Learning Maya 7: Foundation

Book Description

This exceptional, full-color Maya Press title - produced by Alias, the software's creators - is a comprehensive mid-cycle revision that uses the award-winning short film Blue as the basis for the book's all-new hands-on tutorials. Artists, students, educators, and hobbyists will appreciate this book's comprehensible coverage of 3D and Maya basics. Project-focused lessons use actual production files from the film Blue to teach you most of the tools available in Maya Complete. The companion DVD includes instructor-led tutorials, scene files, artist interviews, and Maya PLE. Also includes Alias's Sketchbook Pro Version 1.1.1, $129.99 value.

Customer Reviews:

Definitely for Beginners.......2007-08-22

If your goal is to design a basic character and a simple environment, then this book is definitely for you. It covers all the basics and helps you to get familiar with where the tools are located.

However, if you are already familiar with MAYA, then you'd be better off just going online and finding some tutorials.

Good for students.......2007-08-12

Im a teacher computer, and recomend this book for new students of animation and modeling 3D.

perfect book to learn maya 7.......2007-04-07

This book is the best one I have bought because it explains to you every detail step by step. It also comes with videos explaining how to do each lesson.The best part is that in bonus it brings the software = alias sketchbook pro.

FANTASTIC.......2007-02-26

This book is straight forward, easy to read, and a joy to follow along on the screen to. I am quite impressed with the attention to detail on each of the steps in this book. "Foundation" will give anybody who hasnt used a 3d package before the nessacary skills and information needed to follow on and create their own models.

6 out of 5 stars for such a good book.

(real name is my mothers, i am the one actually working through the book)

Excellent beginners book.......2007-01-17

I have gotten through several chapters of this book and am already finding it extremely helpful in learning this complex program. There are movie lessons on the CD to augment each chapter and they are very helpful in making the lesson material familiar. If the book continues to be as helpful as it has been so far I will be a very satisfied customer.
Perhaps I shouldn't be writing a review so soon, but I am excited that the program is becoming accessible to me.

Average customer rating:

Solid foundation for all types of Flash novices
Solid book for beginners
Overall a Useful Learning Tool
A Pretty Good Book
Solid Beginner to Intermediate Book

Foundation Flash 8 (Foundation)
Sham Bhangal , and Kristian Besley
Manufacturer: friends of ED
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Foundation ActionScript for Flash 8 (Foundation)
Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move! (Foundation)
Flash 8 Essentials
Foundation Web Design with Dreamweaver 8 (Foundation)
Macromedia Flash 8 @work: Projects and Techniques to Get the Job Done (@Work)

Accessories:

Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System
Pro C# with .NET 3.0, Special Edition (Pro)
Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 (Expert's Voice in Sharepoint)

ASIN: 1590595424

Book Description

Foundation Flash 8 is the book you need if you're looking for a solid foundation in Flash 8 Basic and Flash 8 Professional.

Thousands upon thousands of designers have already learned from its previous editions and it's easy to understand why.

The fourth edition of friends of ED's legendary beginner Flash book, Foundation Flash 8 uses a series of structured exercises and detailed discussions to help you start your exploration of Flash. The detailed tutorial style will ensure that you retain the knowledge you gain and are able to draw upon it throughout your Flash career. Foundation Flash 8 features a running case study that evolves into a fully functional Flash website as you work through the tutorials, so you'll immediately see everything that you learn being used in a practical project.

This book focuses on the core skills that you need to get started working with Flash 8: understanding the interface, becoming familiar with the creative tools and their capabilities, grasping the relationships between the different components that make up a Flash movie, and getting insight into how to put all the pieces together to create your own Flash-based website.

Summary of Contents

Chapter 1: Flash Movie Essentials
Chapter 2: The Flash Tools Panel
Chapter 3: Flash Symbols and Libraries
Chapter 4: Managing Content
Chapter 5: Working with Color and Images
Chapter 6: Motion Tweening
Chapter 7 Shape Tweening
Chapter 8: Masks and Masking
Chapter 9: Advanced Animation, Effects, and Commands
Chapter 10: Actions and Interactions
Chapter 11: Intelligent Actions
Chapter 12: Multimedia: Sound and Video
Chapter 13: Optimizing
Chapter 14: Publishing
Chapter 15: Intermediate ActionScript, Part 1
Chapter 16: Intermediate ActionScript, Part 2
Chapter 17: High-Level Site Design
Chapter 18: Futurescape

Customer Reviews:

Solid foundation for all types of Flash novices.......2006-09-08

"Foundation Flash 8" by Sham Bhangal and Kristian Besley is, overall, an excellent introduction for all new Flash users, be they right-brained artists who think a line is something you draw in a picture or left-brained techies who think a line is something you write in a program.

Right-brained readers will be enthralled by the first half of the book's focuses on Flash's drawing and animating features, with exhaustive treatment of symbols, colors, tweening, and masks. There's even an excellent section on text and text animation. Left-brained readers will drool over the second half of the book, which runs from simple behaviors to intelligent actions to "intermediate" ActionScript. Somewhere in the middle, there is lots of talk about buttons -- and artists will be thrilled with all the things they learn to do to make them look pretty and programmers will be equally thrilled with all the things they learn to do to make them do neat things when pushed.

