Unity 3.X Game Development Essentials


Will Goldstone - 2009
    With no prior knowledge of game development or 3D required, you will learn from scratch, taking each concept at a time working up to a full 3D mini-game. You'll learn scripting with C# or JavaScript and master the Unity development environment with easy-to-follow stepwise tasks. If you're a designer or animator who wishes to take their first steps into game development or prototyping, or if you've simply spent many hours sitting in front of video games, with ideas bubbling away in the back of your mind, Unity and this book should be your starting point. No prior knowledge of game production is required, inviting you to simply bring with you a passion for making great games.

Programming in Go: Creating Applications for the 21st Century


Mark Summerfield - 2012
    With this guide, pioneering Go programmer Mark Summerfield shows how to write code that takes full advantage of Go's breakthrough features and idioms. Both a tutorial and a language reference, "Programming in Go" brings together all the knowledge you need to evaluate Go, think in Go, and write high-performance software with Go. Summerfield presents multiple idiom comparisons showing exactly how Go improves upon older languages, calling special attention to Go's key innovations. Along the way, he explains everything from the absolute basics through Go's lock-free channel-based concurrency and its flexible and unusual duck-typing type-safe approach to object-orientation. Throughout, Summerfield's approach is thoroughly practical. Each chapter offers multiple live code examples designed to encourage experimentation and help you quickly develop mastery. Wherever possible, complete programs and packages are presented to provide realistic use cases, as well as exercises. Coverage includes:-- Quickly getting and installing Go, and building and running Go programs -- Exploring Go's syntax, features, and extensive standard library -- Programming Boolean values, expressions, and numeric types -- Creating, comparing, indexing, slicing, and formatting strings -- Understanding Go's highly efficient built-in collection types: slices and maps -- Using Go as a procedural programming language -- Discovering Go's unusual and flexible approach to object orientation -- Mastering Go's unique, simple, and natural approach to fine-grained concurrency -- Reading and writing binary, text, JSON, and XML files -- Importing and using standard library packages, custom packages, and third-party packages -- Creating, documenting, unit testing, and benchmarking custom packages

Game Engine Architecture


Jason Gregory - 2009
    The concepts and techniques described are the actual ones used by real game studios like Electronic Arts and Naughty Dog. The examples are often grounded in specific technologies, but the discussion extends way beyond any particular engine or API. The references and citations make it a great jumping off point for those who wish to dig deeper into any particular aspect of the game development process.Intended as the text for a college level series in game programming, this book can also be used by amateur software engineers, hobbyists, self-taught game programmers, and existing members of the game industry. Junior game engineers can use it to solidify their understanding of game technology and engine architecture. Even senior engineers who specialize in one particular field of game development can benefit from the bigger picture presented in these pages.

Game Programming Gems


Mark DeLoura - 2000
    But instead of spending hours and hours trying to develop your own answers, now you can find out how the pros do it! Game Programming Gems is a hands-on, comprehensive resource packed with a variety of game programming algorithms written by experts from the game industry and edited by Mark DeLoura, former software engineering lead for Nintendo of America, Inc. and now the newly appointed editor-in-chief of Game Developer magazine. From animation and artificial intelligence to Z-buffering, lighting calculations, weather effects, curved surfaces, mutliple layer Internet gaming, to music and sound effects, all of the major techniques needed to develop a competitive game engine are covered. Game Programming Gems is written in a style accessible to individuals with a range of expertise levels. All of the source code for each algorithm is included and can be used by advanced programmers immediately. For aspiring programmers, there is a detailed tutorial to work through before attempting the code, and suggestions for possible modifications and optimizations are included as well.

Programming F# 3.0


Chris Smith - 2009
    You’ll quickly discover the many advantages of the language, including access to all the great tools and libraries of the .NET platform.Reap the benefits of functional programming for your next project, whether you’re writing concurrent code, or building data- or math-intensive applications. With this comprehensive book, former F# team member Chris Smith gives you a head start on the fundamentals and walks you through advanced concepts of the F# language.Learn F#’s unique characteristics for building applicationsGain a solid understanding of F#’s core syntax, including object-oriented and imperative stylesMake your object-oriented code better by applying functional programming patternsUse advanced functional techniques, such as tail-recursion and computation expressionsTake advantage of multi-core processors with asynchronous workflows and parallel programmingUse new type providers for interacting with web services and information-rich environmentsLearn how well F# works as a scripting language

