Discover how to build commercial-quality, anatomy-based CG characters using Maya with "Maya Feature Creature Creations, Second Edition." In today's competitive entertainment market, animated movies and video games require superior graphics and realistic characters, making it imperative that 3D artists and designers master state-of-the-art software like Maya. With this book, you will learn all of the steps required to create a character, from concept to completion. Using step-by-step instructions and explanations, the book lays out a method for building anatomy-based, photo-realistic computer-generated characters with physicsdriven skin.

Many DJs, gigging musicians, and electronic music producers understand how to play their instruments or make music on the computer, but they lack the basic knowledge of music theory needed to take their music-making to the next level and compose truly professional tracks. Beneath all the enormously different styles of modern electronic music lie certain fundamentals of the musical language that are exactly the same no matter what kind of music you write. It is very important to acquire an understanding of these fundamentals if you are to develop as a musician and music producer.

Advanced Photoshop CS3 Trickery & FX is a completely updated edition of this specialized book for Photoshop users wishing to go beyond the basics. It takes digital artists to the next level of creativity by teaching them how to blend their artistic talent seamlessly with the powerful tools of Photoshop CS3. The book is packed with full color photos showing before-and-after touch-up examples and demos of the amazing new features of Photoshop CS3. Using a mixture of fun and practical projects, you will learn how to transform ordinary photos into incredible special effects and digital creations.

With its pre-coded modules, open source Joomla! is popular for building interactive Web sites without writing code. This Web site design tool lets you build sites with discussions, polling, RSS feeds, picture submissions, shopping carts, and a lot more, quickly and easily and the quickest, easiest way to learn how to use it is Joomla! For Dummies.

Learn to link articles on your site with drop-down menus, invite visitors to rate content, enable a full-site search, let your guests sign up for e-mail lists, and much more. Joomla! For Dummies helps you to:

"Game Graphics Programming" examines the many different techniques and effects that are used to create cutting-edge graphics in today?s video games and how to implement them. The book takes a detailed look at computer graphics, exploring both the theory and application of each algorithm and effect and how they are structured and executed to generate the rendered result. Detailed C++ source code and pseudocode are used as examples throughout the book to demonstrate the methods being taught, but the techniques presented can be used with any programming language or tool.

Silverlight is a lightweight browser plug?in that frees your code from the traditional confines of the browser. It?s a rules?changing, groundbreaking technology that allows you to run rich client applications right inside the browser. Even more impressively, it?s able to host true .NET applications in non?Microsoft browsers (like Firefox) and on non?Microsoft platforms (like Mac OS X). Silverlight is still new and evolving fast, and you need a reliable guidebook to make sense of it.

Get ready to make fun and exciting computer games, no programming required! Game Creation for Teens shows teens and other beginners how to make their very own awesome games using the Games Factory 2, a simple drag-and-drop game creation system. By the end of the book, you?ll have made three amazing sample games and have the skills and information you need to make more games on your own. You?ll start by exploring the different game genres and learning how to organize and develop your own game ideas before you begin creating. Then you?ll learn about game creation fundamentals such as graphics settings, methods, and features, as well as how to use and record music and sound in games.

Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 is a brilliantly illustrated, full-color book that combines both the fundamentals of character design and the skills of digital painting. Completely updated using Photoshop CS3 as the primary tool, the book details how to create characters that elicit specific emotions and how to beautifully render those characters by applying conventional painting skills to digital tools. Written for both the seasoned professional and aspiring artist alike, Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 explores the key principles of design and reveals how to enhance traditional skills and apply them to digital art for use in games, film, animation, and other commercial productions. Using practical tutorials, the book covers basic skills such as value, edges, color, texturing, and light, and then moves on to teach in-depth techniques on specific features including eyes, face, clothing, hair, and fur.

Got a new MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro? Want the scoop on Mac laptop basics, using Mac OS X Leopard, networking a laptop, or connecting your laptop to wireless devices? There?s no better place to find what you need than MacBook For Dummies, 2nd Edition!

With your Mac laptop, you can take your movies, music, documents, e-mail, and Internet wherever the action is. MacBook For Dummies, 2nd Edition provides the lowdown on maintaining and upgrading your MacBook, customizing the Dock and desktop, traveling with a laptop, turning iPhoto into your portable darkroom, and much more. Learn to:

"C++ XML" is a book exclusively devoted to the power and complexities of integrating XML standards into C++. As a developer, this is a book you cannot miss. "C++ XML" addresses all major standards, toolkits, and types of applications dealing with XML as a format for representing and exchanging data, as well as XML behavior, from a C++ standpoint. It explains the implementation of applications and reusable frameworks for all major XML purposes exclusively using C/C++ parsers and toolkits, such as expat, Xerces, Xalan, libxml2, and Microsoft's MSXML.The high-end theory and examples in this book - such as development of OpenGL applications, Visual Studio Wizards to automate DOM procedures, GIMP extension to interpret XML scripts, and more - and its exclusive C++ orientation - separates this work from any other resource (online and offline). It is a must-have for any programmer interested in a specialized, complete, and detailed view of XML technologies.