2 comments about Real-time 3D Character Animation with Visual C++ (Book & CD-ROM).

1. The title on the book reads C++.
   It is detailed, and concise, Covers the nitty gritty
   of all the scary details down to Forward and Reverse Kinematics.
   Lightwave, and 3DS ascii file parsing, Motion Capture, and the Author's own Toon3D Engine.
   Thoroughly Enriched, Well Researched, and Easy to Read (for as complicated and detailed as this material is).
   well laid out. Definitely Hard Core Food for Thought.
   Thank You Nik.



2. The language is simple and direct. Nik really touches the subject in depth and keeps the math simple. The sample code is also very useful. I found fairly easy to modify for my custom applications. The book has been teaching me a lot. I've been even learning about GL and MFC with his book. If you need to learn about character animation, Nik's book must be on your collection! Looking forward to the next one.

1 comments about How to Use Macromedia Flash MX and ActionScript (2nd Edition) (How to Use).

1. Step by step instructions and illustrations help you understand the steps. A good introductory book for beginners. If you know the basics, then get a more advanced book.

2 comments about Atlas for Computing Mathematical Functions: An Illustrated Guidebook for Practitioners With Programs in Fortran 90 and Mathematica.

1. According to the author, the practicality of books on functions is often limited by the graphical content, and that books of tables like Abramowitz & Stegun "serve a very limited purpose" today (primarily to check function evaluating software). This "Atlas" tries to fill this void, and it does a respectable job. However, detailed function exploration and visualization is left to Mathematica users, the primary audience for this book. Without Mathematica 2.2 or later, and/or a Fortran 90 complier, a great deal in this title cannot be fully appreciated. Of course, the reader can often explore function behavior by plotting an equation using common spreadsheet software, or a graphing calculator, without using F90 or Mathematica. But much of this high-priced textbook consists of small blocks of F90 code and everlasting references to Mathematica notebook calls. Part II contains ~200 pages of Mathematica notebook descriptions and ~100 pages of F90 driver programs, not to mention the F90 code documented throughout the first 600 pages.

   Most the "Atlas" graphics are small (~2") gray-scale screenshots of Mathematica plots. The quality of some graphics leaves something to be desired though (Figure 7.2.2 p. 117 for example). Many figures are obviously grainy - vertical lines and text characters often appear as broken line segments, not unlike a tilted faxed image. These gray-scale images are fairly bland; I expected at least a little color and only the highest quality graphics for a book calling itself an "atlas", especially for the asking price.

   "Atlas" is no substitute for the timeless books of tables and equations such as the (inexpensive) A&S (ISBN 0486612724) or the CRC Standard Math Tables. In computing the error function (erf), for example, Dr. Thompson defines erf in terms of a function call of the gamma function, while A&S provides many, many more alternatives suitable for machine solution. The discussions here, while more generous than A&S, are often not quite as insightful as Numerical Recipes, which the author often references. Instead, pictorial surveys primarily forego a lot of the detailed explanation of the underlying function theory. A few of the functions, such as the Voight distribution, are hard to find in the classic references, but the reader will find very few new topics here. "Atlas" is a well packaged presentation but not quite the insightful, general purpose book for which I had hoped.

   The contents are almost identical to an earlier C version by the same name (ISBN 0471002607). The availability in C, F90 and Mathematica is commendable, although it seems that the F90 version may now be out-of-print having been listed at a price for almost two hundred dollars for several years. Programmers of the older Fortran 77 standard will find the level of F90 programming reasonably suited for translation back to the older standard - or even C itself, if necessary. Therefore, Mathematica users in particular will find the used but now heavily discounted F90 copies the much greater bargain.




2. Don't expect an in-depth coverage of the theory behind the calculations. Said that, the book is a "concise" presentation of the programs used to calculate special functions present on the CD. For every program, the author shows the underlying equations and the bibliographic sources, plus nice discussions on accuracy/performance when you have the option of several methods.
   
   I would say the book is more useful to the engineer/physicist having to do certain calculations, than to the mathematician/student wanting to learn the ins and outs of special functions theory.
   
   The only dissapointment is a rather poor produced CD: the names of the programs on the CD are in 8.3 format, and I think (not sure though) that not all the code of the driver programs shows up on the CD- there are names of program snippets that are not on the CD- this may be an unnecessary hasle for someone trying to follow the examples in the book to the letter.

No comments about Human Motion: Understanding, Modelling, Capture, and Animation (Computational Imaging and Vision).

2 comments about Blue Pixel Guide to Travel Photography: Perfect Photos Every Time, The.