Game Coding Complete


Mike McShaffry - 2003
    The best description of the first edition comes from two Amazon reviewers; the first proclaiming, "I got the same feeling of enlightenment when reading this one as I did all those years ago when I read the classic book "Code Complete" and the second stating "This is the first game book I have read that I was sorry when I got to the end because there wasn't any more."For Game Coding Complete, Second Edition, McShaffry returns with many more of his highly popular, shoot-from the hips war stories and expert game programming insight that only a real insider could provide. McShaffry uses his experience as a leading programmer for Origin Systems, Microsoft, and Ion Storm a division of Eidos, to illustrate real-world techniques and solutions, including examples from his recent work on the major game, Thief Deadly Shadows. Game Coding Complete, Second Edition takes programmers through the complete process of developing a professional quality game using hundreds of insider tricks and techniques developed and perfect by the author from over a decade of game development experience. It covers a range of topics that will appeal to the most discriminating programmers such as key "gotcha" issues that could trip up even veteran programmers. The new edition features expanded coverage of 3D programming, several new chapters on game interface design, game audio, game scripting, game engine technology, code optimization, production and scheduling, plus it now includes a CD-ROM packed with valuable source code and game development tools. The appendix offers solid advice on starting your own game company. The C++ language is used to explain specific programming concepts with added discussion of development with C# and Managed DirectX programming.

The Little Book on CoffeeScript


Alex MacCaw - 2012
    Through example code, this guide demonstrates how CoffeeScript abstracts JavaScript, providing syntactical sugar and preventing many common errors. You’ll learn CoffeeScript’s syntax and idioms step by step, from basic variables and functions to complex comprehensions and classes.Written by Alex MacCaw, author of JavaScript Web Applications (O’Reilly), with contributions from CoffeeScript creator Jeremy Ashkenas, this book quickly teaches you best practices for using this language—not just on the client side, but for server-side applications as well. It’s time to take a ride with the little language that could.Discover how CoffeeScript’s syntax differs from JavaScriptLearn about features such as array comprehensions, destructuring assignments, and classesExplore CoffeeScript idioms and compare them to their JavaScript counterpartsCompile CoffeeScript files in static sites with the Cake build systemUse CommonJS modules to structure and deploy CoffeeScript client-side applicationsExamine JavaScript’s bad parts—including features CoffeeScript was able to fix

Lucene in Action


Erik Hatcher - 2004
    It describes how to index your data, including types you definitely need to know such as MS Word, PDF, HTML, and XML. It introduces you to searching, sorting, filtering, and highlighting search results.Lucene powers search in surprising placesWhat's Inside- How to integrate Lucene into your applications- Ready-to-use framework for rich document handling- Case studies including Nutch, TheServerSide, jGuru, etc.- Lucene ports to Perl, Python, C#/.Net, and C++- Sorting, filtering, term vectors, multiple, and remote index searching- The new SpanQuery family, extending query parser, hit collecting- Performance testing and tuning- Lucene add-ons (hit highlighting, synonym lookup, and others)

Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice


James D. Foley - 1990
    It details programming with SRGP, a simple but powerful raster graphics package. Important algorithms in 2D and 3D graphics are detailed for easy implementation, and a thorough presentation of the mathematical principles of geometric transformations and viewing are included.

Game Development Essentials: An Introduction


Jeannie Novak - 2004
    This book not only examines content creation and the concepts behind development, but it also give readers a background on the evolution of game development and how it has become what it is today. GAME DEVELOPMENT ESSENTIALS also includes chapters on project management, development team roles and responsibilities, development cycle, marketing, maintenance, and the future of game development. With the same engaging writing style and examples that made the first two editions so popular, this new edition features all the latest games and game technology. Coverage of new game-related technology, development techniques, and the latest research in the field make this an invaluable resource for anyone entering the exciting, competitive, ever-changing world of game development.

Ajax in Action


Dave Crane - 2005
    They get frustrated losing their scroll position; they get annoyed waiting for refresh; they struggle to reorient themselves on every new page. And the list goes on. With asynchronous JavaScript and XML, known as "Ajax," you can give them a better experience. Once users have experienced an Ajax interface, they hate to go back. Ajax is new way of thinking that can result in a flowing and intuitive interaction with the user.Ajax in Action helps you implement that thinking--it explains how to distribute the application between the client and the server (hint: use a "nested MVC" design) while retaining the integrity of the system. You will learn how to ensure your app is flexible and maintainable, and how good, structured design can help avoid problems like browser incompatibilities. Along the way it helps you unlearn many old coding habits. Above all, it opens your mind to the many advantages gained by placing much of the processing in the browser. If you are a web developer who has prior experience with web technologies, this book is for you. Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.

