If you're looking for decent code with somewhat decent comments then save yourself some money and just download the DirectX SDK. In it, you will get many examples of UI things. Microsoft created a CustomUI application which runs very, very fast and handles GUI things very similarly to this book. But Microsoft's runs much faster. The problem with that is you won't find a very detailed writeup on "why" things are done the way they are. At least I haven't found it.
Dissapointing.......2005-11-21
Being very favourable it could be called a code listing. But the code is incomplete, the naming of the variables and methods seem almost purposefully misleading and the actually logic in some of the code is just off.
Avoid.
Good job at teaching GUI, but code is bad.......2005-07-10
First off, the book is good at learning how to design a GUI. It goes over all of the necessary information that will let you create a functional GUI.
However, there are problems with this book that others have stated. The code in the book and the code on the CD are VERY different. What you see in the book (screen shots of the examples) is not what you see on your screen when you run the code (the graphics used are very different too). This makes trying to learn some things very hard as you can't look at the code in the book and compare to it the code on the CD. If you have a question about how or why the code is doing something, a lot of the times, the answer is not in the book because the code is different.
There is also errors with the code on the CD. It compiles and runs, but the textures do not display correctly (they seem to have some wierd scaling going on). A 100x50 texture will not display as 100x50 on your screen using the code in the book, and there is no explaination in the book on how to draw the textures to their scale.
The best way to use this book is to use it as a guide to design your own GUI in your own graphics engine. Just using the UI code provided by the book is not something I would recommend.
I really wanted this book.......2005-06-14
I read it once and i liked it a lot but then the second time i started Coding along the lines. And i am sorry that i have to say this but the code just doenst work the way its in the book.
The Code on the CD is a bit better but still there are things in that code that just wont let me compile it. I checked the Msdn and everything and its just not right.
I wish this book had a website with corrections because the book itself is good and thats what leads me to write this. I liked reading the book and wanted to program the stuff so bad and so i expected more from the code in it.
I hope this helps
Average customer rating:
|
Game Interface Design
Brent Fox
Manufacturer: Course Technology PTR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Games & Strategy Guides
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
| Internet Games
| Strategy Guides
| Video Games
Graphics & Multimedia
| Programming
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
| DirectX
| Flash
| GIS
| General
| OpenGL
| Solid Works
Software Development
| Software Design, Testing & Engineering
| Programming
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Game Programming
| Programming
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Website Architecture & Usability
| Web Development
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Graphic Design
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Video & Electronic Games
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Computer Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Entertainment Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Computers & Internet
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Entertainment
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Game Development Essentials: Game Interface Design
-
The Game Producer's Handbook
-
Game Testing All in One (Game Development Series)
-
Game Design, Second Edition
-
The Game Asset Pipeline (Game Development Series)
ASIN: 1592005934 |
Book Description
The interface is the heart and soul of a video game: it is the integral piece that allows a player to interact with the game. In order to create a great interface, you must carefully plan every detail. "Game Interface Design" helps you outline each step and define the goals for your interface. It covers the interface from the first image that appears onscreen to the information displayed during game-play. You'll cover basic design and art principles, explore the world of interface buttons as you learn how to create your own functioning button, and find out how to substitute images and icons for onscreen text. You'll also learn how to incorporate animation and use Flash to create an amazing, interactive interface. Along the way, you'll get a glimpse into the video game industry, including developer and publisher relationships, schedules, budget constraints, and politics of the industry.
Book Description
Cinema 4D 9.5: Real-World 3D Animation Production teaches how to produce commercial-quality 3D animation using Maxon's, powerful and affordable, Cinema 4D. Written for 3D animation professionals, hobbyists, and students, this practical, hands-on book uses real-world projects to teach the entire production process. Beginning with a review of how to model photorealistic objects, the book progresses through creating custom materials, cloth simulation, and character animation, to video game and simulation techniques. The book takes a software-integrated approach to 3D animation production with a focus on Cinema 4D and how to use it in concert with several other applications. This Cinema 4D-centric approach shows how real-world 3D animation production challenges can be met, not only with a great tool, but with a great tool box. Throughout the book, you'll learn a highly efficient workflow for creating 3D character animation with C4D. You'll learn various ways of producing motion graphics by integrating Adobe® Photoshop, and After Effects®, with C4D. You'll explore projects that use BodyPaint to extend your ability to create fantasy and control the realism of how image maps relate to their objects. And you'll use Right Hemisphere Deep Creator 2 and Code Gardener's XPort 1.3 to explore methods for animating video games and simulations. Some experience with 3D animation is assumed, but all levels of users will be challenged to expand their skills.