Of course, if artists didn't learn some ActionScript (or at least some basic Flash behaviors), or if programmers didn't learn animation, then there would be no point to learning Flash. Bhangal and Besley manage, in "Foundation Flash 8," to teach the full range of foundation Flash functionality to the full range of novice Flash users. While programmers might yawn a bit during the first few, graphics-intensive chapters (and, I imagine, while artists' eyes might spin somewhat during the last couple of ActionScript chapters), there's plenty in this book to keep everybody happy. Conveniently, the authors have structured the ongoing case study -- and have provided intermediate project files -- so that skipping sections or chapters is possible.

The authors make no assumptions about the level of knowledge of readers, other than that experienced Flash users are not their target audience. Everything is taught from square one (or, sometimes a bit frustratingly, from square zero). Straightforward and moderately complex topics are explained well throughout, and the more advanced scripting topics are equally well presented. One shortcoming is the less-than-stellar handling of complex, abstract graphics topics, such as advanced gradients and Bézier curves; as the authors put it on page 63, "It's easier to do than to explain!"

Friends of ED publishes what are probably the best design-oriented books in the business, and "Foundation Flash 8" certainly fits their usual high standards. The paper is thick and bright, the typography is pleasant, and the writing style is friendly -- at times bordering on plucky (page 132: "Colors, fills, and gradients are the extra paprika on the already tongue-tingling dish that is Flash"). This particular volume does suffer a bit from its two-column layout, which results in figures -- particularly screenshots -- being a bit too small for comfort, and from its one-color printing, which is not so much a problem in a book on, say, Dreamweaver or PHP but which is a significant disadvantage in a book dealing with a drawing and animation tool. (As the authors themselves acknowledge on page 132, "It's never going to be entirely satisfactory to discuss color in a book printed in black and white...")

Pluckiness and monochromicity notwithstanding, "Foundation Flash 8" does exactly what its name suggests -- it gives the reader a solid foundation in Flash 8 -- and it does it well. The book is comprehensive, accurate, clear, and well organized, and most importantly, it bears the "Friends of ED" cachet and is backed up by the best support in the business: the Friends of ED readers' forum, a lively and helpful online community frequented by authors and other experts always willing to answer question and to help solve problems. "Foundation Flash 8" is a fine choice for anyone eager to get his hands wet with Flash. I strongly recommend this book.

Solid book for beginners.......2006-06-28

I am an animation student at Brooks College and Flash is part of the curriculum. One of the challenges of these intensive courses is that we cover so much material, so fast, that it is hard to get any depth before we are off to the next tool. I looked around the net for tutorials and other resources to supplement class materials and having had previous good experiences with this publisher I picked up Foundation Flash 8 as a beginner book (and ActionScript for Flash 8 as my next step up).

I found this to be a very solid book. The early chapters are, in effect, the manual that didn't come with my Education Version product. All the basics that we zoomed through in class were right there when I needed them and I found myself enhancing my homework assignments by doing what was required, looking up topics when I was stuck and adding extras to the projects that helped me nail an A in the class.

I reviewed many programming books a few years back, and my first impression was that these books felt a bit different. I think some of the complaints one or two have voiced may be related to this. But upon review of the material and test projects I find this book friendly and well laid out. The material covered served both as a ready reference and as a good foundation for more advanced material. It starts at raw beginner and moves into some meatier intermediate stuff that I am still using to get ready for the more advanced ActionScript I am interested in.

About the only complaint I can register is that my personal interests lie more towards producing games and animated cartoons so I would have found an emphasis on that more `fun' - but that isn't a reflection on the book, just my childish nature. ;)

I recommend this book for beginners as a good reference and foundation for more advanced Flash topics.

Overall a Useful Learning Tool.......2006-05-06

This book covers a lot of ground and does so in a detailed and friendly way. It's organized and laid out logically enough, getting you started with the interface, tool types and basic animation, and then working its way through more and more complex topics. The book's working examples are appropriate for each level the book advances through,and the writing style is approachable enough that a wide range of users should find it worth their while.

I gave this book four stars and not five because it wasn't proofed well in some areas. For example, the chapter on Flash video notes incorrectly, that Mac users -even prior to the days of OS X- could download a free version of iMovie to start making movie content. The actual situation is that iMovie has only been available since OS X arrived, and only to those who have purchased a new Mac with a super-drive, or purchased the iLife suite. It is not and has never been available as a free download.

Another flaw this book has is that many of the screenshots are scaled down so much, that you cannot read the dialog text without squinting or looking very closely. (I don't wear glasses btw : ) Not all the screenshots suffer from this problem, but enough do to make it frustrating at points. A better idea for the next edition is cropping out the empty space or unimportant parts of a given dialog box, rather than scaling the whole dialog box -even the parts with important text- down.

