Game Design Books

I read through this book with great surprise. I couldn't believe what really goes on in the fashion industry. Let me tell you, this book was a pleasant read, providing excellent anecdotes about the sleaze in fashion. I highly recommend it.

"Shut Up and Smile" attempts to cash in on the success of Michael Gross's superb history "Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women." However, it falls far short of the mark.

For one thing, the book design is hideous and amateurish: the cover looks like it was put together in twenty minutes copying pictures from websites. Inside, there are plenty of misspelled words, which, though it does not take away from the quality of the book, disheartened me a lot. Names were often misspelled (Gisele Budchen, Kyle McClaughlin, Cheryl Crow.) I found it appalling that although Katharine Hepburn is listed as a coauthor, Halperin didn't even spell her first name right. Also, the chapters on Stella McCartney (how much did she pay him for that glowing profile?) and the late Gianni Versace seemed to have little to do with the rest of the book.

Halperin totally overuses the word "supermodel", which is usually used to describe the greats of modeling (Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, etc) the greats of modeling and is even appropriate for other major models like Shalom Harlow and Gisele, but he uses supermodel as a replacement for model, which is just about any girl who happened to do some ads and runway.

What was shocking in "Model" (drug use, sexual abuse, agency wars, etc) is made utter trash in "Shut Up and Smile." There are ubiquitous and lascivous descriptions of sex acts scattered throughout the book which I found to be in poor taste.

However, since "Shut Up and Smile" was published several years after "Model", it has a lot of new information, like about Naomi Campbell's supposed suicide attempt and Kate Moss's struggles with addiction. And since it is more of an expose than a history, there are more extensive and shocking cases listed of models (often underage) who were killed, raped, abused and/or harrassed, which further convinces me that anyone who's less than razor sharp is eaten alive in the business; and how an industry verging into prostitution is already crossing the line. The subject of racism in the modern day fashion industry is also interesting.

"Shut Up and Smile" is worth a read, to further convince yourself that you really don't want to be the "gorgeous" girl on the cover of Elle, but only after the much more in depth and serious "Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women."

If I could give 10 stars, I would. This book exposes the seedy underbelly of the fashion business. I learned so much by reading this book. I never realized how much dirt covers this corrupt business. I recommend anyone interested in modeling or fashion to go out and pick up a copy. It's essential to read this book to understand what really goes on behind the scenes. Models being drugged and raped repeatedly by men more than 30 years their senior. This made me want to vomit. Perhaps we can all learn a lesson by reading this book, no matter what industry we work in. It's vital to treat people equally and with respect. I highly commend the author for his courage to go undercover and expose this rather seedy business. I encourage any young kid who has aspirations of entering the modeling business to read this book first.

To get into the inside life of being a supermodel, you might as well go talk to someone coming out of one of those instant photo boths at the mall.

This book offers the dark side of the modeling business, a much needed account since we only see the beauty and glamour associated with it. The dark side consists of grueling shoot hours and strict diets forcing young models into cocaine and drug habits just to keep up with the pace. Then there is the gloomy life of prostitution many struggling models turn to with no help from the horny old agents who would drug or blackmail them to have sex. It is very sick, but intriguing reading since most people like to read about beautiful people. I gave it three stars because the price is pretty steep for such a book. I can't believe I bought it. The pictures are really bad so there was no point of including them in the book. Also, the author went undercover with the intent to expose dirt, but only offers stories from other people's accounts. Most of the sleezy stuff happen to the no-name models so the title of the book is quite misleading. I like the section about the up-and-coming supermodels. My favorite being Devon Aoki because she looks so exotic. You should search for her website...cool stuph. But the chapter on Jenny McCartney and Versace is irrelevant. I pay good money to read about supermodels [...]!

I took the class 'All Wired Up' and the book reflects not only his teaching style but the animation with which he shares these wonderful techniques and projects. Go for it! Buy the book and start creating!

I like this book. The author put a lot of work into making the instructions as clear as possible. I like the way he starts with the basics which allows for practice and then goes into more complicated projects (but always referring back to the basics when appropriate).

Lareau's engaging, clear writing coupled with varied projects can give the beginner a solid start in wire work. It covers basic wire techniques, wraps (donut, bead and cabochon), cages, and findings (bails, headpins, ear wires, clasps). His book shows techniques through line-art drawings and has little in the way of eye candy until the gallery at the end.

very easy to understand directions for the beginner. I would highly recommend this book for wire wrapping!