1. Title: Blue Pixel Guide to Travel Photography
   Author: David Schloss
   Publisher: Peachpit Press (November 7, 2005)
   Paperback: 215 pages
   ISBN: ISBN: 0-321-35677-2
   List Price: US $24.99
   
   
   Blue Pixel was founded with one mission: to have leading digital
   photographers teach their craft from an unbiased, real-world
   perspective. Each of the contributing photographers for the
   Blue Pixel Guide to Travel Photography have from 20 to 40
   years of photography experience (photojournalism, commercial,
   teaching).
   
   The book is divided into 7 chapters. Just about every page
   has at least one color photograph (with red colored descriptive text) to further explain the topic being discussed. Most pages also have a blue colored text tips section in which the authors/contributors give their real-world experience
   (tricks of the trade).
   
   Chapter 1 describes how to choose the right gear for your trip.
   Selecting the right camera (point and shoot versus Digital SLR), lens, memory cards, backup hardware (laptop, mobile hard drives). This chapter has the best explanation of lens aperture I have ever read.
   
   Chapter 2 describes what to take and what to leave home for your
   trip. Some examples are: power adapters, secondary batteries, charges, tripods, flashes, manuals, filters, etc.). Considerations are discussed on the length and type of trip is planned.
   
   Chapter 3 describes preparing for your photographic adventure.
   Here the author emphasizes the importance of researching the
   geographical location, weather, customs, language, and local events of your destination before you leave for your trip to maximize your photographic experiences. "A Photographic
   Journey is 80 percent preparation and 20 percent vacation".
   Some of the methods described are : using the internet, magazines, books, libraries, travel agents. There is one tip in this section which I never would have thought of on how to find out more about your destination from a photographer's perspective. You will have to buy the book to find out what it is.
   
   Chapter 4 describes how a good attitude makes good pictures.
   Here the reader is informed on your need to understand the local
   culture, language and customs of the people for the more productive pictures and avoid any potential problems.
   
   Chapter 5 describes how to photograph the world once you
   arrive at your destination. Examples include: what to shoot,
   when to shoot it, how to shoot it, and what equipment to use.
   This comprehensive chapter consists of 50 pages.
   
   Chapter 6 describes how to manage your gear and your photos on the road. Emphasis is on proper backup of your digital photos and file naming suggestions.
   
   Chapter 7 describes sharing your photos with the world. Many ideas from making prints to creating images for the web are discussed and what hardware and software to use.
   
   Summary: Every level of photographer will benefit from reading this book whether you are planning a day trip within your area or a two week trip to another country. You will have a better and more productive photographic experience on your next trip.
   
   Finally, if there is one suggestion I would make to the author
   is to include a pullout cheat sheet which condenses/summarizes
   the key points from each chapter to take along with you on your travels. Overall I highly recommend this book and the price of the book with an online discount makes it very reasonable and a very good value.



2. The Blue Pixel Guide to Travel Photography: Perfect Photos Every Time
   
   Have you ever bought something that says "one size fits all" and it fits? Yeah, me too. Something that attempts to appear to everyone in reality appeals to no one. This book was designated by Peachpit as "beginner/intermediate" but I found most of it too difficult for me as a budding photographer and those things I did learn from the book probably would have frustrated an intermediate user. When I think "beginner", I want to be walked through the very basics. Schloss started the book expecting that you had a small arsenal of photography equipment. This book isn't for someone who has a $300 digital camera, but someone who has a much more advanced digital camera, light meters, multiple lenses and a bunch of other stuff I didn't understand.
   
   This book is geared towards someone who already has a photography kit and wants to learn tips and tricks on how to travel with their equipment. For example, Schloss mentions you should ship your clothes to your destination and then carry your camera equipment on the plane. Clothes can easily be replaced, camera equipment can't. This advice is not for someone that is bringing the family digital camera on a trip to Grand Canyon.
   
   My major concern with the book is that if someone owns several thousand dollars of camera equipment, they probably wouldn't be considered a beginning user. Maybe it's just me, but I would not spend $2000 in equipment and then pick up a beginner's book. I'd first learn how to use professional equipment and then buy an advanced book.
   
   In spite of my complaints about the book, I found parts of it helpful. There were a few pages about composing a photo using a "grid" which I had read in "iPhoto: The Missing Manual." Other tips regarding photographing individuals or sports events required you to have a quiver of lenses to choose from to get the right shot.
   
   A nice feature of the book is that it was visually stunning. Every few pages had amazing pictures taken from around the world. These photographers clearly are masters of their craft and a advanced digital photographer will probably be reminded of how to set an f-stop or how much light to let in for a particular photograph. We beginners just like looking at pretty pictures!
   