Overall still a good book, and worth owning if you only have time or resources for one Flash Book. I prefer this book's learning style to that of the Lynda.com type books, which seeminly are all made from the same cookie cutter. When an author becomes and industry unto themselves, look out. : )

A Pretty Good Book.......2006-01-31

Being a novice designer, I learn most effectively when I have experts telling me the ins and outs of how things work in a program, explaining the logic behind a certain sequence of actions, and sharing the tips and tricks from their wealth of experiences using the program. And this is how I exactly felt embarking on the exciting exploration of the Flash world using the Foundation Flash 8 book by Sham Bhangal and Kristian Besley.

The book covers Flash 8 from its basic tools and techniques in dealing with shapes, text, colors and animations to the more advanced action/interactions and ActionScript. Rather than just prescribing step by step procedures to use the many tools and functions in Flash 8, the authors reveal what is behind the scene - from simply how terms such as "Tweening", "Onion Skins" and "Masking" came about to the underlying mechanisms of ActionScript. In addition, I found also most useful the many "rules of thumb" of using Flash that the authors share throughout the book.

The book proved to be very helpful for me as a novice Flash user to gain some solid foundational skills and a well-formed beginning understanding of how things work in Flash. The authors achieved this through their well-written explanations and illustrations, plus hands-on practices for the users, which consist of numerous mini exercises in each chapter of the book and a larger project that the users continuously build on throughout the chapters. The final few chapters also provide some nice additions including how Flash works with the Internet, principles of good design, and so on. These help put learning Flash in context and making it fit nicely in the large picture of Web design.

In the end, the five hundred plus pages of the book were fairly easy to go through, (also thanks to the light humors intermittently found in the writing). I felt more confident working with the powerful program, and I just cannot wait to roll up the sleeves and get started with some real work using Flash!

Solid Beginner to Intermediate Book.......2006-01-18

I just finishing reading Foundation Flash 8, co-authored by Sham Bhangal and Kristian Besley. The technical reviewer was Todd Yard, a role that he has played in 11 other Friends of ED books. I was checking out Todd's company website, and was very impressed. He works for Jeremy Allaire, former CTO of Macromedia. You might recognize him as the creator of the product that made Dreamweaver so great - Allaire Homesite. I digress, back to the book review.

First of all, let me specify who this book is for: Those looking to get a handle on Flash, starting from square one. One fellow gave it a really harsh review, probably expecting it to be something along the lines of Flash 8 Essentials. That being said, Foundation Flash 8 is a very good book in its own right. Sure, the first few chapters are elementary, but considering that this text is supposed to take you from beginner to intermediate in your skill-level, it's right on target. It takes you step by step through each part of the interface, and then builds from there. By the end, you're making simple video games.

Even seasoned veterans could benefit from reading through the introductory chapters, because of some of the significant changes to the way Flash works. For instance, object drawing used to cut out shapes that overlapped each other, which was an annoyance those who were used to a different graphics program.

This was always confusing to me, being a big fan of Macromedia Adobe Fireworks, the interface of which looks very similar to Flash. Now that this has been tweaked, the two cousin programs behave more similarly. This book does a good job of pointing out things like this, that while simple, could possibly prove confusing for those already used to the previous behavior. You could say that before, Flash was in "quirks" mode, and now it's more streamlined.

One of my favorite section of the book was chapter 12, which covers sound and video optimization. Flash 8 goes leaps and bounds beyond where its MX 2004 predecessor had been. I like that fact that the authors emphasize that you should tweak, listen to, and watch your projects as you work on them. While Flash has some heavy-duty compression by default, you would do well to choose specific settings for each media file you use, as this will help you get the best sound / picture clarity, while keeping your file size as low as possible. As is the case with most things in digital / physical art, practice makes perfect.

Another thing I appreciate about this book is its emphasis on learning real code. Some of the Flash books I've read in the past tend to gloss over this as too difficult for newer users. This may be true, but it does them a disservice not to teach it. Thankfully, these guys encourage the reader to delve in further, and draw the line between beginner or expert at the point of ActionScript...

"You can use a drag-and-drop behavior. It's fast and efficient, but at the expense of reducing your understanding of the problem, and it offers a solution that addresses problems that may not be part of your particular task. It's also a 'one size fits all' solution - and how many times have you bought a one-size-fits all shirt and thought 'Mmm, fits perfectly, almost as if it was tailor-made for me?' Me neither." - Page 302

The above quote pretty much sums up the jist of all web-based design. I can't tell you how many times I've got an email or been asked in person, even by experienced visual designers: "What program do you use to make your CSS websites?" What they mean is: How can I point-and-click my way through it? The short answer is: You can't, not of you intend on learning anything. Most people are disappointed to find out I use Araneae for all of my hand-coding.

Likewise, if you want to really harness the power of dynamic animations in Flash, you need to get comfortable with ActionScript. For those of you who are familiar with JavaScript already, it shouldn't be too hard to pick up because AS syntax is modeled after JS. If you're new to both, fear not, because Flash comes in with a built-in code assistant, similar to that in Dreamweaver.

The authors start out the ActionScript chapters using the code assistant, and then gradually steer the reader towards typing out code by hand. You could think of it this way: at the beginning of the book, you're riding a tricycle, but by the end you're handling a Harley Davidson.

