NxtGen Media - The Freeman View

Blender Basics - Classroom Tutorial Book Review

One thing I have learned about Unity development is that you reach a point where you gotta create your own objects and artwork. I have been using Blender for modeling, and I must say that it is growing on me, but it is not an easy transition from tools like Truespace.  However, it is free and it does do a good job, so I am trying real hard to embrace it.

I have been watching a lot of Blender tutorial videos and have learned a great deal. Being old school, I also like having books on hand to reference. One great reference I found is Blender Basics - Classroom Tutorial Book, 3rd Edition. It does a great job of breaking down the tools that make up Blender. As the name implies, it was created as a class room accompaniment and pretty much walks you through the basics of Blender. I highly recommend it.

Check it out here

DCF

Unity Game Development Essentials Review

The book was written by Will Goldstone, and my hat goes off to him. This is a very good book. If you don’t know beans about Unity, this is a good place to start. That and it is the only book out there for Unity at the moment. This is not your typical game development computer book that takes you through the basics of game development concepts before it gets into the meat. Instead, the author gives a short summary of 3d concepts as they pertain to Unity, and gets you right into the fundamentals of using the tool that is Unity.

The book reads like a very long tutorial, and essentially that is what it is. You get short summaries of subjects like scripting, and collision detection that are just enough for you to get through to the end of the project. For experienced developers, this will be enough because really most just want to understand the workflow for Unity. As for others with less experience, it will be a good starting point, but is by no means the only reference you will need.

The book tackles designing a game for a first person perspective. No small task indeed. The author covers designing the terrain, using prefabs, basic scripting, ray casting, GUI design, game physics, particle systems, and menu and scene design and setup. Will does a great job of introducing one to the essentials of Unity, but he also subtly lets you know that there is so much to know about Unity and game development in general, and that Unity is no ‘click and play’ tool. Upon finishing the book, you are going to have questions, lots of questions and I think that was the point of the book. To introduce you to the tool, and get you thinking about what all you have to consider if you are going to use the tool to make a game or application. The book is a very good introduction to Unity and I highly recommend it.

DCF

Attack Proof

I’ve been doing martial arts most of my life. Started out in Karate, and when I was in my twenties, was introduced to Wing Chun Kung Fu, and have never looked back. Now that I am in my forties, I have discovered some things that are not so great about Wing Chun. It is not the end all, be all for every situation. I believe that many students of the martial arts come to a point in their system, when they realize the style or system can’t address everything that may come at them. I believe that this realization is why systems like Jeet Kune Do, Krav Maga, and other MMA systems have emerged.

One such system called ‘Guided Chaos’, inspired by the book ‘Attack Proof’ by John Perkins, addresses what might be termed ‘combat sense and flow’. In all the conflicts that I have been in, there have been points when training breaks down, and form simply goes out the window. I have seen it time and time again in my students when sparring, and on the street. To get the point when you have the drills and simulated fight forms down such that you move “formlessly” is something that takes years to develop. In many cases, after one reaches “black belt” such formlessness is not ever mastered. Guided Chaos seeks to reduce the time it takes to reach that state of awareness.

This is a good, if not great system, but it may not be the best for beginners. What I mean by this is that this system can be great for supplementing an existing system or style, but without the basics mastered (punching, kicking, blocking, fighter fitness) it may take just as long for a novice to become proficient as with any other style, but the end result may be more effective than conventional systems. That being said, the system fosters a modern methodology that promotes flow and ruthlessness the likes of which are difficult to cultivate in other systems. I highly recommend checking it out as it may be the “missing link” you were looking for.

AttackProof.com

-DCF

Advanced AS 3.0 Animation

Confession of a Flash Addict:

I’m in the middle of watching 24. I get a call from Barnes and Noble that the book I ordered, ‘Advanced AS3 Animation’ is in.

Do I finish watching 24 and go and get the book after?

Heck no! Screw Jack!

Much to the chagrin of my wife (uber 24 addict) I went to get the book.

True story.

“This is a great book!”
That is how the AS2 and AS3 versions of the intros of “ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move” began. This current book has no introduction or forward to herald its greatness, but it is great nonetheless. Kind of a continuation of the previous book, but not really. While the last book covered Flash 9.0 centric items, this one covers Flash 10 and what is possible.

It is an advanced book, as the title denotes. The book is not going to teach you the basics of programming in AS3. You pretty much had better know what you are doing when you get into it. I liken this book to the “AS3 Cookbook”, also contributed to by the author, as you don’t have to read it from cover to cover and can go through picking and choosing what interest you. There are few books that I have two copies of, one for work and one for home. This is definitely one of those books, as are his others. No greater compliment can I give. Very few books would I stop watching 24 for.

