2 comments about Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Games Most Wanted.

1. As a physicist, I immediately turned to the parts that incorporate physics. Like the friction of a billiard ball on a pool table. I grew up on Pong, and the rich texturing here is so amazingly removed from that! The discussions on how to collide two balls may not be fully correct to someone who had to deal with impact parameters in classical and quantum mechanics. But it suffices well in the book's simulations.

   Another chapter deals with using gravity, and will be useful to some of you. Takes the mystery out of incorporating at least a simple gravity in your games. Maybe it is nothing profound, but the results are very slick. And achieved with relatively little source code, which is thoroughly explained in the narrative.

   The level of detail of the physical simulations here does not approach that of some games by Activision and Electronic Arts, of course. But those are games developed with multimillion dollar budgets and teams of programmers. This book is suitable for you to develop a game by yourself.




2. Honestly this book is a steer clear. Sure it has some examples that are usefull but the explanation of the code is horrible. For someone like myself who has experience in Java, C++, PHP, VB.NET, HTML and more i found this book very difficult to follow and understand.
   
   I have since got FlashMX game design Demystified by Jobe Makar and would have to say 5 stars for that book. That explains everything properly and even teaches you the basics in mathematics and physics which was a good brush up for myself. I also like his use of OO programming so that code is resuable and he also goes lightly into using xml for building objects such as levels.

5 comments about Animating Real-Time Game Characters (Game Development Series).

1. Paul, I have to tell you: You rock!!

   Thanks to your easy-to-understand-and-follow-book, I'm now way ahead of my character setup & animation class at my school (art institute of portland). Keep in mind, this was just in a matter of days I went from clueless to...well, not so clueless!!

   For people wondering if this will indeed improve their character rigging and/or animating skills:

   It will. If you're already comfortable in using Max 4 or 5, you can easily take Paul's walkthoughs of rigging your character of any kind with biped and using physique to attach the mesh to the biped and be well on your way to understanding how to rig any future characters you create for excellent and easy animation. Well, easy to a point, anyway. You know how it is. With Paul's excellent methods of key frame animation, as well as using mocap, you'll be able to create convincing animations that no one would scrutinize! Even Paul's short-but-sweet section on things to consider when building a mesh can even improve your modeling techniques and thought process of when designing a character for optimum animating, hence the title of the section, 'built to move.'

   The one thing that makes Paul's books so nice is that you don't even have to use the packaged files to understand how to apply his methods of madness, you can just go straight from his examples and apply it to your own work and come away with the same oustanding results. I modeled my first character with Paul's book 'modeling a character in 3ds max' by just using his techniques and came away with a model better than almost everyone in my class that had previous modeling experience.

   Like I said, you just plain rock Paul. Hopefully I'll gain the skills you have so graciously bestowed upon us lowly wannabe animators to reach your status in this industry as a top-notch realtime modeler/animator someday. So far, things are looking bright!




2. Game programming is a very, very fun and interesting job that anyone could imagine, especially for boys... Sadly, most of the people just know how to play games, beg their parents to buy them X-Box, PS2, Intendo when they are kids... but very few of them (if not none!) will dedicate their hard work and persistensy from playing games to WRITING games.

   If you are one of the very few people who can bear with the tough and unbelievable demanding nature of the game programming industry, Paul Steed will be your no.1 instructor. I have read both Paul's books, this one and the other one, "Modeling a Character in 3ds Max 4". To be frank, even with such a fascinating 3d tool like 3ds Max 4, or Maya or Lightwave, it's still very hard for anyone to really develope a professional-like 3ds character, like the one Paul Steed shows you in both books - one is Betty Bad, the other is Callistro. There are a lot of screenshots in this book, "Animating a Real Time Game Character", and Paul put his instructions and professional tips right next to every screenshot, that makes it really easy to follow how to use 3ds Max 4 or Max 5.

   The other excellent thing of this book is that, remember, Paul is really one of the best (to be frank, I would call Paul the no.1 in modeling 3ds character) modellator in the game developing industry... just download the Quake2Arena demo game from id software and play it on your own PC, you know what I mean. Paul is just like telling and teaching his readers how to model/create and animate an unbelievable 3ds character in a fascinating game, like Quake... But after reading and practicing the whole book.... I learned how to create and animate a very professional-like 3ds game character, just like one of those in your amazing game "Quake2 Arena".... Paul... you are doing too good to your readers and too bad to yourself.