My advice is this: as you're reading this book, take it all with a small grain of salt. They tend to hail Flash as the final point in web evolution, and sort of treat HTML as a necessary step for embedding your SWF file. I would swing the pendelum back towards the center, treating Flash as part of a wholistic solution to the web, using the most logical solutions where appropriate. Sometimes we over-complicate things, and lose the beauty of simplicity. As long as you maintain a larger perspective, you will learn much from this book.

Average customer rating:

Great Book
Horrible Book
Not exactly what I expected...
Learning to use XML structured data in Flash projects
Really nice book

Foundation XML for Flash (Foundation)
Sas Jacobs
Manufacturer: friends of ED
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move! (Foundation)
Foundation PHP 5 for Flash (Foundation)
Object-Oriented ActionScript For Flash 8
AdvancED ActionScript Components: Mastering the Flash Component Architecture (Advanc)
Foundation ActionScript for Flash 8 (Foundation)

Accessories:

Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System
Pro C# with .NET 3.0, Special Edition (Pro)
Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 (Expert's Voice in Sharepoint)

ASIN: 1590595432

Book Description

XML is a completely platform agnostic data medium. Flash is able to make use of XML data, which is very useful when you are creating Rich Internet Applications -- it allows you to populate Flash web interfaces with data from pretty much any source that supports XML as a data medium, be it databases, raw XML files, or more excitingly, .Net applications, web services, and even Microsoft Office applications such as Excel and Word! In this book, Sas Jacobs first introduces XML itselfwhat it is, its syntax, its associated technologies (such as CSS and XSLT,) and how to get XML out of your applications in a format Flash can use. Then she shows how to use the XML object to stream XML data into Flash, and how to use the XMLConnector component and XML Sockets to build advanced Flash/XML applications. Numerous example applications are built throughout the book, including an MP3 player, XML photo gallery, an Excel-driven web catalog, Access and Word-driven content management systems, and an XML-driven chat application.

Customer Reviews:

Great Book.......2006-12-26

I really do not understand what the negative reviews are all about for this book. Even if you do not want to use office to generate your xml, you can still read over those chapters use the xml file created and learn HOW TO USE xml in flash which is what this book is about. I would probably not use office but I learned alot about processing the xml files that were created by the office program. Anyways this book took me from 0 knowledge about xml in flash to becoming fairly copmpetent in this subject. I highly recommend this book.

Horrible Book.......2006-10-27

I had to purchase this book for a class I'm taking, and now it's 8 weeks into the semester, and I seriously got nothing at all from this. I'm having better luck looking for tutorials than reading this worthless book. Pictures are horrible, chapters drag on forever, and it's just plain not worth the 40 bucks i lost for this. Find a different book if you're just learning xml and flash, worst purchase in my college years!

Not exactly what I expected..........2006-07-13

I was actually hoping that it would be the perfect companion to the 'PHP for Flash' & 'Advanced PHP for Flash' series but it's more on the intergration between XML/Flash/MSOffice which in the web-designing industry is kinda/sorta useless since seeing that most of the technology used is PHP/ASP and MySQL.

The book is great for learning the basic functionality of XML with Flash but doesn't really give you the in-depth functions that are so widely used today.

Hopefully there will be an 'Advanced' series out soon.

Happy flashing!!!

Learning to use XML structured data in Flash projects.......2006-04-10

This clearly written and well-organized book provides an overview of XML and how to use XML structured data in a variety of Flash projects. Anyone who is interested in working with XML in Flash and would like to learn more about how to get started will benefit from the easy-to-follow examples and the range of topics that the author has chosen to cover. Beginning with an overview of XML the chapters quickly move on to show how Flash can use XML data. The content is addressed to both Flash designers and developers. While Flash developers may already be familiar with the uses and specifications for XML schemas, Xpath, and XSLT; many Flash designers will gain an appreciation for many of the complexities of XML, as well as insight into the Web Services model. Later chapters, for example, reveal how to use Microsoft Word, Excel and Access to create XML content.

As one who can manage Flash ActionScripting, but who does not have a strong programming background, I found the background into the various XML types to be quite helpful. The book does an excellent job of explaining entities, relationships, schemas and how to navigate an XML object in order to show the how to use XML content with Flash. I was particularly interested in the many applications for e-learning and found the blend of author's screenshots, code examples and main text to provide a nice balance of learning styles.

I learned a lot from this work and am sure that it would be useful to people who are already familiar with Flash and want to learn more about how to use XML with this program.

Really nice book.......2006-03-10

How to use the XML in the Flash? This is one of the doubts most recurrent in lists and forums of quarrels. Who already tried work in Flash with XML created in one of programs of the Office Package definitively already lost the patience, much calm is necessary to reach the accurate node of the correct skill.

Sometimes we obtain alternatives, but almost always having to lose much time to carry through simple tasks. There the book "Foundation XML for Flash" of the Friends of ED publishing company enters, it presents simple solutions for who works with this type of archive, shows as to work with archives of the Word, Excel, Access besides instruct to work with Web services and much more.

It is a perfect book for who wants have complete reference regarding about the Flash and XML theme.

Average customer rating:

OOP training is an after-thought
more of a tutorial than reference
GET THIS BOOK!

