Games Books

Love these collections from penny arcade, if you like these you should also check out pvponline too!

This book was a Gift. The person that recieved it was very pleased with the Series.

The title is really all you need to know about this particular phase of the great history that narrates our heroes Gabe and Tycho. Do not underestimate their efforts contained within this tome, for your destruction will be sealed should you do so.

"Penny Arcade" is still one of the consistently best web-comics out there, and being able to browse through the older collections in printed form is great fun. The third year of the comic, chronicled herein, was great in both gaming news to satarize, but also in the quality of the comic. If you were looking to get someone turned on to the glory of Gabe and Tycho, this would be the collection to tempt them with.

Keep them coming. I need something to read while waiting for the Apple Geeks omnibus. Penny Arcade should get Hawk to do more of their coloring for their future covers.

Great ideas. It ended up to not be exactly what I was looking for but stimulated creativity.

This is the best ever party planning book. If you are planning parties for kids, or just want themed activities for another event, this is the book for you. These people really know their stuff!

Outstanding book...something for everyone, and most items that need to be purchased can be had at the dollar store. Rock-Solid book full of well-thought out parties.

This book was easy to follow and had ideas in it which were easy to adapt to other themes. I loved the information about how much activity each different age group should be able to handle. My three-year-old's party went off without a hitch thanks to this book. It will get used many more times in years to come.

This an excellent book with a number of party ideas for all ages. I especially like that this books gives suggestions for older kids parties. Packed with recipes, decoration, invitation, and favor ideas to go along with your theme. I will be using this for years to come.

This book covers everything you need to know to write a ray tracer with
advanced features like photon mapping, volume scattering, path tracing,
etc. The scope of the material it covers is stunning. It starts from the
basics of topics like 3D geometry and ray/object intersections and then
builds up to explain reflection models, advanced texturing techniques, and
then light transport algorithms.

It has excellent discussions of the theory and underlying math of physical
rendering blended (rather well) with very very useful practical
implementations of the theory. The leap from theory to implementation is
often difficult to do, and to do well or efficiently even more difficult.
(The ray acceleration code alone is worth it's weight in gold.) This is an
indispensable book for anyone who wants to write their own ray tracer or
learn more about the latest techniques used in photorealistic rendering.

This book mixes detailed algorithm descriptions with actual code in a book that never loses sight of the "big picture" of physically based ray tracing and image synthesis. Although it is very well written and is not a dry academic book at all, it would help if the reader is already familiar with basic computer graphic techniques, linear algebra, calculus, and optics in order to get the most out of this book. It was never meant to be a replacement for Foley & Van Dam's classic book on computer graphics, even though the first few chapters go over basic computer graphic material. The book includes a website where the source code of the authors' renderer can be downloaded. This code is very well organized and commented so that if you wish to lift individual pieces from the entire software package you can with just a little bit of work. I highly recommend this book to the programmer who wishes to implement physically based rendering in his/her own code or wants to know about the practical implementation of image synthesis techniques. Amazon does not show any details about the book here, so I shall explain the contents in the context of the table of contents:
CHAPTER 01. INTRODUCTION
This chapter talks briefly about all kinds of topics related to ray tracing. It also talks about how to understand the code in the book and the book website.
CHAPTER 02. GEOMETRY AND TRANSFORMATIONS
This chapter is pretty basic computer graphics stuff. It talks about coordinate systems, vectors, arithmetic, scaling, dot and cross products,etc. Applying transformations via matrices is also discussed as well as the representation of points, vectors, normals, rays, and bounding boxes.
CHAPTER 03. SHAPES
More basic computer graphics continues with discussions on spheres, differential geometry, cylinders, and disks, paraboloids, triangles and meshes, and the representation and bounding of all of these shapes.
CHAPTER 04. PRIMITIVES AND INTERSECTION ACCELERATION
This chapter is about accelerating the speed of your graphics through grid acceleration, tree construction and representation, and object instantiation.
CHAPTER 05. COLOR AND RADIOMETRY
XYZ color system is discussed along with radiometric integrals including integrals over projected solid angles, integrals over spherical coordinates, and integrals over area. Beginning in this chapter the math becomes more advanced.
CHAPTER 06. CAMERA MODELS
Projective camera models are discussed along with orthographic, perspective, and environment camera models. This information will already be familiar to students of computer vision.
CHAPTER 07. SAMPLING AND RECONSTRUCTION
Frequency domain techniques are discussed starting with the Fourier transform and ideal sampling and reconstruction. Also, antialiasing techniques are explained.
CHAPTER 08. FILM AND THE IMAGING PIPELINE
This chapter talks about topics such as luminance, photometry, bloom, and imaging pipeline stages.
CHAPTER 09. REFLECTION MODELS
The various reflection models are discussed including specular, Fresnel, Lambertian, Oren-Nayer disfuse reflection, and the Lafortune model.
CHAPTER 10. MATERIALS
Matte, plastic, bump mapping, and other material effects are explained very well.
CHAPTER 11. TEXTURE
We return to frequency models some in this chapter. The texture sampling rate, filtering functions, and mapping in spherical, cylindrical, and planar form are explained. Procedural textures are also discussed including the famous Perlin noise, marble, and windy waves.
CHAPTER 12. VOLUME SCATTERING
This chapter is considered more advanced material, and discusses volume scattering processes, absorption, emission, in and out scattering, phase functions, exponential density, and volume aggregates.
CHAPTER 13. LIGHT SOURCES
All kinds of light sources are described including point lights, spotlights, texture projection lights, distant lights, area lights, and infinite area lights.
CHAPTERS 14 and 15 both discuss Monte Carlo integration techniques including improving efficiency.
CHAPTERS 16 and 17 are about light transport. The first chapter is about surface reflection and the second is about volume rendering.
CHAPTER 18. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION includes a design retrospective, a discussion of abstraction versus reality, and design alternatives including triangles only and streaming computation.
APPENDIXES- These include sections on utilities, scene description interface, input file formats, an index of code fragments, an index of classes and their members, and finally an index of identifiers.