   Frankly, the "Betty Bad" game demo comes with the book worth 40 bucks... So, anyone who read my review and is interested in game programming and in the computing industry, don't hesitate, buy all Paul's books and start working on it... Paul will teach you all the most difficult, useful, stunning skills, you can be a professor in college after reading Paul's books... so why waste time and money and learn nothing in college.... face the truth, face yourself, be a man.... accept the challenge in the REAL game developing industry!!!!! You will thank me.

   P.S. Paul, I know you are crazy busy with your work... but when will you write your next one???




3. This is the 2nd character studio book I have read. The other is the Discreet CS courseware manual. I think everyone should read them both if you want full knowledge of Character Studio. Paul's book does not cover many techniques that are implemented in the Discreet manual, but his book does indeed cover what the title implies. Game animation sets, and rigid vertex assignment. Two topics that are lacking from the Discreet manual. Paul's book successfully de-mystifies the process of manual vertex assignment via the Physique modifier. The first half of the book will give you great techniques for rigging a Biped to a mesh. His techniques are easily applied to a potential game sprite, or a straight render. The real power of this book comes from the subsequent animation chapters. The attention to detail that he drills into your head is perhaps the most valuable skill an animator can have. An outstanding chapter on pose-to-pose keyframing techniques is invaluable. It shows how easily and stylish animating in CS can and should be. There is also very valuable motion capture editing instructions that show you how to exploit mocap in combo with keys to realize the creative potential one has. There is also alot of Dope Sheet work that helps one become very comfortable with one of the more intimidating aspects of 3DS Max. If you can, read the discreet CS manual first, and then study this book to polish it all up.



4. Il testo presenta animazioni elementari per principianti con metodo di rigging non proprio attuale ma appropriato alle mesh in oggetto. Si poteva dare un pò di più sotto il profilo dello sviluppo creativo personale con eventuali esercitazioni....3 ds max usato è la versione 4, davvero superata. Utile per cominciare...



5. I found this boith annoying and aggrivating, where that, although it does come with a CD to help, it actually does not contain the neccessary software to creat it such as 3Ds Max and Character Studio. So just make sure you have them before you buy it.

No comments about Chile in Pictures (Visual Geography. Second Series).

5 comments about Creating a Web Site with Flash 8: Visual QuickProject Guide.

1. I was looking to design my first Flash-based website. This book may have helped me do it... but I learned nothing in the process. It did not answer any of my "whys" or "hows" - just merely gave me step by step instruction. Furthermore, several of the steps, when followed exactly (trust me...sometimes I'd redo them 3 and 4 times to make sure) would not produce the results the book said they would. If you're looking for a more comprehensive, teach-a-man-to-fish type of book, this is not what you're looking for.



2. I am very pleased by this book, because it is the only one that I have ever found that I can use to teach Flash to someone else. The books doesn't get bogged down in the technical details of the program, it just shows you how to put Flash to work for you or your client.
   The book is VERY well illustrated, and the website you make is nice enough to show to other people. This compares to other Flash books that teach you all about how and why you do something in designing a website, but never demonstrate how to put it together into a worthwhile product. So you end up with a "properly" designed website that either doesn't work right or is too ugly to show to anyone else.
   This book changes that. Using it, I can sit down and walk someone through the creation of a pretty AND functional website. If they want to know why something is done a certain way, I would refer them to another book, but most people really don't seem to care once they have the project completed...



3. This is a good primer or refresher for Flash 8.
   
   This book serves two purposes: (1) Acquaints the reader with fundamental Flash principles and (2) demonstrates what you can do with Flash.
   
   The author could have made the book a lot better by writing a paragraph at the outset of each mini-lesson giving an overview of the point of the lesson and the steps.
   
   Retention with this book is difficult because it drones from one lesson to the next in linear fashion. If the book were broken down with reference points and summary overviews, it would even be a great little reference book.
   
   Another reviewer noted that some of the steps do not function. He is correct. It appears that there are a few instances where the author is either unclear about the steps or loses track of whether the reader is to work within a symbol or the main stage. I just hacked my way through it.
   
   Also, Flash is such a dynamic program that the learning curve is lengthy. To learn Flash, you MUST dedicate time and effort. It gets easier once you make up your mind to make the effort.