Foundation Macromedia Flash MX 2004
Sham Bhangal , Kristian Besley , and Sham Bhangal
Manufacturer: friends of ED
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Foundation ActionScript for Macromedia Flash MX 2004
Foundation Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Games Most Wanted
Linux: The Textbook
Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 Zero to Hero

ASIN: 1590593030

Book Description

If you have never used Flash before and you are looking for a book that will give you a rock solid grounding in Flash MX 2004, then this is the title for you. This book uses a series of structured exercises to give you the broad, solid foundation knowledge you need to start your exploration of Flash from scratch. Foundation Macromedia Flash MX 2004 uses a proven sequential, detailed, and accessible tutorial style to ensure that you'll retain your learning and be able to draw on it throughout your Flash career.

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 is an exciting product, providing rich creative opportunities for Flash designers and developers at all levels of ability and experience. No single book can hope to provide adequate coverage of all aspects of Flash MX 2004, which is why this book focuses relentlessly on the core skills that you need to get you started: understanding the interface; familiarizing yourself with the creative tools and their capabilities; grasping the relationships between the different components that make up a Flash movie; getting insight into how to put all the pieces together and hook them up with ActionScript. All these aspects (and much more) are covered in detailed tutorials and exercises, reinforced with a case study that runs throughout the book to apply everything in a real-world context.

Customer Reviews:

OOP training is an after-thought.......2006-01-20

I purchased this book to learn the latest OOP programming techniques available in Flash MX 2004. However, the author spent the bulk of each chapter explaining how to do something using techniques appropriate to versions prior to MX 2004, then made a statement about there was a better way to do it. He then spent very little time telling you what to modify to make it more OOP oriented or more efficient. You can't skip ahead and just look at the "better way" since all explanations of the "better way" were based on modifications to the original example.

Obviously, the author just did a "quickie" upgrade of a previous version of this book so he could sell more copies. I don't need to waste my time learning how to do something the hard/inefficient way. With the cost of the book, the author should have written a new version appropriate to the upgrades made under MX 2004 to support OOP instead of just adding a few OOP comments here and there to a previous version of the book.

Avoid this book if you want to learn good OOP techniques!

more of a tutorial than reference.......2005-03-09

If you want a beginners guide to learning Flash, this is a good one. Explains steps in detail, and rather clearly. There are a few frustrating errata, but they are well documented on the publishers website. If you are looking for a reference text rather than a hold-my-hand guide, look elsewhere. I rate this 4/5 stars.

GET THIS BOOK!.......2004-04-20

If ever you wanted to learn Flash® the quick and simple way, THIS BOOK IS IT!!
It'll be your bestest buddy from start to finish. And don't let the thickness of "Beaker" (yep, I gave it a name) put you off ... if you're like me and you have extensive knowledge of Illustrator®, Photoshop®, GoLive®, plus the now defunct LiveMotion®, and all their terminologies, you can be forgiven for skipping certain sections.
Flash® is here to stay and, from what I am hearing, it gets even easier to use with each product update.
Come on. Jump on board! You wont regret it!

Foundation ActionScript for Macromedia Flash MX 2004

Average customer rating:

Bhangal thinks beginners are what?
Foundation ActionScript for Macromedia Flash MX 2004
Well done for beginners, slow for programmers
Informative but a bit sloppy
Informative but a bit sloppy

Foundation ActionScript for Macromedia Flash MX 2004
Sham Bhangal
Manufacturer: friends of ED
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Foundation Macromedia Flash MX 2004
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Games Most Wanted
Foundation Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 ActionScript: Training from the Source
Foundation Macromedia Flash MX

ASIN: 1590593057

Book Description

Flash guru Sham Bhangal brings us the third edition of everybody’s favorite beginner level Flash scripting book: Foundation ActionScript. With the release of Flash MX 2004, scripting in Flash has moved from being a desirable asset to an essential skill in the world of web design and development. ActionScript is, quite simply, the key to real power in Flash. Flash is now both a design tool and a development tool, and ActionScript can easily scare designers. This book is for anyone who has ever looked in awe at a cutting-edge Flash site, then taken a look at some code, and run in the other direction. Learning ActionScript with friends of ED will not turn you into a boring programmer, it will turn you into someone who finally has the power to achieve what they want with their web design, and can liberate their creative urges.

This book will take you from knowing nothing about ActionScript to a firm knowledge that will allow you to exercise a previously unimaginable amount of power over your Flash movies. It does this with fully worked examples throughout, and a case study that will leave you with a cutting-edge Flash site by the end of the book.

Customer Reviews:

Bhangal thinks beginners are what?.......2005-07-07

I am sorry , reading the reviews I thought this would be great , so I bought it.I must say editing is horrible , no online help(wrote 5 mails not even 1 answer),lot of mistake in book.The code style changes often so the beginner is bit lost.Then Bhangal suddenly introduces heavy coding without explaining much often (Math.random()*5) +3 or Math.round()...he didn't explain the parameters of random no. selection in AS.
only thing I can say you need to do this book more than once to get hang of AS if u r really a total beginner like me.
If looking a fast way don't get into it if u r a total beginner

Foundation ActionScript for Macromedia Flash MX 2004.......2005-03-29

Mr. Bhangal's wonderful teaching style and excellent writing make this a truly easy and painless experience.