I do ray tracing and GI for a living. When I got started on my ray tracer I was struggling with several basic issues. Even though I tried to locate all the published material on those subject there was still significant gaps. Issues like 'how to shot photons', what about all these 'cosines'. How do you actually implement a kd-tree. I read Shirley's, Jansen's, Glassner's and Advanced Global Illumination and a lot of the older Siggraph papers. PBRT came out just in time to rescue me. It contains the only complete implementation of a photonmap.

It's strong point is a complete running GI engine. However the literate programming style used in the book meant a lot of time I cannot read a subject by itself. The use of abstract interfaces sort of force you to use the class browser to follow the logic. You pretty much have to read it from the beginning. The quality of the code contained goes beyond the usual standard of code published as examples. It contains a rather sophiscated random number generator. Its treatment of LDS plus sampling and recontruction in general is excellent. It is the only source that shows how to implement Li's algorithm to generate random rays to sample a sphere. Same goes for Malley's. Shirley and Chui's concentric sampling method is hidden in the appendix of a old Siggraph paper.

The book also has code to sample and model most of the common light sources. Which is surprisingly non-trivial.

I highly recommend this book but it does require a certain level of commitment to get the most out of this book. The chapters on sampling, ray differential, texture filtering, light transport I consider must reads for all graphics programmer even though you might not be working on ray tracing.

I cannot praise this book more than the others already have. The book is about producing high-quality images using raytracing. It basically walks you through the creation of a fully-functional raytracer, discussing all the different algorithms and techniques that are needed along the way.

It's written in the context of their particular implementation of a working raytracer, using the fweb programming/documentation system, where basically the program source and the documentation are written as one document. I've always thought this was academic nonsense as far as writing real code in a production environment, but it turns out to be an EXCELLENT way to write a book or code intended for a learning environment.

This strikes the perfect balance between explaining the theory thoroughly and showing how the ideas can be implemented in a real, functional raytracer. They avoid the trap of many other book that focus on a particular implemention, by not getting too bogged down into pecularities of their system.

The source code itself also stands out as a strong point. There are so many books out there with poorly written and unorganized code that you'd never want to read, much less try to work in. The code is well organized, and the coding style easy to read. It's one of the few books I own that contain source code where I actually read the source code and it added something to my experience. I wish everybody who wrote about programming was actually a decent programmer and not just a mathemiticion.

This book has academic rigor and but also well-written explanations. I'm still learning a lot from it. I expect to refer to it frequently over the next years as we (in the video game industry) take more concepts from raytracers and apply them to real-time graphics, as the processors get more and more powerful.

