Computers : Entertainment & Games

The reader of this book will be someone looking for more detailed information on the NXT-G programming language used to program the LEGO Mindstorms NXT robotics kit. LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT-G Programming Guide is suitable for young programmers, age 10 and up, as well as parents and teachers who want to learn the new language for themselves or be able to assist students/children with learning to properly program their robots. * Includes easy-to-follow examples for each and every programming block * Provides programming techniques simple enough to be understood by young programmers, age 10 and up. * Provides a test robot (with instructions) in the appendix for running the programs What you ll learn * Understand the basics of computer programming. * Easily program your robot with the NXT-G visual programming language. * See how to implement basic, intermediate, and advanced programs. * Learn how to program for o Moving o Waiting o Recording o Stopping o Displaying messages o Sending messages o Defining the duration of an activity o Creating random behavior * Practice with a free sample program. more...

Price: $24.99

A tutorial for beginning game artists and enthusiasts to learn how to create textures at the professional level. more...

Price: $51.95

You can start game programming in a flash Here's how to create five different cool games - no experience necessary! Ever think you could come up with a better computer game? Then this book is for you! No boring programming theory here, just the stuff you need to know to actually make something happen, and all in plain English. more...

Price: $24.99

Build several fully functional games as well as a game engine to use for programming cell phone and mobile games with Beginning Mobile Phone Game Programming ! The included CD provides the tool, code and graphics necessary to complete all exercises covered in the chapters. Beginning Cell Phone Game Programming demystifies wireless game programming by providing clear, practical lessons using the J2ME Game API. You will learn how to use the most popular mobile programming language, Java, to build compact games that can run on any Java-enabled device, including mobile phones, pagers and handheld computers. You will also learn to add a splash screen, create a demo mode, keep track of high scores, and test, debug, and deploy your games. Topics covered include: How to construct a game engine to drive mobile games.; How to use Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) and the Java Game API to get the most performance out of your mobile games.; How to implement sprite animation and control interactions among moving sprites.; How to play sound effects and music in mobile games.; How to take advantage of wireless networks to build mobile multiplayer games.; How to design and develop a variety of different games spanning several video games genres. more...

Price: $31.99

The heart of any system that simulates the physical interaction between objects is collision detection—the ability to detect when two objects have come into contact. This system is also one of the most difficult aspects of a physical simulation to implement correctly, and invariably it is the main consumer of CPU cycles. Practitioners, new to the field or otherwise, quickly discover that the attempt to build a fast, accurate, and robust collision detection system takes them down a long path fraught with perils and pitfalls unlike most they have ever encountered. Without in-depth knowledge and understanding of the issues associated with engineering a collision detection system, the end of that path is an abyss that has swallowed many a good programmer! Gino van den Bergen's new book is the story of his successful journey down that path. The outcome is his well-known collision detection system, the SOftware Library for Interference Detection (SOLID). Along the way, he covers the topics of vector algebra and geometry, the various geometric primitives of interest in a collision system, the powerful method of separating axes for the purposes of intersection testing, and the equally powerful Gilbert-Johnson-Keerthi (GJK) algorithm for computing the distance between convex objects. But this book provides much more than a good compendium of the ideas that go into building a collision system. The curse of practical computational geometry is floating-point arithmetic. Algorithms with straightforward implementations when using exact arithmetic can have catastrophic failures in a floating-point system. Specifically, intersection and distance algorithms implemented in a floating-point system tend to fail exactly in the most important case in a collision system—when two objects are just touching. Great care must be taken to properly handle floating-point round off errors. Gino's ultimate accomplishment in this book is his presentation on how to correctly implement the G more...

Price: $73.95