Game Programming Patterns


Robert Nystrom - 2011
    Commercial game development expert Robert Nystrom presents an array of general solutions to problems encountered in game development. For example, you'll learn how double-buffering enables a player to perceive smooth and realistic motion, and how the service locator pattern can help you provide access to services such as sound without coupling your code to any particular sound driver or sound hardware. Games have much in common with other software, but also a number of unique constraints. Some of the patterns in this book are well-known in other domains of software development. Other of the patterns are unique to gaming. In either case, Robert Nystrom bridges from the ivory tower world of software architecture to the in-the-trenches reality of hardcore game programming. You'll learn the patterns and the general problems that they solve. You'll come away able to apply powerful and reusable architectural solutions that enable you to produce higher quality games with less effort than before. Applies classic design patterns to game programming. Introduces new patterns specific to game programming. Brings abstract software architecture down to Earth with approachable writing and an emphasis on simple code that shows each pattern in practice. What you'll learn Overcome architectural challenges unique to game programming Apply lessons from the larger software world to games. Tie different parts of a game (graphics, sound, AI) into a cohesive whole. Create elegant and maintainable architecture. Achieve good, low-level performance. Gain insight into professional, game development. Who this book is forGame Programming Patterns is aimed at professional game programmers who, while successful in shipping games, are frustrated at how hard it sometimes is to add and modify features when a game is under development. Game Programming Patterns shows how to apply modern software practices to the problem of game development while still maintaining the blazing-fast performance demanded by hard-core gamers. Game Programming Patterns also appeals to those learning about game programming in their spare time. Hobbyists and aspiring professionals alike will find much to learn in this book about pathfinding, collision detection, and other game-programming problem domains.

Head First Ajax: A Brain-Friendly Guide


Rebecca M. Riordan - 2008
    Head First Ajax gives you an up-to-date perspective that lets you see exactly what you can do--and has been done--with Ajax. With it, you get a highly practical, in-depth, and mature view of what is now a mature development approach. Using the unique and highly effective visual format that has turned Head First titles into runaway bestsellers, this book offers a big picture overview to introduce Ajax, and then explores the use of individual Ajax components--including the JavaScript event model, DOM, XML, JSON, and more--as it progresses. You'll find plenty of sample applications that illustrate the concepts, along with exercises, quizzes, and other interactive features to help you retain what you've learned.Head First Ajax covers:The JavaScript event modelMaking Ajax requests with XMLHTTPREQUEST objectsThe asynchronous application modelThe Document Object Model (DOM)Manipulating the DOM in JavaScriptControlling the browser with the Browser Object ModelXHTML FormsPOST RequestsXML Syntax and the XML DOM treeXML Requests & ResponsesJSON -- an alternative to XMLAjax architecture & patternsThe Prototype LibraryThe book also discusses the server-side implications of building Ajax applications, and uses a black box approach to server-side components.Head First Ajax is the ideal guide for experienced web developers comfortable with scripting--particularly those who have completed the exercises in Head First JavaScript--and for experienced programmers in Java, PHP, and C# who want to learn client-side programming.

Async in C# 5.0


Alex Davies - 2012
    Along with a clear introduction to asynchronous programming, you get an in-depth look at how the async feature works and why you might want to use it in your application.Written for experienced C# programmers—yet approachable for beginners—this book is packed with code examples that you can extend for your own projects.Write your own asynchronous code, and learn how async saves you from this messy choreDiscover new performance possibilities in ASP.NET web server codeExplore how async and WinRT work together in Windows 8 applicationsLearn the importance of the await keyword in async methodsUnderstand which .NET thread is running your code—and at what points in the programUse the Task-based Asynchronous Pattern (TAP) to write asynchronous APIs in .NETTake advantage of parallel computing in modern machinesMeasure async code performance by comparing it with alternatives

Chris Crawford on Game Design


Chris Crawford - 2003
    This book teaches key lessons; including, what you can learn from the history of game play and historical games, necessity of challenge in game play, applying dimensions of conflict, understanding low and high interactivity designs, and more.