Explained in plain english how to actually *do something* with action script.

Great examples and analogies really drive the concepts home. I think its a big help that Mr. Bhangal is a designer and can speak to a person on a visual level.

And, I had a question, e-mailed Mr. Bhangal, and he got right back to me.

I am currently reading Foundation Dreamweaver MX 2004 and am also very impressed. The Friends of Ed is a great tool for designers looking to learn multimedia and web software.

Well done for beginners, slow for programmers.......2005-01-30

This book was done well for *not* programmers. I'm a relatively seasoned (6+ yrs) Java & C programmer--I found it incredibly slow.
Bhangal spends a ton of time convincing the reader that things such as "event handling" and "classes" are good. Anyone who has written a GUI for the Mac, Windows, X or Java will find a majority of the content incredibly tedious.
The last chapter on "Advanced Actionscript" starts to touch on the areas I find most valuable--specifically scope, sub-classing, the differences between AS 1.0 & 2.0. But that was really it.
Again, for non-programmers or designers (for whom I'm assuming this was designed) I think this might be a great book. Bhangal goes to great lengths to explain the "why's" of programming concepts. For programmers, I'd suggest Macromedia Press's "Flash MX Professionsl 2004 Application Development" by Jeanette Stallons.

Informative but a bit sloppy.......2004-07-19

Overall I found this book helpful in taking me to the next level of ActionScript. The main project of the book from beginning to end is the building of a website called Futuremedia. This web page makes use of many cool tricks the author takes you through step-by-step with pretty good explanations. To teach the reader how to implement these techniques, several smaller coding projects are used to introduce programming concepts that will be later used in the more complex Futuremedia project. Each chapter has several of these smaller examples which is very fortunate. About halfway through the book, due probably to some sloppy editing, the Futuremedia project gets derailed by missing steps and references to earlier explanations which never made it into the text. Being that I didn't find the Futuremedia project all that interesting, I eventually abandoned working on the book's main project and concentrated on the smaller projects contained in each chapter. These are all complete.
The author's writing style is easy to follow and he tries to explain concepts so non-programmers can grasp them, which is the main reason I stuck with it to the last chapter.
If you are looking to move from the simple coding of buttons, movie clips and basic timeline animation, this book still has some good information to offer.

Informative but a bit sloppy.......2004-07-19

Overall I found this book helpful in taking me to the next level of ActionScript. The main project of the book from beginning to end is the building of a website called Futuremedia. This web page makes use of many cool tricks the author takes you through sep-by-step with pretty good explanations. To teach the reader how to implement these techniques, several smaller coding projects are used to introduce programming concepts that will be used in the more complex Futuremedia project. Each chapter has several of these smaller examples which is very fortunate. About halfway through the book, due probably to some sloppy editing, the Futuremedia project gets derailed by missing steps and references to earlier explanations which never made it into the text. Being that I didn't find the Futuremedia project all that interesting, I eventually abandoned working on the book's main project and concentrated on the smaller projects contained in each chapter. These are all complete.
The author's writing style is easy to follow which is the main reason I stuck with it.
If you are looking to move from simply coding buttons and simple timeline animation, this book still has some good information to offer.

H-Infinity Optimal Control and Related Minimax Design Problems: A Dynamic Game Approach (Systems & Control: Foundations & Applications)

Average customer rating:

H-Infinity Optimal Control and Related Minimax Design Problems: A Dynamic Game Approach (Systems & Control: Foundations & Applications)
Tamer Basar , and Pierre Bernhard
Manufacturer: Birkhäuser Boston
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0817638148

Book Description

One of the major concentrated activities of the past decade in control theory has been the development of the so-called 'H-infinity-optimal control theory', which addresses the issue of worst-case controller design for linear plants subject to unknown disturbances and plant uncertainties.

This second edition features a more streamlined presentation of the results included in the first edition and also contains substantial new material, reflecting new developments in the field since 1991. Among these are the nonlinear theory; connections between H-infinity-optimal control and risk sensitive stochastic control problems; H-infinity filtering for linear and nonlinear systems; and robustness considerations in the presence of regular and singular perturbations. Also included are a rather detailed description of the relationship between frequency-and time-domain approaches to robust controller design, and a complete set of results on the existence of value and characterization of optimal policies in finite- and infinite-horizon LQ differential games.