You probably should not be an absolute newbie when it comes to basic 3D math and things like vectors and basic graphics concepts before buying this book. The authors use some calculus, too, if that scares you off.

Although it is not possible here, I am fairly sure this book deserves such rating. This is truly remarkable work and is likely to become a classic text in the field of computer graphics.

It is not a survey-type book, instead of trying to describe every possible method out there, the authors have concentrated on a few selected techniques, that are not only good (modern, fast, easy to implement, etc.), but also have some pedagogical merits and can serve as a gentle introduction to the world of ray tracing and digital image synthesis. Despite focusing on selected areas, the authors managed to squeeze here in an amazing amount of material. Among other topics, this book covers: subdivision surfaces, ray-primitive intersection acceleration techniques (3D DDA and kd-tree), color and radiometry, anti-aliasing, tone mapping, physically based reflection models, texture mapping (including texture anti-aliasing using ray differentials), area lights and HDR Image Based Lighting, volume scattering and much more.

A large part of the book has been devoted to the light transport and Monte Carlo techniques. One can find there an introduction to the theory of Monte Carlo estimation (including selected methods for reducing variance and computation time, like Russian roulette, multiple importance sampling or stratified sampling) and explanation of important light transport equations (rendering and transfer equations).

Finally the authors have described (and implemented) several solutions for the rendering equation: Whitted-style recursive ray tracing, direct illumination estimation, path tracing, irradiance caching and photon mapping.

However, it is not only the vastness of the material covered in this book, that causes this volume should be praised so highly. Perhaps, the style, in which this book has been written, is even more impressive. For each of the topics, the authors start with what is usually known as "dry math and theory", and then show how it is supposed to work as an algorithm (including its dirty details) and finally they explain how to turn this algorithm into C++ code. Each of those transitions concentrates on a small portion of the problem, so it is still easy to understand. Anyone, who had to turn a SIGGRAPH paper into something that works, will immediately recognize what kind of gem this book is - it actually shows how to do it!

This brilliant blend of theory and practice is one of its brightest spots, for learning the theory and math formulas is one thing, but writing a working, robust implementation is completely another.

Those, who prefer studying sources, will get source code of a very good, physically based, extensible ray tracer (called pbrt) with the best documentation one could ever imagine. Documentation that gives the rationale for almost every line of code. It shows not only how they did it, but also why they did it that way.

It is not the only book, that one will ever need - computer graphics is a vast topic - too big to be covered in a single volume, even as huge as this one. However, it is certainly one of the books that everyone interested in photorealistic rendering should buy. The price of this book is really low, if you think about it as of an excellent, first-rate computer graphics course.

Aimed at students, researchers and people interested in computer graphics algorithms, it is an indispensable book for anyone willing to write his own photorealistic (not necessarily physically based!) ray tracer and learn more about computer image synthesis.

This next installment in Toshihiro Ono's shonen(boys) Pokemon manga series is called 'Pikachu Shocks Back'. It's aimed more at older kids and teenagers, and the artwork is drawn very well. There are four stories here:
(1)The Human Race and the Pokemon Race: Ash decides to travel along with Brock, and he meets up with Misty(again) and her three beautiful sisters at the Fuschia Festival. After causing a Tauros to get angry, Misty and Ash end up being saved by a girl named Lara, who's arm is broken thanks to an accident she had while riding her Ponyta. Ash decides to help her out by racing in the Free-For-All with her Ponyta. Unfortunately for Ash, a racer that likes to cheat has other plans for the boy with the red cap.
(2)To Evolve or not to Evolve That is the Question: Misty joins up with Ash and Brock as they head to Stone Town, the place where Evolution Stones cmoe from. Misty meets up with a timid boy named Mikey, and finds out he's apart of some underground society that likes to evolve their Pokemon. The problem is, Mikey doesn't want to evolve his Eevee. And that doesn't exactly make his three brothers happy with him. Misty also begins to question whether she has a 'weakness for younger men'.
(3)Pikachu's Excellent Adventure: Pikachu gets seperated from Ash, and tries to find his way back to his trainer. The electric mouse joins up with Squirtle and some other Pokemon on a journey to find a Poke-Paradise that's supposedly guarded by some godess. On their travels, they meet up with a trio of shady fellows that call themselves 'Team Rocket'.
(4)You Gotta Have Friends: Ash begins to wonder if Pikachu is drifting away from him as he stumbles upon a Pikachu colony.