4. It seems like the other people who gave this book a low rating did so because it lacked detailed info as to why some of the steps were done. Well guys, maybe you should have read the front and back cover of the book before you bought it. This book was designed to walk you step by step through the process of creating a website in Flash 8. That's what it does... sort of. The problem is (and this is the only reason I'm not rating it 5 stars) that it is RIDDLED with errors. Some of the steps just don't work and you really have to spend a lot of time figuring out where the author has screwed up.
   
   That said, it's still a nice little primer and worth the nominal cost for beginners.



5. All words are written in large, childlike print, to give an impression that this book is easy to read and thus also easy to execute. But the execution instructions are not very well described. Some steps have missing photos. The book is also way too short for the kind of book it is supposed to be: visual introduction to flash for beginners. It also has no troubleshooting nor any FAQ. This edition is identical to the newer one for Flash MX 2004(ISBN: 0-321-32125-1).I do not recommend starting learning flash from this book, it is for more advanced learners.

5 comments about Game Audio Programming (Advances in Computer Graphics and Game Development Series).

1. I recently had the opportunity to be the sole programmer for a very cool project that was a combination of a music player and a comprehensive jukebox. Yet, this was my first experience with *serious* audio programming on the Windows platform.

   While doing my research on how I would meet the requirements for this project (including playback, sound mixing, crossfading, and conversions between the various standard audio formats - WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG Vorbis), I was very fortunate to stumble on this book while in a bookstore in Manhattan. At first I was thrown off by the title and assumed that this book was intended solely for 'game developers.' However, after picking it up and scanning it, I quickly realized that that was not the case. This book is for *anyone* interested in audio programming on the Windows platform.

   In my opinion, this book accomplishes several things VERY well:

   1) Provides the reader with a very good understanding about how audio works in general and the key components of any wave that you must understand when tackling a project such as mine (eg. sampling rate, bit depth, etc.)

   2) While geared towards using the DirectX Audio APIs, the author provides a sound explanation (no pun intended) of why this API should be seriously considered and how it compares to using other APIs (typically offered by a 3rd party)

   3) Perhaps most important, the author takes a very disciplined approach to the design of an audio system. This is extrememly helpful since many readers, like myself, will purchase this book not only because they have an interest in audio, but also because they need/want to build their own set of audio engines that they can use/reuse in present and future projects. This feature alone seperates this book from most, if not all others (that are typically reference books to a technology such as DirectX). This also demonstrates that the author has a very solid meta-level understanding of what he is writing about, pulling from many recognized and practical real-world projects.

   4) Serves as a very good reference to the DirectX Audio APIs (DirectSound and DirectMusic) and even the Windows Media Format SDK

   5) Discusses the main file formats (Raw PCM, WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG Vorbis) and how you can employ various codecs to get wave data from a file to a DirectSound buffer or vice versa. This is very useful because, on the Windows platform, you dont get some of these formats for free. So, an understanding of how you can design a system to support virtually any audio codec is therefore invaluable - and something the author does very well. He even walks you through the integration of the MP3 and OGG Vorbis formats into your audio engine.

   I really cant say enough about this book. In fact, even though I shop here ALL the time, this is the first book review I have ever written on Amazon's website. Anyone who is interested in audio programming, at ANY level, should purchase this book. You will NOT be disappointed.




2. I recently had the opportunity to be the sole programmer for a very cool project that was a combination of a music player and a comprehensive jukebox. Yet, this was my first experience with *serious* audio programming on the Windows platform.

   While doing my research on how I would meet the requirements for this project (including playback, sound mixing, crossfading, and conversions between the various standard audio formats - WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG Vorbis), I was very fortunate to stumble on this book while in a bookstore in Manhattan. At first I was thrown off by the title and assumed that this book was intended solely for 'game developers.' However, after picking it up and scanning it, I quickly realized that that was not the case. This book is for *anyone* interested in audio programming on the Windows platform.

   In my opinion, this book accomplishes several things VERY well:

   1) Provides the reader with a very good understanding about how audio works in general and the key components of any wave that you must understand when tackling a project such as mine (eg. sampling rate, bit depth, etc.)

   2) While geared towards using the DirectX Audio APIs, the author provides a sound explanation (no pun intended) of why this API should be seriously considered and how it compares to using other APIs (typically offered by a 3rd party)

   3) Perhaps most important, the author takes a very disciplined approach to the design of an audio system. This is extrememly helpful since many readers, like myself, will purchase this book not only because they have an interest in audio, but also because they need/want to build their own set of audio engines that they can use/reuse in present and future projects. This feature alone seperates this book from most, if not all others (that are typically reference books to a technology such as DirectX). This also demonstrates that the author has a very solid meta-level understanding of what he is writing about, pulling from many recognized and practical real-world projects.