Book Description

Learning Maya 6: Foundation is your key to learning Maya quickly and easily. Join the tens of thousands of other users who have proved their Maya skills by creating the Bouncing Ball, Jack-in-the-box, Primitive Man, Spaceships and, most importantly, Salty the Seal. Get hands-on experience with Maya's key tools and techniques through project-based lessons while you learn to model, animate, render, and add dynamic effects to your creations. With Learning Maya 6: Foundation you'll model with NURBs and Polygons, animate, texture map, add visual effects and render your scenes. We've also added instructor-led chapter overviews, presented by an Alias Certified Instructor to further demonstrate the concepts covered in the book. Get up to speed in Maya 6.0 with Learning Maya 6.0: Foundation.
With this book you will:
* Become familiar with the Maya User Interface
* Work in 3D space
* Model with NURBS (Spline)
* Model with Polygons
* Set Keyframes and Motion Paths
* Learn to use Trax Non-linear animation
* Apply Forward and Inverse Kinematics
* Deform surfaces
* Set cameras and lights
* Create Shaders and Textures
* Discover rendering techniques
* Explore particles and Dynamics
* Begin to use MEL (Maya Embedded Language)

"I've been teaching Learning Maya | Foundation to my students for years and wouldn't consider a substitute. This tool is ideal for you if you are new to Maya."
--Peter Weishar, Dean of Film and Digital Media, Savannah College of Art and Design

What you need to use this book:
* A working knowledge of 3D space. Learning Maya Beginner's Guide or Art of Maya are excellent resources to learn about 3D space.
* Maya Complete 6, Maya Unlimited 6, or Maya Personal Learning Edition
* DVD-ROM Drive

Customer Reviews:

Great second book.......2006-01-25

I come from the engineering/computer field into 3D animation. This was the second book that I read. It is great. But it is not for the beginner - if you have never done 3D animation before, you will need a more basic book to start with, for instance "3D for beginners" by Dariush Derakshani. Maya Foundations contains 5 large projects for you to complete. All is explained step-wise and is easy to follow. The book lets you touch upon most of Maya. It takes some time to complete, but you learn a lot and you will be able to make small animated films after having completed the book.

shame on the author.......2005-09-30

Diving into maya 6 unexperienced, without an aid is terribly confusing, but diving into maya 6 with this book is not that much better -- it is like a nonswimmer being thrown into the deep end of the pool with a deflated lifesaver.

Sure, the directions are pretty easy to follow, but the problems arise when there are MISSING directions! I was having a headache trying to get something to work like it supposedly did in the book, when I realized that the author FORGOT to include a vital step! I would not have been able to get ahead if I had not figured out the problem on my own (through trial and error). Shame Shame SHAME on the author! Sorry we beginning users are not as professional and proficient in the program.

I give this book a C+ at best. Well-written simple directions mean absolutely nothing if they are not complete!

Great Book.......2005-07-12

This book, and entire series for that matter, is great you will learn everything you need to know about Maya and 3D modeling/animation in this series. it is geared more towards the novice/intermediate 3D modeler/animator, but it is very helpful to have some understanding of 3D and Maya before trying this book, especially if you want quick results.

This book takes you through the ins and outs of 3D but you don't start any projects right off the bat. i would recommend Maya® at a Glance - by George Maestri for the animator who has never done anything before, but this book will do the newbie a lot of good as well. it is part of the best series you can get to go from beginner to advanced in 3D animation (and i know... i have the whole series and close to 30 other books).

I hope this review was helpful to you, and if you have any questions feel free to ask them.

not what I was looking for.......2005-03-10

First off I purchased the entire Learning Maya 6 series from Alias directly. It's been a long time since I've come across more incompetent people than the ones involved with their Learning Tools. They never were ever able to tell me what I had purchased, I had to wait until it arrived to find out. So if you are going to buy it, buy it here.

Second, I don't know why anyone else hasn't mentioned it (a reason why most reviews are worthless I guess), but the DVD is just about guaranteed to make you go blind. I am not an expert on how to make DVD's, but they did a terrible job. The index doesn't cover all the chapters (for starters), but most importantly the quality of the vids is so fuzzy that watching more than one chapter at a time makes me get a headache. What the vids show is just someone working with the Maya application itself, the vids are such poor quality that you can't see what they are doing or what menu items, etc are being selected, which again makes them almost worthless.

Third, this is not the way I want to learn. I assumed that the "Foundation" part of a series would explain in detail how to use things and build up (hence the word foundation) to the more specific books that follow. Instead, they are all just "follow me" type tutorials without giving much detail, if at all, as to why you are doing things. So instead of understanding why and when to use certain tools, you end up mimicing someone else's actions without really understanding why, not really learning anything.

This might be a good book to augment another book that I haven't found yet, that explains the Maya application itself and 3d fundamentals. Otherwise I think it was a waste of time.

Excellent Getting Started Book.......2004-12-29

An excellent first book to use with the free download of "Maya Personal Learning Edition" from the Alias site.

This takes the beginning Maya user from learning the Maya 6 user interface through 5 projects of increasing complexity.

An updated edition of "Learning Maya 5 Foundation", the only difference is the minor changes in the user interface.

Game Design Foundations (Wordware Game and Graphics Library)

Average customer rating:

My favorite design book
The Best for Starters
Just a plain bad book...
the HORROR!!
Put on your game design thinking hat...

Game Design Foundations (Wordware Game and Graphics Library)
Roger E. Pedersen
Manufacturer: Wordware Publishing, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

This book is targeted for the beginner to intermediate wanna-be game designer who wants to learn a step-by-step, easy to follow process of expressing their concepts through documentation into a real game that a publisher or a development team can create.