Customer Reviews:
It depends on your definition of "real world".......2007-03-20
Don't get this hoping to learn high quality character animation, but if you want to learn quick animation where time & budget is first concern then this good book. Contrary to what some have said its not all about 3rd party apps. He does cover modeling, Expresso scripting & dynamics - I believe Expresso comes with the basic CD4 and dynamics comes with the complete CD4. Even though the book is far from complete he does cover subjects no one else has the nerve to touch.
interesting anecdotes.......2006-11-03
The book really should be called "how to cheat with animating C4d by buying lots of expensive addons". The tutorials are interesting, but what is missing is basic animating in C4D with the tools already available. For example, there is no section on animating facial expressions. That is so much used in games and movies that it's omission is curious. Many of the human animations are done with using the BodyStudio plugin to import animations done in Poser. Poser's animation tools are moderately good for things like walking, but lack the sophistication of tools available in C4D. If you like premade animations, his technique is good. There is no mention of the InterPoser plugin which is a stronger way of importing Poser objects in C4D.
Also missing is any section of web based animation: rotating 3D objects in response to user input. But there is a section on modeling with IModeller 3D that really doesn't have anything to do with animation.
This book would be useful to someone who already knows how to animate in C4D but wishes to understand various addins that are useful in importing Poser animations, making games, adding keyed video (like the section on Ultra), etc. So it really a book on how to cheat in C4D and save time by buying other programs.
Excellent learning source.......2006-05-27
This was book was extremely helpful and easy to follow. It was used in class to help my students and they found the animation and dynamics information invaluable. I'm always impressed when someone can successfully communicate difficult technical information.
unleash the legend of creative animation.......2006-04-25
After working with Maya for about 3yrs now I would say this book has opened up another way for me to look at animation. It should be about the creative side to get fantastic results not about computer programming (MEL). C4D helps you get great results in no time and my man Larry has demonstrated that very nicely. Maya is so completed and confusing that you really have to be way experience to get a good enough results. I would highly recommend this book to any beginner who is wants to Learn 3D animation (so those people like me out there get, grab this book and make your first big step into the animation world). Larry Mitchell awesome book, no doubt about it, experience users of Cinema 4D you just have to wait for next book perhaps!!
Cinema 4D 9.5 Excellent! well written, easy to follow........2006-04-25
This book has provided me with a hands on guid that I have search for many years. I am new to animation, and I think Mr. Mitchell did a fantastic job of explaining and making his real world application easy to follow. This book has taught me more about professional animation than any other books in my library. To me the CD is an added bonus. I would highly recommend this book to any beginner who is trying Learn 3D animation production. The only negative thing I have to say is, why it took you so long to publish a book that gave someone like me the confidence in learning 3D animation. I was able to create my first animated characters by using this book, by adding this book to your library, you will be gaining a wealth of knowledge. By the way, when is your next book coming out? Simply, this book is GREAT.
Book Description
Providing a look ahead at some of the most promising innovations in graphics technologies, this guide covers the GDI+ graphical library, the .NET Framework platform, C#, and the DirectX library. Theoretical aspects of graphics, algorithms for solving common problems, and examples of their practical implementation are covered. The support of popular graphic file formats, such as BMP, GIF, TIFF, JPEG, EXI, PNG, ICO, WMF, and EMF, as well as bitmap redrawing with the application of the external alpha channel are discussed. Resizing, stretching, distorting, and rotating bitmaps are addressed in detail, as is gradient filling and support for transparency.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book for beginners and middle level programmers.......2005-07-19
My thinking is that this is a pretty good book on graphic programming.