I'm really surprised to see how many positive reviews this book has gathered. Due to this I ordered my own copy as well as Bead on A Wire by Sharilyn Miller. The two can't even begin to be compared but I'll try. All Wired Up just lacks in good photos to show techniques, the drawings are small. There are only about 5 glossy pictures at the end of the book for inspiration pieces but none for projects. I'm very disappointed in this book. However Bead on A Wire is an exceptional teaching and inspiring book, with enlarged, color photos of every aspect of learning to work with wire. The projects are just beautiful and doable. I'm a beginner but sure Sharilyn Miller's book can accomodate all levels. So glad I purchased this and will return All Wired Up.

Hi, everyone.

I bought this book. It's a huge disappointment for me. You beter buy the anzovin studio tutorial DVD's and look for a freeware JAVA applet called JLIPSYNC, use MIMIC or VOICE O MATIC This book makes it way to complicated.
Basicly all you have to do is analyse your vocal track roughly not word by word or letter by letter. That doesn't work. Try to analyse your track phonetical and see where THE LIPS AND THE MOUTH CHANGES. LESS IS MORE IN LIPSYNC. Add eyebrow wrinkles and nose up or down movements. Look at the pose your character is in. SEE THE LIPSYNC TOGETHER WITH THE POSE YOUR CHARACTER IS IN. That will work.
Reading this book won't.

I am a 3d professional artist for a long time, I have to say I have read hundreds of books, watched hours of training videos, read pages of internet tutorials anything related to 3d animation. No other training material comes even close to things I have learned reading this book. It is a treasure that you have to keep somewhere close to your desk as a reference, whether you are modeling a character head, building blend shapes or rigging . I have used the techniques successfully in many projects. I thank Jason Osipa for writing this book and for teaching me how to build superior 3D characters. This is my second SS book, I also have the first edition. This 2nd edition is a lot different then the first.

I hate to say this, but didn't learn much more than which I had already been able to get from online tutorials and forums.

Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done RightThis book is a very good resource for computer animators.

Have you ever worked with a facial rig that was based on a set of sliders in the viewport? Many of the most popular free rigs use that method these days. Well guess what -- it's sometimes called "the Osipa method," and it was popularized by the first edition of this book.

As a novice character rigger, this book opened my eyes to an entirely new way of looking at facial modeling, rigging, and animation. I can not recommend it highly enough. These days when I create a character, I always have two books within quick reach: The Art of Rigging (by CG Toolkit, only available from their website) and Stop Staring.

I lived actually in Spain and the sender estimate that my item will last at las more than a month, but it arrives in excellent conditions by the 2 first weeks.

The second edition was needed, but could be more meatier than adding a few extra insights from the first version. But hey, I love the writer.

Book has excellant information, good examples, and plenty of suggestions and recommendations. Easy to understand with many design images.

The book is an excellent tool to assist in text layout for various documents, ads, marketing pieces etc. Helps the reader to understand the reasons and components of what makes a layout eye apealing

This book was used as the textbook for a class I took. I was very dissappointed. The info was from first year design classes, and there were even suggestions given that are common "no-no's" in graphic design. It had several interpretations of each design problem, which was interesting to look at, but nothing too inspirational.

This is full of great inormation however why these book publishers only use back and white imagaes confuses me. This is an artist book ususally meaning we are VISUAL people. So why every image is on flat black and white is horrible for a Graphic computer book. HUGE TURN OFF!

Other than that the text is informative but thats it!

I hink most people read Maya books because they are on nice Glossy Full Colored pages. When you pay 35.00-75.00 for a book you expect some colored imgaes if not all.

Wait for the next revision that might cover LW9's nodal texture system.
Apparently someone with talent and an understanding beyond the newbie basics will be taking over that version so just wait until then.

Despite "Dan Blocker's" conspiracy theory, I found this book to be just what I needed for Lightwave texturing. The LW manual is of limited help and several other books, while great in their own ways (sorry, Dan and Tim), left me wanting a bit more info dressing up my models (especially with regards to UV mapping).
For the record, I have been to the boards Leigh moderates but I have never spoken or otherwise corresponded with her. I don't always agree with her views but I can say that this book delivered for me.
I also encourage you to visit her web site. Leigh is one of those people who give and give to the 3D community and for her efforts sometimes gets bashed in the process.