Customer Reviews:

My favorite design book.......2006-12-12

This book serves more as a reference manual than an introduction to Game Design. Sometimes when you are designing a game you run into a brick wall and don't know where to go with it. There will be some unbalance, whether difficulty, story, or design that may not work. This book serves perfectly just for that. Most of the game design books I read just seem to tell you the same stuff over and over, but the author went with a formula based method for designing. Most of the great designers I see come from a computer science discipline rather than art or writing (Sid Mier, Chris Crawford, Will Wright). It gives a more holistic, complete approach rather than "just get it done."

The Best for Starters.......2005-12-24

this book is rich of information of games industry specially for those who are interesting to be game designer but know nothing about how to begin or what u need to know before start designing.

if u know nothing about designing game then read this book. its usefull and simple to understand. everything is clear nothing complicated.

Just a plain bad book..........2005-05-07

I've read all the game design books that I have been able to find to date. This is one of -- if not *the* -- worst that I've found.

- The title is completely misleading. It has next to nothing to do with design.
- The "design" notes are poor anecdotes from one project or another, and last somewhere around 10% of the total book.
- His "ideas" are literally a multi-page list of movies. MOVIES. With 2-3 sentence descriptions of each. Not once, but TWICE, in the same book.
- He literally says at one point that you could make a game like the movie Alien, and make sure to call it something like Space Predator. Or you could cross Alien with the movie Jurassic Park, and be sure to make a dinosaur reference in the name, so now it might be "Space Raptor". (Seriously, these are actual names.)
- Huge parts of it are just mini-reviews of software products that you can get far more information from just reading the manufacturer's website.
- His example game near the end is a computer-based card playing game, so of course, he has to include the rules of poker, including variants like Omaha, etc. (because that information isn't readily available anywhere else!).
- Lots of it are just lists. Lists of movies. Lists of product reviews, etc.

In the end, this book is just terrible. It looks like something that someone pounded out over the weekend, but got printed because there were only a few other books on the market with "game design" in the title. Check out Rouse, Adams and Rollings, or almost any other game design book instead...

the HORROR!!.......2004-04-05

I found out about this guy by reading his arrogant post on flipcode.com entitled, "World Famous Game Designer Available". That's a mighty big thing to label yourself as especially when your writing books for 5th graders on game design. The book is for the absolute of the absolute newbie. To spend money on this book is a complete waiste. About all the information in the book, which is not that much, can be found at any game developing website or community. I wouldn't recommend this book for aspiring game designers. Also I'd like to point out something about the previous comments: you notice how either the book scored 1 - 2 stars or a perfect 5 stars? Can you see who actually read the book and who is promoting it?

Put on your game design thinking hat..........2004-03-26

Well, I finished Roger Pederson's book, Game Design Foundations. It was an interesting read and I look forward to the class he'll be co-instructing. (Gameversity.com - April 1st 2004)

I feel that if you approach the book with a "gimmie teh codez" mentality, you won't like it. It's not a cook book for making a game design document although there is one included. The author takes a more holistic approach and almost seems to ramble on in some parts. For example, instead of presenting a blank design document and saying how to fill out X, Y, and Z, he presents a design document from a game that he was created so you get a feel for the level of detail that is needed. Instead of saying you need to research your topic, he shows you an example of such research and the level of detail required to informed. Mr. Pedersen talks about script writing and the differences between a linear story and game organization. He does that by showing involved examples of each style. The author touches on a large number of topics and exposes the reader to what it really means to be a game designer.

Book Description

This book constitutes the joint refereed proceedings of the 17th International Workshop on Computer Science Logic, CSL 2003, held as the 12th Annual Conference of the EACSL and of the 8th Kurt Gödel Colloquium, KGC 2003 in Vienna, Austria, in August 2003.

The 30 revised full papers presented together with abstracts of 9 invited presentations were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 112 submissions. All current aspects of computer science logic are addressed ranging from mathematical logic and logical foundations to the application of logics in various computing aspects.

Average customer rating:

Learning 3ds Max 2008 Foundation
Autodesk
Manufacturer: Focal Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0240809270

Book Description

Unlock the power of Autodesk 3ds Max 2008, with instruction direct from the creators of one of the worlds most powerful 3D animation and effects software products.

Get hands on experience with the innovative tools and powerful techniques available in the new version of 3ds Max, through all new project-based lessons. Projects include valuable game assets and examples. Topics include modeling, animation, materials & mapping, rendering. Additional bonus lessons will include 3D compositing and importing from Autocad.

Learning 3ds Max 2008 Foundation is the new edition of our current 3ds Max 9 Essentials book. The Foundation book will be a huge step forward for us, in both packaging and content. Autodesk will be contributing assets (models and images) from high-profile studios. The DVD will also include original interviews with the different studios who contributed their work to the book, as well as instructor led videos, support files and movies.

* An all-access pass to the production and teaching experience of Autodesks training experts

* Concept-driven lessons, fully illustrated in color, teach you the essentials of using 3ds Max 2008 so you can master the techniques of animation, modeling, materials, lighting and rendering

* DVD includes instructor led videos, support files and movies as well as interviews with contributing artists and FREE models from Turbo Squid worth US $100!

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