3D graphics: games programming Books

Book SynopsisWith 18 years under his belt in the game industry, a key contributor to the MotorStorm series, and the creator of the 3ds Max in Minutes video series (at FocalPress.com), Andrew Gahan delivers the expert techniques in 3ds Max Modeling for Games, 2nd edition.  This updated edition is packed with new tutorials that will enhance your modeling skills and pump up your portfolio with high-quality work in no time.  Along with Anthony O''Donnell and a team of experts, Gahan covers all of the fundamental game modeling techniques, including character and environment modeling, mapping, and texturing. Finally, a bonus section in 3ds Max Modeling for Games offers readers insights and tips on how to get their careers started in the game industry.  New, expanded tutorials take readers of all abilities through full character and environment modeling from beginning to end Companion website (3d-for-games.com) offers a robust, sTrade Review "This book is a must-have resource for anyone wanting to learn how to make game art in 3ds Max. It has great support on the forums which is a testament to the author's enthusiasm for the subject. My students would be lost without it. If you want to understand how to really make 3d art for games then this is the book you need"--David Wilson, programme leader, BA (Hons) Computer Games Modelling and Animation, University of Derby, UK "This is a great book covering most aspects of modeling for games including the basics of 3D, Ambient Occlusion, Normal Maps, Character, Vehicle, Scene Creation and much, much more. It covers everything you need to get you started for your career in games"--Andy Manns, lead artist, THQ "An extremely comprehensive book covering all the basic theory and techniques with 3ds Max, currently used within the best game development studios in the industry"--Alex Perkins, art director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. "For a beginner, getting to grip with 3ds Max is a daunting prospect, but this book picks on the relevant features and aims to get you producing usable 3D game art quickly and efficiently. It gives you a great understanding of what goes into make good 3D video-game art and will give you the vocabulary needed to talk with confidence about in-game models."--Don Whiteford, creative director THQ Digital UK Ltd. "This book is one of the most comprehensive, straight-forward, and easy to follow guides for modeling precise and efficient 3D game assets and environments. Andrew Gahan has heard everything every educator has said about what a textbook needs to do to meet the broad stroke of students' needs and abilities in learning how to master 3D modeling with 3ds Max. With simple understanding and imagination, this text can be used to transform modeling for games into modeling for animation or modeling for simulation."--Tim Harrington, national assistant dean, Game and Simulation Programming, DeVry University "Author of this book covers what you need to complete each tutorial; it designed to get you up to speed as quickly as possible producing great artwork and is not designed to teach you how to use all aspects of 3ds Max."--Wonderpedia.wetpaint.com Table of Contents Introduction to 3ds Max. Creating, Unwrapping, and Texturing Simple Models. Creating Complex Objects from Primitives. Vegetation and Alpha Maps. Low-Poly Vehicle. Creating LODs. Normal Maps. Gallery. Creating a 3D Environment. High-and Low-Poly Characters. Portfolio and Interview.