I got this book because I was very impressed by Leighs texturing tutorial she has on her website. On the positive side she does cover the basic concepts of shader settings and does so in a way that you can apply it to any 3D app youre using (Lightwave is old and obsolete 3D app, infact Leigh doesnt use Lightwave anymore). But I was a tad bit disappointed that it didnt go more into photoshop painting technics for creating textures (that might be an unfair critisism since this book is part of a Lightwave series). But the thing that really annoyed me about the book is that it was that the pics were all in B&W, and so color copys of the pics are included on the CD to be viewed on a computer. I mean why not just make this book an ebook and eliminate passing between a book and computer altogether? That is pretty cheap of the publisher to not print this book in color.

I really have mixed emotions about this book. I ordered this online but wish I had the opportunity to see it before making the decision to buy it. It does a good job covering basics but a good web search will yield as good or superior tutorials. The included files are quite mediocre and and just reinforces the impression that the author possesses an adequate level of skills in the 2DCG realm.
After reading through the other reviews here it is quite apparent the author has enlisted her industry and web friends to blast anyone who presents an honest review. This book will work for beginners just fine so I give it an honest 2 stars with one of those stars for effort, not execution. For the intermediate and above crowd, look elsewhere for help.

John Jordan's review is an good example of the market segment that this book might help, the 3D newbie. Leigh's weak abilities in the artistic department are far eclipsed by the magnitude of her shameless self promotional plugs and pathetic attempts to appear selfless. CGTalk has turned into a shell of its former self thanks to the efforts of book promoters such as Leigh Van duh Bile and her ilk.

Following the Arcade scene for a few years, I've been promising myself this book once I'm ready to sit down and start building my own MAME Arcade cabinet.

After getting the book and skimming through the pages, I was disappointed to find it's either information I've already discovered on my own by surfing the Internet, or the links to additional content or files are severely outdated and a number of external links no longer work. The copy of MAME they provide you is ver 0.7x (Latest incarnation of MAME is over .100)

Don't get me wrong, this book is great for those who haven't already done the research and want an all-in-one book on how to do it. For me however, I gained nothing from the book.

This is a good book.
My only thing is most of this is on the internet and may even be more updated if you find the right websites.

But it is helpful as for the beginner will help you plan things out in advance. Would be nice to have a few more illustrations like some sample wire diagrams of the controls etc.

But again..it has lots of reference websites listed in the book that can also assist.

My suggestion is -> don't build a Mame Cabinet if you don't have the internet...because you will need it.

Seems to have covered all the basis and the added cd is a nice touch.

This book is a lot more "Techie" than I expected. It involves taking apart and reconfiguring quite a few things to get what you need. Sure it shows where to buy the components if you wish, but then why not just buy the arcade game already made. It does show you how to build the case. I thought it would show how to take your X-Box or Playstation and build an arcade enclosure to get the arcade feel. That is not what this book is about. You take a computer and several components, plus a moniter to make an arcade game. It is very informative but not quite what I expected. It is not a 1 or 2 weekend project. Do a search for mame to see what I mean. Mame is very important to this project.

This book covered so much more than what I was expecting. If you have never built an arcade cabinet before then I would recommend this book if only to see how many different ways it can be done.

I like the book. but i wish to warn buyers about outdated parts. in the book and on the cd it lists many links. but many of the website have gone down and are dead. in the description for the book it says it gives details on making controls, but some cases it just gives links. some of are dead. but it does give good info on emulator, encoders and many other things that are hard to find on the web. but i think the man should have cut some parts short and added controle construction.

I bought this book because it has good reviews. I hope I can learn somethings from this book, but I had spend hours read this book until fall sleep and still don't get it. This book has no step by step instruction. This is the worst book I ever bought.

Tony Mullen takes the guess work out of long prosaic tutorials that sometimes can confuse a beginner. Anyone who has ever used other expensive animation programs will be amazed at the functional integration that Blender offers the beginner and more advanced user.

This book takes you from step by step toolbox explanations to jumpstarting a project - in an afternoon. All you need is a decent video card, enough hard drive space and this book!!!! For those advanced enough to go beyond the confines of this book, additional podcasts exist on iTunes and websites devoted to this niche.