   This is not a beginner book and intermediate users will only benefit if they have a set of professional or at least "prosumer" camera equipment and lenses. That person isn't me, so I found the book of very little help.
   
   Pros: Pretty pictures
   Cons: The pretty pictures require several thousand dollars worth of equipment.

1 comments about Mathematica for Theoretical Physics: Electrodynamics, Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, and Fractals.

1. This is a very good book in it's subject. The examples taken from Quantum Mechanics ,Fractals and General Relativity are quite impressive.But I would expect even more problems taken from the field of Electrodynamics.I think that this book is a"must have" for anyone who's interesting in computational methods for solving basic problems of theoretical physics.

No comments about Graphic Design and Production Technology.

4 comments about ShaderX2: Introductions and Tutorials with DirectX 9.0.

1. This is probably the best book for writing Shaders in DirectX 9.0. It starts off with the basic concepts of the language and builds up slowly to very advanced concepts. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants some learn and practice some serious Shader programming.
   A note for newbies though. This is a book for advanced readers. People who already have a decent knowledge of DirectX 9.0. This book WILL NOT teach you the basics of DirectX 9.0. It is meant for Shader programming and it does that with great elegance. However, if you are looking for a beginner level book then look for some other book about general DX programming.



2. If you know nothing about the High-Level Shader Language (HLSL), then the information you need is in this book. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly well-written book. It's not horrible either, but it could have used better organization and clearer writing. For example, the "Introduction to the DirectX HLSL" chapter never gives an overall picture of how vertex and pixel shaders interact, and how data flows between them and the hardware. The author jumps right into to discussing shader syntax. Then, when he's barely explained enough to see what's going on, he jumps into a section on optimization, then a section on compatibility details between various shader levels, then he abruptly starts talking about code sequences that generate "_bx2" modifiers, without any set-up or real explanation of why. I realize that each chapter is written by a different person, but all of this random gear-shifting is in the same chapter.

   As in any book with many contributors, the quality varies. The chapter on shadow volumes is detailed and useful. But overall I wish there had been emphasis on clear and succinct presentation, and not just what seems to be a stream-of-consciousness approach to covering a huge amount of information.




3. So let's focus on the good.

   First, it gives a fair intro to HLSL and shader assembly language. That seems hard to come by. Microsoft's documentation, in web-entangled form, is hardly a tutorial. Vendor documentation mostly points to MS standards, but those are hard for us mere peons to acquire in any intelligible form. This isn't a langauge ref book, but will do until I see a real one.

   Second, it gives a good bunch of tips'n'tricks, with lots of listings for illumination models, shadows, and fog. The careful reader will look into the references, the places where new knowledge makes its debut, and will be stronger for it. There's also a chapter that devotes itself to v1 vs. v2. vs v3 compatibility and more. Compatibility is the pits - if you've never dealt with it, your career is probably happy and probably very young.

   I was looking for something a little different, though. I just wanted the HLSL and assembly references, with versions, with complete syntax and semantics. This gives enough info for me to guess my way through a lot of it, but really does leave me guessing. For example, p.47 talks about the "_bx2" modifier. It shows three different ways to coax the compiler into emitting that suffix. After about ten minutes of looking at source and asm code, I finally figured out what _bx2 meant - something the authors neglected to tell me.

   Shader programming is still a [forgive the phrase] dark art. This book offers a few chants and incantations, but does not make it a science. Still, it's the most coherent reference I've seen, and I'm sticking with it.




4. ShaderX2 is broken in to two volumes, with this volume intended as an introduction to shader related topics to prepare the reader for the other volume, or for other shader books. It fills that role fairly well, though it does have a few shortcomings that keep it from being a great book.
   
   The book starts off with an extensive, well-written introduction to HLSL that most beginners to the language will find quite helpful. This is followed by a handy introduction to Shader Model 3.0, which explains the changes that have been made since 2.0, and the practical applications of these changes and additions.
   
   The next several chapters are devoted to implementing "foundational" techniques using shaders. The first covers several lighting and shading techniques, providing sample shader implementations in HLSL and assembly. Most of the shaders come in multiple versions for the various shader models, which is useful for supporting these techniques on a wide range of platforms, as well as in understanding the capability differences between each model.
   
   The next chapter covers five different fog effects using HLSL shaders. Then there are two chapters on shadows, one on shadow mapping and the other on shadow volumes. The latter weighs in at over 80 pages, providing in-depth coverage of the theory behind the technique.
   