Two subject areas are distinguished in this book: the one addressing GDI+ utilization issues and the other describing DirectX usage. Generally speaking, these subjects are not tightly coupled, so it would have been better to have separate books on each graphic library (perhaps it might be already in authors' plans).
The first part describing GDI+ utilization covers the following topics:
Library review: class hierarchy, usage of GDI+ on various platforms, usage of GDI+ when programming on API-functions, etc;
Vector graphic programming: brushes, feathers, etc, primitives, Bezier splines, use of metafiles, 3D-graphics (for example, for drawing of various surfaces);
Raster graphic programming: loading and saving of images in various formats, transparency usage, image analysis with the use of histograms, diversified transformations (for example, brightness, contrast, blur and sharpness filters, trace contours and creation of effects like emboss, development of multithread applications with the MDI interface.
The second part is running on DirectX, it describes both use of unmanaged code (I.e. C++ is utilized as a programming language) and managed one (C# is utilized). Examples show how DirectX initialization is performed, what is transformation matrix and how it is used, the ways to use primitives, vertex buffers, textures and meshes, how to use various effects (for example, fog) etc. Besides, several pages can be considered an introduction to pixel and vertex shaders.
The appendix describes mathematical basics of spline building, plane and 3D transformations.
A CD is provided with the book. The CD comprises source code of all programs and some test images utilized in the book.
C# or C++ programming skills are required to understand the given examples.
I believe this is an excellent book for beginners and middle level programmers, but it also covers some pro technique. I have learnt a lot of useful things from the book, for example, with minor modifications I used the method of brightness and contrast correction (explained in chapter 6) for automatic adjustment of quality of images from a video capture card, and use of noise reduction filter improves compression of video sequences via MPEG algorithms.
No doubt the book is a good introduction to graphic programming on the .NET Framework and Windows platforms.
I would recommend students and developers studying basics of graphic programming read this book. The book gives an insight into a wide range of issues related to the subject and in general helps to start implementing practical graphic programming tasks.
Ralf Karlson, university lecturer.
Worst book I ever seen.......2005-06-15
This book has eight chapters. 358 pages
Chapter 1: Programming Tools
Talked about GDI+ class Hierarchy and writes one program which displays "Welcome, GDI+!" and also talked about programming in C++ and C#.
Chapter 2: Using GDI+ to construct vector Images. This has about 3 programs Clock and Bezier Curves. Clock looks beautiful, but rest of it garbage.
Chapter 3: Working with output Devices and using Metafiles. There is nothing in this chapter which I conceder that I have learned something.
Chapter 4: Implementing 3D Transformation using software: I was expecting the author will cover solid objects, but there are only wire frames objects and they are absolutely none impressive.
Chapter 5: Operations with Bitmaps and Graphics in GDI+:
Page 138 Fig 5.5 C# demonstration program. I have not seen such a worst program yet. Second program: Output of a bitmap with additional alpha overlay,
Third program: Outputting inverse graphics using .NET (It did not work on my computer)
Chapter 6: Viewing and editing bitmap images: Talk about brightness of an image and filters. And GDI+ is finished.
Now Directx 2 chapters: They are not worth looking.
Do not waste you money on this book.
Book Description
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Persuasive Technology for human well-being, PERSUASIVE 2006, held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in May 2006.
The 31 revised full papers presented together with 1 introductory paper were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on psychological principles of persuasive technology, persuasive technology: theory and modelling, design, applications and evaluations, ethics of persuasive technology persuasive gerontechnology, and ambient intelligence and persuasive technology.