Unleashing your imagination with Blender is an inexpensive way to explore the world of animation - This book is written for beginner and technical neophyte as long as you have some basic knowledge of Photoshop.

This is an awsome book for the beginning or intermediate Blenderhead. It might even be useful for the advanced user. I think it is the best book for someone who has worked with blender, learned some of the tools but needs to tie the concepts together. Yes you can probably learn the same concepts from online tutorials and the wiki but those tend to be somewhat disjointed. The book is clearly written and easy to follow. How complete it is probably depends on how advanced you are and what you are trying to do. If you are new to modeling it will keep you busy for a while.
What's wrong with this book? This book is defective. As stated by many others the included DVD is destroyed. The DVD has been incorporated into the binding of the book so not only is the DVD useless but removing the DVD may actually destroy the book binding. This book probably should be recalled by the publisher and rebound. The publisher is very good about sending a new DVD, a simple email and they send you a new one,free no questions. Is the DVD important? Maybe. The software is freely available on the net, however the files for the book are useful. Another problem with this book is the screen captures. Most blender books share this problem. The gray blender background does not reproduce well. There are times when the author indictates that vert placement is important but it is hard to tell from the picture where exactly the verts are. The DVD files may help with that.
So, this is a must have book for those trying to get their head around blender, one star off for poor production values.

I never did any character modeling before reading this book,and it got me going on. It was a great introduction to the whole world of modeling and animation and to the world of Blender. The text is easy to follow and understand. It is heavily supported by step-by-step screen shots and very well guided through. At the end of the modeling part, the author gives tips and solutions to common modeling "mistakes", like faces facing in the wrong direction etc. That was great, as there was no need to use Google. So what I'm saying here is that the author was expecting a newbie like me to read the book :).

My only regret is that the author decided to model a cartoon character and not a real human; perhaps he could've got a little more realistic and put a bit more emphasis into human muscles and structure. On the other hand, as the title says, this is an "Introduction to character animation", so that's the reason why he picked a cartoon character and focused more on the animation part.

Conclusion: great book !

I just received Introducing Character Animation with Blender. The book seems very well written and well illustrated. I have only made it through part of the first chapter, but if I don't learn character animation, it will be my fault, not the book's. Two amazing things: 1. The book had no CD. Nothing. 2. I fired off an email to Tony Mullen complaining about this fact. Within hours, I got a response, and an attachment containing the files I needed. You should definitely buy a book from an author who cares that much for his customers.

I attempted to learn Flash 5 first with a dummies book and then a sam's book. Neither compared to this one. The whole hands-on-training series offers just that, a hands-on approach to development. The included tutorial movies were especially useful and were the individual exercises the author had us follow along with. It doesn't cover many advanced topics, like action scripting, but for a beginner just wanting to learn flash, this is a good read.

The book gives clear step-by step instructions on most Flash 5 functions.

However, the book does not give clear instructions on how to create navigation buttons. I had to spend hours of trial and error.

Nor does the book explain how to make input boxes and provide feedback for an educational program. I am having to purchase a few more Flash 5 manuals and hope that at least one of those manuals will help me.

I've gone through a variety of tutorials, but this one I highly recommend. The lessons are easy and straightforward. People have told me Flash 5 was hard to learn, but with this book I thought otherwise.

This book was written by teachers for learning,and it does it better than any other books I've seen. It doesn't hurt that she really knows her Flash as well.

Some will bypass the book because it isn't a top notch reference guide for the experienced person. My view is "What good is a reference manual if you don't have a good book to teach you?"

You won't do better than this book for learning Flash.

I've tried 3 or 4 other books while trying to learn Flash over the last two years. This is the one that finally got me way up the learning curve.

Overpriced? No, I don't think so. The authors and editors put in a helluva lot of work on this book, breaking the subject matter into digestible lessons and then double-checking the tutorials. I've paid as much for other books that taught me nothing (because they weren't user-friendly and didn't keep my interest) and paid six times as much for one-day courses that were excellent but 50% forgotten a week later.

I see some of the other reviewers complain that the book does a little too much hand-holding and baby-talking. Well, if you haven't got much going on in your life, then I suppose you can teach yourself Flash by trial-and-error and by trying to read the inscrutable Macromedia manuals. The rest of us, with real lives, really need and appreciate the baby-step tutorials and extras on the CD.