   4) Serves as a very good reference to the DirectX Audio APIs (DirectSound and DirectMusic) and even the Windows Media Format SDK

   5) Discusses the main file formats (Raw PCM, WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG Vorbis) and how you can employ various codecs to get wave data from a file to a DirectSound buffer or vice versa. This is very useful because, on the Windows platform, you dont get some of these formats for free. So, an understanding of how you can design a system to support virtually any audio codec is therefore invaluable - and something the author does very well. He even walks you through the integration of the MP3 and OGG Vorbis formats into your audio engine.

   I really cant say enough about this book. In fact, even though I shop here ALL the time, this is the first book review I have ever written on Amazon[.com]'s website. Anyone who is interested in audio programming, at ANY level, should purchase this book. You will NOT be disappointed.




3. This book was very disappointing. It is a book about programming audio APIs, not programming audio algorithms. The section on Advanced 3D Techniques is mostly a description of how to use EAX. There is little here that could not be gleaned from the documentation and examples that come with the APIs in question.

   This has only the barest whisper of theory. Just enough for someone to understand what a certain function in the provided APIs might mean. DSP, FFT and DCT are not even mentioned in the index! In all, this book is pretty much useful only to someone who doesn't want to deal with the included SDK documentation with DirectX Audio. Anyone working upon a different platform, or wishing to go beyond the basics of merely playing back samples should look elsewhere. Do you really need a 640 page long book just to figure out how to play back a sample?




4. I agree with a previous reviewer that this book is dedicated to developing a high to mid level audio engine based on DirectSound and DirectMusic. This book is not about audio programming from scratch. It doesn't give any algorithms for implementing your own 3D audio engine. It does give pretty good explanation of the I3DL2 spec (but this can be gleaned from the AISIG site. It also has a good explanation of Occlusion and Obstruction.



5. For anyone actually doing practical audio programming for a game, this book is a great resource. No, it doesn't dig into academic minutia such as implementing your own software mixer, or explaining FFTs or writing custom DSPs, as those topics fall outside the realm of game programming (yes, audio compression uses these items, but no one writes their own audio compression codecs anymore, especially with good open-source alternatives available). Modern audio programming is all about taking advantage of hardware acceleration, and that means using APIs such as DirectX that can do this. The book is quite specialized, but digs into the APIs and gives a lot of good advice on practical implementation that you won't find anywhere else.

   It also contains a good deal of the meat and potatoes of game audio programming, such as developing and interactive music system, or creating compelling dynamic soundscapes. The APIs are a big part of that, but not the only part, as a good portion of the book is devoted to these higher-level programming concepts.

   I'd highly recommend this book to any game developer who needs to implement (or improve) an audio engine for their Windows PC game. It will give you a big head start, with lots of working source code to play with.

No comments about New Perspectives on Flash MX 2004, Comprehensive (New Perspectives (Paperback Course Technology)).

No comments about Old-Time Toys, Dolls and Novelties CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art).

5 comments about Macromedia Flash 8 ActionScript: Training from the Source.

1. if you are a flash developer/designer who is comfortable with the basics of flash and actionscript, this book is awesome. confusing topics like listeners and the delegate class are covered well. i really liked this book and recommend it - i've recently recommended it to my brother because i think he understands arrays and for loops and xml, etc but would like to get a better handle on it, he's going to like this book as well.
   fyi i also had Jobe Makar's game book(green cover) and liked that as well.



2. Book appears rushed, incomplete, and at times translated from another language. Consider this sentence:
   
   "When the user clicks on the target movie clip, call the onPress() method of DraggableRectangle"
   
   Obviously, something, possibly an article -- "it" is missing from the second clause. To someone with intermediate familiarity with AS, this omission is easily negotiated but to a beginner, it could be a major hurdle.
   
   If you can tolerate and survive mistakes like the aforementioned, this book is actually a qualified "not bad" intermediate book. Unfortunately, there isn't sufficient sophistication or depth to really move your work to the next level. You'll learn a few things but this book will probably not remain on your shelf as an essential reference to AS once completed.



