings up and the approaches to thinking about them in a systematic manner are important contributions to the field of game design. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in game design - even if you disagree with the authors the book gets you thinking.
A very solid basis for game design.......2006-02-17
I'll start with the bad aspects of the book first. It is very repetitious at times. It also tends to overanalyze some aspects of gaming and game design. That being said. I have no other ill comments about this book.
It provides a very solid design theory as well as a breadth of material to help explain its point. It also provides a lot of information on alternate sources and areas to find more information. I also find that it does complete its goal in wanting to establish a set of uniform terminology as well as some help methods and procedures to follow through in successfully designing games.
An Academic who claims to be a designer. . .and then writes a book.......2005-11-30
Having used this book for a few semesters, I offer you this: Avoid this book, unless you too are an academic who has nothing real to offer the world of video games in terms of game design or actual game production.
If you are the same type of person that enjoys diagramming sentences or likes to discuss why other people have created artistic things in the manner they did - rather than create something yourself, then you may enjoy this.
[...] I am of the opinion that a person writing on such a topic might be better equipped to do so after having designed a few AAA titles. Then again, people like that tend to be busy working on games.
Buyer beware. I was required to buy this book and was unable to "Dodge this bullet". To each, their own.
INTRODUCTION to Game Design Fundamentals.......2005-09-01
Rules of Play is an elaborate promotion for SiSSY FiGHT 2000. Though the cover art is cleverly composed of images from Street Fighter II and Super Mario Bros, I had the feelng of being mislead by the end of the book. Everything comes back to SiSSY FiGHT 2000.
If you have been reading the anthologies of game studies essays that have recently surfaced, this textbook offers very little new information. It would be strongly positioned as a 100 level Introduction to Game Design Fundamentals, primarily for students taking an elective course in Game Studies, who had never given the subject much thought.
This is not necessarily a negative criticism. For Game Studies readers who have already delved into most of the suggested readings (hobbyist, professional or academic), however, the material presented will likely sound generic and heavily reliant on SiSSY FiGHT 2000.
One of this book's most profound strengths is its definition of play. Though it is taken from some of Eric Zimmerman's other work ("Narrative, Interactivity, Play, and Games: Four Naughty Concepts in Need of Discipline"), the concept of play as a looseness, ambiguity or space between parts (which I believe is derived from Jaques Derrida's "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences")is important because it clarifies the difference between "playing" and "gaming."
The book's greatest weakness is that it presents a frustrating return to board and card games. Though it is a noble persuit - granting videogames a place in Game Studies along time honored classics such as Chess, Poker, and SiSSY FiGHT 2000 - it makes for a somewhat boring read.
Note: if you haven't been reading a great deal of Game Studies books, Rules of Play is a great way to delve in and develop a fascinating reading list. Plus, it has a sexy cover.
Books:
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- Amazing Face Reading: An Illustrated Encyclopedia for Reading Faces
- Art Therapy for Groups: A Handbook for Themes, Games, and Exercises
- Balanchine: Celebrating a Life in Dance
- Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
- Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
- Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual
- Botanical Illustration Course: With the Eden Project
- Botanical Illustration Course: With the Eden Project
- Botanical Illustration Course: With the Eden Project
Books Index
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