The authors are teachers and seem to be warm human beings as well. I would not only recommend this book, I'd look forward to taking real, live classes from them.

Good book for anyone whom wants to learn AI, no mathematical or phisical background is needed.

This book is really good for learning AI as reviewed in other guys' comment. However, this book does not deal with neural networks. When I first ordered this book, I expected some more neural nets recipes than his other book 'cause this book was published later than that one. But this book does not handle that although both of two books includes "AI" in their title. Therefore, I recommend to order his another book to read neural networks part.

First off this book is informative about common AI game techniques. However it lets itself down hugely with the code sections and at times the rather clunky way of explaining some algorithms. The code should of been pseudo code and most of the math functions that are used with the code are never ever explained despite a laughable introduction at the start which covers about 10% of what you actually need to know.

I've rewritten most of the applications in java and found them to be far more straight forward than explained and laid out in the book. Which is a pity because his style is light and the information necessary.

This book never claims to be a definitive guide to AI, but it does promise to give you the techniques used in game AI today.

It delivers on its promise with the best bottom-up approach to learning I have not seen in a long time. If you are new to game AI, as I was, you need to get this book, and his other game AI installment, "AI Techniques for Game Programming." They are completely complimentary and barely overlap.

This is the first book to get, however. You can get to being productive in AI right away. [...]

This is a truely great book on AI programming. It does what the title says, as it teaches many concepts and then provides actual code, which is great.

This book explains AI so well!

I Saw another user comment "this book is so simple, my 10 year old son is writing state machines!" or something like that, i'm under 13 and i was able to read the state machine chapter, and then actually write my own =)

I'd reccomend this book 100% to anyone beginning in AI programming.

the final textures are excellent. the only problem is sometimes the insructions are a little vague and the software in the book is outdated

There's a lot to like about a book like this for the beginning texture artist, such as myself. It gives you the fundamentals of how to recreate a texture from the ground up without actually having to paint hardly anything! Just use what Photoshop has to offer and you can follow this book all the way through.
That would be the downside though, must have Photoshop! If you don't then I wouldn't see you getting much out of this book except the techniques, which may or may not be done in another paint program.
This is just a beginner's book because it doesn't cover anything about skin or human painting and texturing, which is what I'm now looking for in another book. This just covers inanimate objects, but it just blows my mind how easy it now is using his techniques. I'm no longer intimidated by a blank white screen with no textures, and am now cranking stuff out a lot better looking (not professional yet, but getting there).
Deffinantly worth getting for beginners or people apprehensive towards texturing.

This book is useful as a jumping-off point for using Photoshop to create textures, and covers most of the basic topics that someone new to both Photoshop and texturing would need to know. However, you'll need to search for additional resources to complete the journey that this book starts you on, since it's a pretty basic overview with a few confidence-building exercises that give you a taste of the possibilities.

I already know texturing and wanted to take my texturing to the next level. I compared textures before and after, and I noticed a difference. Its easier to make hand painted textures for me now.
There are step by step examples of how to make bricks, windows, doors, etc.
It even discusses how to take pictures of textures yourself, and how to make your 3d scenes seem more real by placing objects, breaking up plain parts, etc.
The only thing missing is how to create history on textures and as far as I can tell, there are no books.
I recommend going to cgsociety and check out the forums. Stephen Morrell has a good pdf on texturing somewhere.

Unlike the rewiever who gave this book 1 star, I am giving 5. Because unlike him, I find this full-color book very well written and very useful. It goes beyond basic texture creation tutorials. The first half of the book explains theory behind good textures and texture creation as well as ways to take pictures for your own textures. It gives lot of examples to demonstrate various points. The second half of the book is the tutorial part. The tutorials are detailed and easy to follow. The only negative thing I find about this book is, that the tutorials give you exact values for everything without explaining why these values were actually chosen. However, it is up to the user to make his/her own tweeking and see, how changing these values effect the final result. Also, I would like to see how these textures are applied to a specific UV layout, which the book does not discuss. But then again, the book is about creating textures, not applying them to your model, so I do not hold it against it. After all, the textures that are created in the tutorials are nicely done and you certainly can find a good use for any of them. So, five stars it is.