The artwork is way more realistic than the art in the other Pokemon mangas, and I thought it was kinda cool. Even though this series was aimed at teenagers, Viz decided to edit alot of the scenes to make it appropriate for the kiddies, making the women and the girls less 'endowed', and they now wear FAR more clothes than they originally did. This was good and bad at the same time, because they sorta went overboard with the editing; Misty and some of the other girls are like walls now, if you know what I mean! But still, this is a great book if you're a Pokemon fan, or a shonen manga fan. It's got lots of action, funny and likable characters, and some great artwork.

the comic at the very beginning was the cutest and the first story, the human race and the pokemon race. looked amazing althou ponyta looked more stronger and less graceful. the second story, to evolve or not to evolve (i'm sure you all know what this is about) has the best pictures and is soooo cute. Pikachus adventure, is a new story that is wonderful and a nice touch. the the last one you gotta have friends... was touching and confirmed pikachu is a guy!!

You have to try this awesome comic!If you've seen the episodes, and you son't want to read them all over again, donn't worry, it has humor, action, and things that weren't shown in the show.Every comic is extra long and you get 4 for a real low price!You don't even have to like pokémon, and the pictures are creative and wonderful.And I wouldn't put it past Brock to not to say anything funny in the story.This Pokémon Comic Colection is a must-buy!!!

I loved this book. It was great and I would recomend it to all the pokemon fans out there. Even people who are not particularly fond of pokemon can enjoy this book.

This book was great.I really enjoyed it.It has some different pokemon adventures in it, like the one about mikey and his eevee.That one was very funny. I have read this book alot of times and I still do.What it means by "graphic novel" is that it is just like a comic book, so that I could read it at school and the teachers didn't know.Hehehe :).But anyway, if you liked the pokemon T.V. series,(I think this is a lot better ), you should definatly consider this.I'm still going back and reading it!

This is one of the better Nintendo Adventure Books. It is fun and humorous, but sometimes it can be too hard. It's still one of the best, though.

This book is just cool! The puzzles are hard enough to stump the best of players, but as easy as pie sometimes. I reccomend this book to ANYONE!

This book is really fun to read It's one of those books where you choose a choice, then turn to another page, only with PUZZLEs that choose whether you win a Starman or get bonked with a Tweeter Bird. I did it at least 30 times, each one just as exciting. The only problem i had was erasing the pencil marks from the puzzles i had done already.

WOW! I originally bought this book when it first came out, because I loved Mario. I read it atleast 20 times, bu then I lost it. Looks like I am going to have to re-order this classic.

This book is great for Mario fans. It's about how Mario and Luigi get lost in Pipe Land trying to save the princess. You must buy it!

I really enjoyed this book. I have over a dozen books on the KID but this one tops them all. Joe is informative to such an extent. All chess books should be written like this. Massive amounts of data!!!!!!

Gallagher has written a really good book. The lines he offers are quite good and he explains a lot of what is going on, the book is not all about lists of moves.

I simply loved this book. I think the author's enthusiasm and love for the opening comes through loud and clear. A must for the true KING'S INDIAN fanatic.

I like the level of detail and the easy on the eye setting out of the games. I found most of the games in my personal chess database and used the pgn files to easily cycle through the listed sidelines within the games. The openings of some of the games have been standardised.

In short, an excellent text.

I am writing this review fresh after slaughtering a cheeky 1.d4 player who attempted the Petrosian system against my WELL INFORMED Kings Indian. Indeed, I can still taste the victory; after sacrificing 2 pawns I gained a devastating initiative on the kingside. Here is a quote from the book (Main Line): "White will attempt to tear Black from limb to limb on the queenside while Black will endeavour to hang, draw, and quarter White on the kingside. Sometimes both sides succeed in their aim and then Black wins. That is the advantage of attacking the King". I just want to add to other reviewers by giving my thoughts on this book as compared to Gallaghers other fantastic book: "Starting Out: the Kings Indian". I was completely new to the Kings Indian prior to buying SOKID and it helped with some of the basic themes but, after buying PTKID shortly thereafter, I will not be going back to that other book. PTKID is just so much richer in ideas etc. So if you really are just starting out in the KID, but are somewhat strapped for cash, I would recommend you to get PTKID first, so long as you are not a beginning chess player. (Again, SOKID is a fantastic book. It explains the typical themes w/ diagrams, etc. very well). Happy hunting!
------- USCF 1420

Looking at this book reminded me of the many toys and games that I grew up with or found in the attic when I went snooping through the old stuff as a kid. This book is very well done, with lots of pictures and interesting facts. It is obvious that the book is very well researched. Worth the money.