   Next up is a tutorial for using the shader development environment RenderMonkey. The usefulness of this chapter is marred by the fact that the current version of RenderMonkey has undergone some interface changes such that the text is now out of synch with the tool, making it a bit more difficult to follow along. Still, if you can work through this, the chapter will help you quickly get up and running with RenderMonkey.
   
   The last chapter of the book is about creating shader-friendly models. This chapter seems out of place since it's written more for artists than programmers (who are clearly the audience for the rest of the book), and the chapter is too brief and vague to be of much value.
   
   If you're new to shaders and HLSL, you'll likely find this book useful, though it's a little expensive for a small book (I imagine the color plates contribute to this). If the shadow and fog chapters had been moved to the other ShaderX2 book, and the final chapter had been dropped, I think that they could have reduced the price considerably and made the book more focused, turning it into a great value. As it is, though, it's still a good book that many people will benefit from.

5 comments about Special Effects Game Programming with DirectX w/CD (The Premier Press Game Development Series).

1. This book is halfway decent. It reminds me a lot of back in the day programming little tricks in dos to make cool effects on the screen. Actually, it reminds me a lot of my high school computer science class when I already knew the language, so the teacher let me sit and make a graphics demo to teach the graphics portion of the class. I made a whole ton of demos of neat little tricks that were simple to do but had a good effect.

   That is what this book is like. You get a few neat tricks, but the problem I have with this is the same as all the others: too much beginner garbage. On top of that, the content does not allow you as much room for expansion beyond what it gives you.

   Bottom line:

   It's a buy next to many of the other books out there. But it's still not near the top dog, Programming Role-Playing games with DIrectX by Jim Adams is the best one.




2. Every book in the prima tech series, this one included, spends an unnecessary amount of pages on the basics that you learn when you first start programming. I knew all the basics that are talked about for 100s of pages in these prima tech books after reading my very first book on game programming, titled "Windows Game Programming For Dummies" by Andre LaMonthe. Prima Tech has been complained about by a huge percentage of people for not putting enough of what the book title suggests into thier books, while putting way too much about what their book title should imply that the readers already know. Those things include: Win32 API basics (such as making a window, menus, buttons, dialog boxes, and a half a dozen other things), introduction to COM architecture, introduction to DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectInput, DirectPlay, DirectX Graphics, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.... When someone like me wants to buy a book that focuses on Special Effects programming, why should I have to expect 500 pages of useless information that I learned 25 books ago, and expect only 300+ pages of actual content. And none, and I do mean NONE, of the prima tech books actual "content" goes beyond the classification of BASICS. Most basics can be figured out by the programmer, advanced topics, yeah the ones programmers actually buy the books for, are almost never covered.

   However, the two best books by far in the Prima Tech series are "Multiplayer Game Programming" by Todd Baren and "Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX" by Jim Adams. If you combine what you learn in those two books, you will have enough knowledge to construct a Direct3D application, like an RPG, that has multiplayer support. Todd Baren's book even covers MMORPGs like EverQuest, Anarchy Online, Ultima Online, & Asheron's Call. MMORPGs are some, if not THE, most popular PC games on the market right now.




3. But!!!
   alot of mistakes!
   all the code is wrong!
   you need to look at the examples on the cd to be able to run even the first program.
   this is the ONLY disadvatage...
   everything else is GREAT!!!
   you should buy the book if you are intrested in RPG.
   it explain preety good about almost all you need, except meshes...
   but Jim Adams got another new book about meshes and skeletal animation.
   buy both of them :)
   enjoy



4. This book covers an amazing amount of material with a fun, down-to-earth writing style.

   I mostly referenced this book for specific effects as I needed them, each chapter is kind of like a stand alone tutorial, very easy to follow and actually implement in your own code.

   You can make a 3d game with this, I did.




5. It's very hard to find accessible books on visual effect algorithms these days. Everyone just expects you to buy the latest software and pull down the appropriate menu and not worry about the math. For those of you who want something between yet another book on basic computer graphics and inaccessible tomes on visual effects that are written by academics for academics, this out of print book fits the bill. The DirectX info is probably largely out of date, but the last half of the book on special effects is done in language-independent way so that it serves as a tutorial on algorithm details regardless of what language you are working on. The book is written so that you can skip to the special effect you are interested in and get a well written and well illustrated short tutorial on most of the basics - lens flare, clouds, fire, water, lighting, etc. Since the book is only sold used, make sure you get a copy with the CD because there is a wealth of material on it including complete code. The book really isn't a standalone anything, but it will make a good complement to the other books on game/special effects programming you have in your library even at its advanced age.

1 comments about Red Hawk's Account of Custer's Last Battle.

1. Goble's drawings bring everything to life. He has a true feeling for our Native American heritage in this country.