3. I knew something was wrong with this book when I was only on pg 14. It showed an image of the toolbar and some of the tools on it had transversed label names. Obviously the editors and the proofreaderf and the writers were out on a long lunch when that happened. In actionscipting, the coding depends on your the attention to detail. The spacing, the uppercase vs lowercase. Anyway, point being. Some of the test book lessons did not match up with the final lessons on the cd rom. Some code was out of it's place, the book indicated it went in the end, when in reality it went in the middle and I also noticed that their spacing in various methods and functions rendered the code non-functionable. On the disk, the spacing was VERY different. I am an art director who justw anted to brush up on action scrippting during my vacation (yes my vacation). I swear I am considering sending a bill for my wasted time and frustration to Jobe and Danny. I am livid. THANK GOD ADOBE BOUGHT OUT FLASH. Macromedia (Jobe and Danny that means you) should not be allowed to write books ever again. The only happy ending to this story is that I can possibly write this book off at tax time and get my money back. Very disapointed and frustrated.



4. As other reviewers have stated, the exercises in this book DO NOT WORK!!!
   
   You'll be ready to pull your hair out by the second chapter!
   I followed the direction over and over and over again, thinking I was doing something wrong. It wasn't me! The book is WRONG!
   
   This is a book teaching you how to learn a -ing programming language and it's like nobody actually read it after they wrote it! How is it possible that Macromedia and Peachpit let this book be published!??
   
   If this is what "Training from the Source" means, then I'll learn elsewhere.
   C'mon people! Test your product before you try to sell it to the public for 45 bucks!!!!



5. Bought this book because i really hate using the built in help features of any program and really wanted to learn this, but i am 30 pages in and its already full of errors. The projects that are supposedly finished on the cd are wrong and there is no on-line site for this book so i can't find any type of updates at all. If you really need/want this book buy it used because the authors obviously don't need the $$ since they didn't proofread their own work.

2 comments about Game Character Modeling and Animation with 3ds Max.

1. I have this book and enjoy parts of it. The book actually covers almost the entire process from conception (concept art) to the finished rigged (biped) character. It also shows you how to bring the charcter into UNREAL 2003 if you want to play as the Pirate. If you are still learning this book can definately help you expand your skills. It goes indepth explaining why you want to do certain things and how to do it. The explainations are a huge plus, for people that are still trying to understand the process.
   
   The example is where this book lacks it's potential. The concept art used to model from is weak. It is a basic line drawing you would expect from a 14 year old. And from this reference art you can go through the process of creating inproportional character. I believe realism is what many people shoot for and the example is missing some of that realism.
   
   This book I would recommend for someone that is struggling with the process but would just need to preface it, saying the techniques that the book is trying to get across are important, but do not rely on the examples to get a job.



2. I looked forward a great deal to the release of this book as I know of no other book out there aimed primarily at game character modelling in 3D Studio Max for UT2004 but I have to say I was generally appalled by the techniques covered in this book and the ignorance of the author (i.e. from a cursory glance of it at least - I've seen enough) and this is why:
   
   Modelling:
   The author seems to have very little in the way of artistic ability in that the anatomy of the model is ridiculous and this stems from his bizarre, convoluted and laborious technique of developing a character mesh by `drawing' individual vertices then connecting them together (utter nonsense - most established 3D artists start with approximate primary forms as in fine art; and then work into them with low poly tools) this technique is prehistoric and ill advised as it is unnatural, time consuming and generates an appallingly uneven non-organic mesh I'm open to different ways of doing things; but this is a highly questionable an unintelligible approach to creating a character model and certainly ill advised for those wishing to learn how to model.
   
   Texturing:
   The author seems to have very little in the way of artistic ability in that his procedure for generating texture coordinates on his `mutant' anatomical character involves using lots of dated techniques which although are a means to getting the job done with zero finesse are hardly representative of easier, modern cutting edge approaches to organic texture creation in 3D Studio Max (i.e. like using the Pelt mapping gizmo designed purely for this purpose which has been in 3DS for years now - how long ago did the author write this book exactly?). Again I appreciate there are many ways of doing things but surely as this book has just been released it should be representative of what is going on now. All I can presume is that the author is an engineer posing as a 3D artist.
   
   Its not all bad but there are far more useful, current and informed tutorials out there for free on the web; written by talented 3D artists who know what they are talking about from individual experience - no comment.

No comments about PROJECT FLASH MX (Macromedia Flash).