Have you ever wondered who the creators are of the wonderful toys and games you and your family have enjoyed over the years? THE PLAYMAKERS has the answers. You may be especially interested in those most famous or very rare toys or games that you have tried or maybe just heard about over the years.

Even those that may deny they are toy lovers must admit they have some time or another played a game they really enjoyed or had a favorite toy of their childhood. Therefore, everyone is a toy lover! THE PLAYMAKERS will bring back memories of happy times for all ages. The collective book Tim Walsh has put together is remarkable. This is not about toys that can be picked up in any toy store or mall or even those toys made just for children. No, no, no! This is about toys for everyone: young and old, male and female. Toys and games made for all to enjoy.

This colorful, informative book by Tim Walsh is so fascinating that every family should have one in their bookcase. THE PLAYMAKERS is a terrific book that is not only fun to read but is also an historical chapter in the civilization of man.

I was looking for a price guide for these toys and this isn't it, but I didn't even care because this book is fabulous. Wonderful pictures and the origination of the most beloved toys. Big, thick heavy book. Nice coffee table book.

If you have fond recollections of tossing a Frisbee with a friend, putting a hotel on Boardwalk, using a "Q" on a triple word score, dressing a Barbie doll, watching a Slinky descend a stairway, yelling "Yahtzee," or winning a game of Trivial Pursuit or Pictionary, this fine retrospective by Tim Walsh belongs on your coffee table. All those memories and more came back for me as I turned the pages of "The Playmakers -- Amazing Origins of Timeless Toys" and learned of the inspirations, the struggles, the near-misses and the overwhelming successes of toy and game inventors of the 20th Century. The nostalgic experience and the well-researched backgrounds of these fun and educational diversions make for hours of reading and fact-finding enjoyment. I was surprised to learn that most of the big sellers over the decades have been of American origin -- though Trivial Pursuit came out of Canada and Rubik's Cube has Hungarian roots. It's a bullet-proof selection for anyone on your Christmas list who never quite grew up when it comes to playing with toys and games.

A flip through the pages of Tim Walsh's "The Playmakers" is a trip in a time machine. I had more fun reminiscing about my favorite toys than I remember having when I played with them 25 years ago! The genesis of the greatest toys of all time is a captivating story that has never before been told in such interesting detail. Tim's passion for playthings oozes from the pages and stirred nostalgia in the heart of this overgrown kid.

This is the most interesting & best bridge book I have read. It is even entertaining, which is unusual in a bridge book.

From the Rule of 20 to the right and wrong way to use the Big Double, Marty Bergen has set the standard for modern bridge tip books. His engaging storytelling style and insightful teaching provide clarification to readers of all levels, although the book is clearly aimed at the novice to intermediate crowd.

A great re-entry to the book arena by Marty. I just miss the mad scientist who wrote the "Better Bidding with Bergen" books!

This is the perfect book for players who more-or-less have the basics in place. This will correct your misconceptions and raise your game a couple of levels. The first half of the book is all about bidding, and rather than just talking about basic bidding, tells you what to do in those tough borderline situations. A great example is his "Rule of 20", used to decide whether to open the bidding or not: If the sum of your HCP and the number of cards in your two longest suits is 20 or more, open with your normal 1-level bid; else pass. Very effective, and better than counting short-points or long-points, since this takes into account the ENTIRE distribution.

The second half of the book is about declarer play and defence, and is equally good. What distinguishes this book from the rest is that the author doesn't waste space on the basics, and instead concentrates on the intermediate-to-advanced stuff.

This book is filled with entertaining stories along with easy-to-understand tips and techniques that will improve every facet of your game. 1996 Bridge Book of the Year.

