Introductory & Beginning Books - Page 5

OpenGL(R) Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL(R), Version 2 (5th Edition) (OpenGL)

OpenGL Architecture Review Board, Dave Shreiner, Mason Woo, Jackie Neider, Tom Davis

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Graphic Design -> General AAS
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

OpenGL is a powerful software interface for graphics hardware that allows graphics programmers to produce high-quality color images of 3D objects. The functions in the OpenGL library enable programmers to build geometric models, view models interactively in 3D space, control color and lighting, manipulate images, and perform such tasks as alpha blending, antialiasing, depth cueing, and texture mapping.

The OpenGL Reference Manual, Second Edition, documents all OpenGL functions, including brand new features recently approved by the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) for inclusion in OpenGL, Version 1.1. The ARB is an industry consortium responsible for defining OpenGL, composed of such industry leaders as Digital Equipment Corporation, Evans & Sutherland, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, Intergraph, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and Silicon Graphics.

Each reference page fully describes: C specifications, relevant parameters, the effects of functions, possible errors generated by functions, associated effects, Reference pages for the OpenGL Utility Library (GLU) and the OpenGL extension to the X Window System (GLX) are included in this manual.

Introduction to 3D Game Programming with Direct X 9.0c: A Shader Approach (Wordware Game and Graphics Library)

Frank Luna

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach presents an introduction to programming interactive computer graphics, with an emphasis on game development, using real-time shaders with DirectX 9.0. The book is divided into three parts that explain basic mathematical and 3D concepts, show how to describe 3D worlds and implement fundamental 3D rendering techniques, and demonstrate the application of Direct3D to create a variety of special effects.

With this book: * Understand basic mathematical tools used in video game creation such as vectors, matrices, and transformations. * Discover how to describe and draw interactive 3D scenes using Direct3D and the D3DX library. * Learn how to implement lighting, texture mapping, alpha blending, and stenciling using shaders and the high-level shading language (HLSL). * Explore a variety of techniques for creating special effects, including vertex blending, character animation, terrain rendering, multi-texturing, particle systems, reflections, shadows, and normal mapping. * Find out how to work with meshes, load and render .X files, program terrain/camera collision detection, and implement 3D object picking. * Review key ideas, gain programming experience, and explore new topics with the end-of-chapter exercises.

Beginning DirectX 10 Game Programming

Wendy Jones

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Discover the exciting world of game programming and 3D graphics creation using DirectX 10! "Beginning DirectX® 10 Game Progmramming" is an introductory guide to creating fantastic graphics, amazing creatures, and realistic worlds for games. Written specifically for the beginner programmer, the book uses step-by-step instructions to teach the basics of DirectX 10, introducing skills that can be applied to creating games for both PC and game console platforms. You’ll start by learning how to install the DirectX SDK and how to get your first application up and running. From there you’ll be introduced to the 2D and 3D graphics components of DirectX allowing you to draw animated sprites and create 3D objects. Put your new skills to the test with a final, hands-on project that shows how to bring together everything you’ve learned. If you have a basic knowledge of C++ and 3D math concepts then you are ready to learn how to program amazing 3D game graphics with "Beginning DirectX 10!"

An Introduction to Programming Using Alice

Charles W. Herbert

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

intuitive for object oriented programming 4 out of 5 stars.
12 of 15 people found this review helpful.

For non-programmers who want to learn an object oriented language, Alice is a nice choice. At least as a pedagogic vehicle. As far as I know, there are no actual [or few] actual jobs for Alice programmers. But at the primary or secondary school level, Alice gets the main concepts common to many commercial OO languages across to students.

Herbert introduces these concepts at a deliberately slow pace. Suitable for most of the targeted audience. The screen captures of the user interface are quite pretty, and help to hold the reader's attention. As compared with learning C++, say, where there is no intrinsic GUI. Plus, the mapping of conceptual objects to graphical objects in Alice is its main attraction. Very intuitive.

Editorial Review:

Alice: An Introduction to Programming Using Alice is designed to make learning programming easy for the novice user, with the help of Alice. Object-oriented programming can be much more challenging to learn than traditional programming. Alice is a software tool that was developed to help teach object-oriented programming in a less syntax-intensive and highly motivating environment. It addresses some of the barriers that currently prevent many students from successfully learning to program.

Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide (Definitive Guides)

Jonathan Gennick

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Despite its wide availability and usage, few developers and DBAs have mastered the true power of Oracle SQL*Plus. This bestselling book--now updated for Oracle 10g--is the only in-depth guide to this interactive query tool for writing SQL scripts. It's an essential resource for any Oracle user.

The new second edition of "Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide" clearly describes how to perform, step-by-step, all of the tasks that Oracle developers and DBAs want to perform with SQL*Plus--and maybe some you didn't realize you could perform.

With "Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide," you'll expertly:

write and execute script files

generate ad hoc reports

extract data from the database

query the data dictionary tables

customize an SQL*Plus environment

and much more

It also includes a handy quick reference to all of its syntax options and an often-requested chapter on SQL itself, along with a clear, concise, and complete introduction.

This book is truly the definitive guide to SQL*Plus. It's an indispensable resource for those who are new to SQL*Plus, a task-oriented learning tool for those who are already using it, and an immediately useful quick reference for every user. If you want to leverage the full power and flexibility of this popular Oracle tool, you'll need this book.

Beginning Web Programming with HTML, XHTML, and CSS (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

Jon Duckett

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Hard to follow 2 out of 5 stars.
7 of 10 people found this review helpful.

I have gone from being frustrated with this title to disliking it intensely. I would suggest alternate materials such as the O'Reilly publication, "HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide."

First, "BWP w/HTML, XHTML, and CSS" is dated. Its publication date is 2004. This text often complains that features "are not supported by browsers" that have since been updated. There are more current materials published within the last year. (And on the subject of browsers, I have not found a single mention of Mozilla, Safari, or Opera in this book).

Second, the author's presentation is often difficult to follow. Concedely it is a difficult subject to organize when there are "live" tags, "deprecated" tags, the ongoing effort to separate stylistic elements into CSS, and different browswers' idiosyncracies with which to deal. Duckett, however, is next to hopeless in separating these subjects.

Most critical is the fact that this book is a very unhappy blend between an introductory tutorial and a reference "bible." Duckett will introduce a basic concept -- say, "tables" and will then load up on all of the attributes that the element might take. Learning the key ideas gets lost in the process. The book often leads off into asides and references to more advanced topics that will easily lose the initiate. It is no coincidence that several of the reviews here use the word "intermediate" in connection with this text.

The author does not seem to understand the principle that individuals learn by working from the "known" step-by-step to the "unknown." Instead, he seems to rely upon the idea that "if I throw everything at them in a random fashion, they'll figure out a good amount of it."

As an example of its "random walk" approach, Chapter 4 first provides a sound introduction into the use of colors and making references to images. The closing section of the chapter, however, branches off into a discussion of the