‘Is the book really that good?’ you may ask. Well put it like this, Trying to keep up with all the changes in Flash is a daunting task. If you want to succeed in this industry, you gotta ride the bleeding edge. Keith Peters has been out beyond the edge, and is willing to make available what he has discovered. Trying not to sound like a fanboy, admittedly the book states that his implementations may not be the best, but hey that’s why they call it research. Anything that keeps me from wasting time spinning my wheels and going down blind alleys is a godsend.

DCF

Heaven or Hell, It’s Your Choice

Now before you get the idea that this is a religious piece, and I’m trying to sell you on something that you really don’t think you need, this is actually an article on an e-book I ran across on the Internet last night with the same title. Basically it is a treatise on the state of all things and the future of technology.

Written by an un-employed (at the time) techie and reformed hacker around 2005, the author gives his views and perspective on what he believes is really going on in the world, and how technology is going to change things in a really big way for the good, or for the bad based on the choices we make, hence the title.

The book is not exactly a book, as it is more of a mixture of Flash, html pages, and about 1000 hyperlinks to anything you don’t understand. Must have taken him at least a year to compile and wire the whole thing up (note: the author says 6 years). What I found really interesting was the authors view of the future of television, the Internet, and multimedia in general. The general premise is that we are ultimately going to realtime 3D on the web, and television as we know it will be diminished in popularity much like what it did to radio. There is a whole lot of stuff politically that he goes into in terms of society and how it all works now, and will eventually work from a technical perspective that can pretty much be described as hellish at best. Of course, as the author points out, it does not have to be that way.

The book serves as a wake up call to those that are either not technically informed and don’t have the ability to perceive what’s going on, or those that are technically competent, but are asleep at the wheel. He covers AI, nanotechnology, and the future of the Internet among other things. Either way, if you can get used to the presentation style, its an interesting read.

-DCF

Book Review: ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook

I have a few books that I keep around for handy reference. One at the top of the list is “ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook”, by Joey Lott, Darron Schall, and Keith Peters. This book has helped me through a number of projects like no other book in my library.

Much of it is code snippets and examples, in ‘recipe’ form based on a given programming problem. Each recipe presents the problem, the solution, and a discussion of the solution. In cookbook fashion, the book is meant to be browsed or perused based on the need for a solution for a problem. It can be read straight through, but is really one of those ‘how do I do x, y, or z?’ reference books that really is outstanding in its content offering.

The book has helped me greatly in coming up to speed in AS3 and making the transition from AS2. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is well versed in an older version of Flash, but needs to understand the new way to do things. It was written in 2007, but since it is code centric, it is still quite relevant for use with CS4. I can’t praise it enough for its usefulness. This book stays in my book bag, and pretty much is with me most of the time.

-DCF

Tricks of The 3D Game Programming Gurus

Back in the day, Andre LaMothe used to write books on 3D game programming. He had a lot of critics as well as fans. I personally am a fan and own or have read many of his books. One particular book, his last one on this subject I believe released in 2003 was called Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus, Advanced 3D Graphics and Rasterization. As most Andre books are, this book is huge (1700+pages) basically describes how to build a software based 3D engine. Kind of a let down at the time cuz most folks were looking for books on how to build hardware based engines. The day has actually come where this big puppy is worth its weight in gold. This bugger is like a treasure map now. With the release of Flash 10 beta, its looks like its time to dust this book off and apply the techniques given. I never imagined that this book would come in so handy.

As I have said in earlier post, we are at the beginning of a new paradigm. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are on the rise, and we are at the beginning of a new generation of web based media. With this release of Flash that adds so much to the API, whole new media engines can now be realized. Things we never could do in Flash before, are rapidly becoming a reality. This is a crazy time because it opens up so many possibilities. It feels to me like the old days of the Internet when folks were believing the hype and throwing money. Folks are pretty cautious today, but we seem to be a whole lot closer to the hype and promise that spawned so many companies back in the day. I feel like a prospector back in the gold rush era, out staking my claim before the masses get wind of it. Just with the current Flash 3D engines alone, companies are starting to throw big money for anyone that has one mastered.

Now, this “Tricks” book is based on programming in DirectX, but no matter as the algorithms and 3D concepts are platform independent. The book talks about how to build software based 3D engines, and that is where we currently are in Flash. There are no other books out there that address this in one complete volume. I imagine, there will be a 3D book written for Flash one of these days. For now, I’m combing all my old books for techniques, because I truly believe that we are at the point where the old school techniques for game development now apply to this “new technology”. Andre probably never dreamed that his book would be used quite this way. Who would have thought Flash would come this far?

-D-

Actionscript 3.0 Animation, by Keith Peters

“This is a great book”, is how the introduction starts out, and indeed it is. There are a couple of books that I keep by the computer, and only a few I have copies of at work and at home. This is one of the two copy books I have. The book breaks down all of the basics of trigonometry, and physics as well as gives a great explanation of how to work with AS3. It covers concepts of 2D and 3D. The code simply works, which is not often the case with a lot of books. In short, it is a handy tool kit that will not go out of style for sometime.

-D-