Read more less

Book Synopsis3D rotation analysis is widely encountered in everyday problems thanks to the development of computers. Sensing 3D using cameras and sensors, analyzing and modeling 3D for computer vision and computer graphics, and controlling and simulating robot motion all require 3D rotation computation. This book focuses on the computational analysis of 3D rotation, rather than classical motion analysis. It regards noise as random variables and models their probability distributions. It also pursues statistically optimal computation for maximizing the expected accuracy, as is typical of nonlinear optimization. All concepts are illustrated using computer vision applications as examples.Mathematically, the set of all 3D rotations forms a group denoted by SO(3). Exploiting this group property, we obtain an optimal solution analytical or numerically, depending on the problem. Our numerical scheme, which we call the Lie algebra method, is based on the Lie group structure of SO(3).This bTable of ContentsChapter 1Introduction 1.1 3D ROTATIONS 1.2 ESTIMATION OF ROTATION 1.3 DERIVATIVE-BASED OPTIMIZATION 1.4 RELIABILITY EVALUATION OF ROTATION COMPUTATION 1.5 COMPUTING PROJECTS 1.6 RELATED TOPICS OF MATHEMATICS Chapter 2 ■ Geometry of Rotation2.1 3D ROTATION 2.2 ORTHOGONAL MATRICES AND ROTATION MATRICES 2.3 EULER’S THEOREM 2.4 AXIAL ROTATIONS 2.5 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE 2.6 EXERCISESChapter 3 ■ Parameters of Rotation3.1 ROLL, PITCH, YAW 3.2 COORDINATE SYSTEM ROTATION 153.3 EULER ANGLES 3.4 RODRIGUES FORMULA 3.5 QUATERNION REPRESENTATION 213.6 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES 3.7 EXERCISES Chapter 4 ■ Estimation of Rotation I: Isotropic Noise 4.1 ESTIMATING ROTATION 4.2 LEAST SQUARES AND MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD 4.3 SOLUTION BY SINGULAR VALUE DECOMPOSITION 4.4 SOLUTION BY QUATERNION REPRESENTATION 4.5 OPTIMAL CORRECTION OF ROTATION 4.6 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE 4.7 EXERCISESChapter 5 ■ Estimation of Rotation II: Anisotropic Noise 5.1 ANISOTROPIC GAUSSIAN DISTRIBUTIONS 5.2 ROTATION ESTIMATION BY MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD 5.3 ROTATION ESTIMATION BY QUATERNION REPRESENTATION 5.4 OPTIMIZATION BY FNS 5.5 METHOD OF HOMOGENEOUS CONSTRAINTS 5.6 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE 5.7 EXERCISESChapter 6 ■ Derivative-based Optimization: Lie Algebra Method 6.1 DERIVATIVE-BASED OPTIMIZATION 6.2 SMALL ROTATIONS AND ANGULAR VELOCITY 6.3 EXPONENTIAL EXPRESSION OF ROTATION 6.4 LIE ALGEBRA OF INFINITESIMAL ROTATIONS 6.5 OPTIMIZATION OF ROTATION 6.6 ROTATION ESTIMATION BY MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD 6.7 FUNDAMENTAL MATRIX COMPUTATION 6.8 BUNDLE ADJUSTMENT 6.9 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES 6.10 EXERCISESChapter 7 ■ Reliability of Rotation Computation 7.1 ERROR EVALUATION FOR ROTATION 7.2 ACCURACY OF MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD7.3 THEORETICAL ACCURACY BOUND7.4 KCR LOWER BOUND 7.5 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES 7.6 EXERCISESChapter 8 ■ Computing Projects8.1 STEREO VISION EXPERIMENT 8.2 OPTIMAL CORRECTION OF STEREO IMAGES 8.3 TRIANGULATION OF STEREO IMAGES 8.4 COVARIANCE EVALUATION OF STEREO RECONSTRUCTION 8.5 LAND MOVEMENT COMPUTATION USING REAL GPS DATA 8.6 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES 8.7 EXERCISES Appendix A ■ Hamilton’s Quaternion AlgebraA.1 QUATERNIONS A.2 QUATERNION ALGEBRA A.3 CONJUGATE, NORM, AND INVERSE A.4 QUATERNION REPRESENTATION OF ROTATIONS A.5 COMPOSITION OF ROTATIONS A.6 TOPOLOGY OF ROTATIONS A.7 INFINITESIMAL ROTATIONS A.8 REPRESENTATION OF GROUP OF ROTATIONS A.9 STEREOGRAPHIC PROJECTION Appendix B ■ Topics of Linear Algebra B.1 LINEAR MAPPING AND BASIS B.2 PROJECTION MATRICES B.3 PROJECTION ONTO A LINE AND A PLANEB.4 EIGENVALUES AND SPECTRAL DECOMPOSITION B.5 MATRIX REPRESENTATION OF SPECTRAL DECOMPOSITION B.6 SINGULAR VALUES AND SINGULAR DECOMPOSITION B.7 COLUMN AND ROW DOMAINS Appendix C ■ Lie Groups and Lie Algebras C.1 GROUPS C.2 MAPPINGS AND GROUPS OF TRANSFORMATION C.3 TOPOLOGY C.4 MAPPINGS OF TOPOLOGICAL SPACES C.5 MANIFOLDS C.6 LIE GROUPS C.7 LIE ALGEBRAS C.8 LIE ALGEBRAS OF LIE GROUPS AnswersBibliographyIndex

Read more less