Book Description
Game Design: A Practical Approach is written for new game designers, practicing designers, and serious gamers wanting to create their own designs. Throughout the pages of this book, you'll find a complete and practical introduction to the craft of game design, starting at square one with an exploration of just what a game and game design are. From there you'll explore the skills you need to have as a game designer and learn when and how to use them. Then you'll dive into the very practical nuts and bolts of a number of vital game design topics, including how to balance gamplay? what is risk-reward? how do you scale challenge? And along the way, you'll learn the scripting language, Lua, and work with a sample game as you test and explore the game design concepts being discussed. The book is packed with the invaluable insights and tips you need to master the art of game design, including a variety of "from the trenches" sidebars by some of the industry's top game designers. So whether you're a new designer, experienced professional, or serious gamer, you'll find the tools and wisdom you need to succeed as a game designer.
Customer Reviews:
Very good..and complete.......2006-11-10
Gave me a head start on game design...I make cell phone games..Also goes into detail in concol and mmorpgs
Designers will find everything needed at all levels of the process, under one cover........2006-11-05
Paul Schuytema's GAME DESIGN: A PRACTICAL APPROACH is for new game designers as well as serious gamers who want to create their own. From beginning concepts that build a foundation of routines and knowledge to more advanced documentation on delivery systems, application, and using enhanced shareware (included), designers will find everything needed at all levels of the process, under one cover.
Moving a Game from Your Head to a Computer Screen.......2006-08-16
Computer games have changed dramatically over the past few years. Long gone are simple Pac-Man type games. Today's computer are vastly more powerful than the early PC's and competition has forced the gaming industry into every more sophisticated games. In addition to the powerful computers, extremely sophisticated software has come about to assist game development.
As Mr, Schuytema says, however, the most powerful, the most important piece of software is your mind. The most powerful computers, the most sophisticated software don't have the crativity you have.
All of the rest of this book then is on simply using the tools that are available to take your creativity and make it dance on the screen. It begins with the development of a plan. What is it that the game is supposed to do, what's the setting, the characters, what objects do these characters use: gun, bomb, chocolate bar?
Then it goes into the tools that he recommends the starting designer to use, specifically the scripting language Lua. This is a simple to use, easy way to get started. You can certainly use it through the prototyping stage, at which time you may or may not need to go to something lower level like C++ or C.
He develops a simple game through the book so that he can use Lua to illustrate what he is doing. A CD is included with the book that includes the game and a bunch of Lua software.
Average customer rating:
- Great resource for BASIC programmers, Apple ][ or otherwise.
|
Basic Adventure and Strategy Game Design for the Apple
Jim Menick
Manufacturer: Facts on File
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Operating Systems
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sports
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0871960648 |
Customer Reviews:
Great resource for BASIC programmers, Apple ][ or otherwise........1998-05-07
Even if you're not an Apple ][ user, this book is a great way to learn how to program in BASIC. It walks you through programming two games, "Space Derelict" (a text adventure), and "Five-Card Draw" (a poker game). It also contains some good game-design tips and solid information. Definitely worth a read.
Books:
- America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
- Ascended Masters Oracle Cards: 44-Card Deck and guidebook
- Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity
- Big Book of Cartooning
- Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
- Book of the Dead (Kay Scarpetta, No. 15)
- Bridge For Dummies (For Dummies (Sports & Hobbies))
- Bridging the Gap: College Reading (8th Edition)
- Call of Cthulhu (d20 Edition Horror Roleplaying, WotC)
- Chicken Soup for the Prisoner's Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit of Hope, Healing and Forgiveness (Chicken Soup for the Soul)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously
- Dutch Treat: 196 Applique Blocks Inspired by Delft Designs
- Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
- All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852-1860
- As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s
- Essentials of Stage Management
- Biological Science, Volume 3: How Plants and Animals Work
- Financial Accounting & Integrator Student CD Package, Fifth Edition
- Yale Assessment of Thinking: A Self-Assessment of Your Skill in the Areas of Reasoning, Insight, and
- An Unfinished Season: A Novel
AdvancED ActionScript Components: Mastering the Flash Component Architecture (Advanc)
Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move! (Foundation)
Object-Oriented ActionScript For Flash 8
Flash Application Design Solutions: The Flash Usability Handbook (Solutions)
Foundation Flash 8 Video (Foundation)
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)
Originally very excited about the book.......2006-06-01