Marty Bergen's "Points Schmoints" is a fun-to-read book that offers a dozen tips on how people who've already mastered the basics of bidding and play can improve their game. The Law of Total Tricks, in particular, is extremely useful for duplicate games.

While Bergen writes with wit and flair that keep this book engaging, I wish he'd done a bit less story-telling and provided a bit more depth of content instead. For the price I feel his book is a bit thin, and that's the one thing that keeps me from rating it 5 stars.

I gave this book to my friend's daughter and she absolutely adores the book. It's so imaginative, beautiful and well-written that any "princess" you know is bound to love it.

The illustrations are gorgeous, and the writing is enjoyable for an adult to read as well, because there's a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor sprinkled with some fairy dust throughout that had me purchasing my own copy after I gave it as a gift!

An absolute charmer from start to finish, Princess Crafts is a magical mixture of craft projects and handbook for princesses both
young and old. Full of fun, fashion, and oodles of glitter, the
craft projects are creative without being complicated. From
Rapunzel Ribbon Wigs to Fancy-Prancy Dancing Slippers, this crafty
book will surely bring out your inner princess!

Both of my goddaughter's LOVED this book! Each had their favorite craft---Your Carriage Awaits allowed Nicole to have the most glamorous bicycle on the block---she was certainly the princess on her custom designed chariot! Nicole was also inspired to have a princess party with her friends! Alexa loved making the Rapunzel hair and couldn't wait to show her dad how fun it was to have cool super-long ribbon hair! This book was so well written--easy to follow instructions and entertaining factoids. Little girls love to play dress up and it's great that there are ideas for all kinds of beautiful princesses---sparkly, glittery fuzzy & more!

This book is chock full of fantastic craft ideas for kids of any age, economic status and creativity. The author is able to take items we already have around the house and make fun and diverse craft projects. I highly recommend this book to anyone that has a princess in THEIR family.

Princess Crafts celebrates the "modern princess," as it combines classic princess ideas from literature and film with a modern twist for the soon to be independent woman. The creative and fun craft projects (which mostly require simple and easy to obtain supplies) will entertain little girls endlessly (and some adults too). The text, charmingly written by Hauser, is clever and humourous yet consistently provides clear instructions on the projects. Parett's dynamic illustrations and high quality photographs also provide a solid road map for the crafts. Finally, one of the best aspects of this book is that the projects and activities are sure to inspire these young princesses to be creative and crafty beyond the scope of this fantastic and original book for kids.

I first purchased this book for my son when he was a toddler... He is now 17 Years Old! He loved this book and we enjoyed comparing the pages to see what items were on EVERY page. Now that we have been blessed with a daughter (she is now 11 months old), it is one of her two favorite books (she also loves Baby Minnie's Busy Day, a Disney board book). Even at 7 months old, she could point out the white kitty when I asked her "Where's the Kitty Cat?" I highly recommend this book and would like to find the other books in the series to purchase for my daugher.

You must have this book. My kids can't read yet, but they love this book. I love it too since the art work is so great and it is fun to find the mice, puppy, cat, butterfly, and spider on each page. The artwork and "cutouts" for the dog and cat are well layed out. Lisa McCue works in her initials too on various items like a window sash and book binding as well as a copy of the book in the attic scene. I never get tired of looking at this book as a parent.

My thirteen-year old, severely autistic daughter had this book first when she was about three or four years old. It was her favorite book because each page had the same four characters to look for although the background art changed. She expected the puppy, the kitty, the mouse and spider all to be there, and to her delight, they always were. She wore this book out, and then it went out of print. We bought a used copy last week from bibliohound through amazon.com, to give her for her thirteenth birthday. It arrived in nearly new condition, and my daughter will be thrilled! This is the third or fourth used book I've purchased through amazon.com, and I've been happy with every purchase. If you can find a used copy of this book, it is WELL WORTH THE MONEY SPENT! The artwork is so delightful that I even enjoyed the hundreds of times I spent looking at it with my daughter.

My 9 month old daughter loves this book. She always manages to pull this one out of her stack of books and never grows tired of it. I just wish I could find more like it. I highly recommend it to all parents.

My son got this book when he was 16 months and loved it then and STILL loves it now (he is 22 months). He loves to point out the puppy, cat, mouse, flowers, ball, bat, chair, etc... His favorite thing is to turn the pages with the holes in this board book. It is wonderful! I highly recommend it!