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With detailed examples, high-quality professional images, and a touch of humor, this is the fully revised and updated second edition of Jason Osipa’s best-selling book on facial animation. You’ll learn the basics of design, modeling, rigging, and animation-while mastering exciting new techniques for stretch-and-squash deformation, advanced blend extraction, and the latest software tools. Walk through the author’s detailed analysis of sample animations and discover how to add nuance and sophistication to your designs.

Full of insights drawn from years of professional experience, this book provides the focused and practical information you need to create believable facial animations. (more…)

This book will show you how to create realistic architectural models in Blender. Blender is an open-source 3D animation program released as free software. It can be used for modeling, texturing, skinning, animating, and so on. It runs on all the important operating systems (including Windows, Mac, and Linux).

You can create natural scenery, landscapes, plants, various weather conditions, environmental factors, building materials such as wood, metal, brick, and more. You will also learn how to add people to different scenes as well as other objects to an already existing photograph or a video making it easier to increase its realism.

You will see how to use the final models to create simpler scenes for use in 3D games, where real-time rendering is necessary. You will also see how to use them to create the sets for animated movies.

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With a population in the millions and a monthly growth rate of 20 percent, Second Life® is a virtual 3-D world bursting with opportunities in areas like real estate, legal practice, and marketing, corporate connections, and people just like you. This all-in-one guide will show you, step by step, how to use Second Life as an alternative marketplace. Learn how to:

-Create a cool avatar and connect with residents
-Adapt your business for the virtual environment
-Play for profit–and bring your dreams to life

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Whip up awesome Wii games using Flash and ActionScript. Nintendo Wii Flash Game Creator's Guide lays out each next-generation technique alongside real-world examples and cut-and-paste code samples. Learn how to design exciting Flash animations, create cool characters, simulate realistic motion, and use the Wii remote control in innovative ways. Plus, you'll get the latest tricks for supercharging your games and tips for distributing them on the Web.

• Build Flash-based objects, layers, and controls
• Work with timelines, keyframes, and .SWF files
• Develop and animate original characters, backgrounds, and landscapes
• Integrate unconventional mouse and Wii controller interactivity
• Create, modify, and control movie clips using ActionScript 2.0
• Design radical enemies, custom cursors, and invisible buttons
• Incorporate audio, game timers, and score tracking
• Publish your games to the Web and share them via the Wii's online connection service

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Games on Symbian OS is the only guide to highlight the gaming opportunities presented by the Symbian OS platform, with particular emphasis on the creation of mobile games in C++ using native APIs.

Jo Stichbury leads a field of industry experts to provide the reader with detailed information about the key APIs used to create games. The book includes a broad introduction to games on mobile phones and describes the various ways of creating and playing mobile games. It also provides clear code examples and discussion, with information about how to optimise code for best practice. The authors use standard techniques to relay information (tables, diagrams and code samples) as well as cross-referencing between chapters and, where necessary, to other books in the Symbian Press series and beyond (e.g. to SDK documentation).

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If you're involved in any way with the design and manufacturing industry, you've probably had to work with AutoCAD drawings. But not everyone needs to be an expert at AutoCAD - many users really need to know only a few of its vast array of tools. If you're someone who doesn't need to or want to be an AutoCAD power user but wants to be able to use AutoCAD proficiently, this book is for you. Introducing AutoCAD 2009 and AutoCAD LT 2009 covers the basic drawing and editing tools that most users will need to produce quality AutoCAD drawings. You won't find information about every last feature. Instead, this book presents AutoCAD's essential features through a combination of tutorials and reference material to give you a concise, easy-to-use companion for your work with AutoCAD. It's designed so that you can quickly learn the tools you need…when you need them.

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You might have a truly amazing idea for a game, but do you know what to do with it? Transforming your idea into an actual game can be a daunting task. You must have an understanding of game art, programming, audio, and business in order to produce the solid game design document that can turn your really cool idea into a really cool game.

"Game Design for Teens" is here to help you develop the skills you need to do just that. Study several real-world examples and learn from the experience of industry professionals as you focus on the techniques and elements that go into creating a game design document. Get ready to set your idea into motion as you turn it from a concept into a reality!

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