Books about Renderings from Amazon.com

Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite that is a real alternative to commercially available 3D design software A cross-platform software package with millions of downloads annually, Blender is now one of the world's most popular 3D design tools.

Although Blender is free, it's intended for design professionals and others motivated to become 3D artists. The Essential Blender will provide you with the knowledge you need to help integrate Blender into your work and begin to master its powerful creation tools.

If you've never tried 3D design before, an introductory chapter will familiarize you with relevant terminology and concepts. If you're already experienced with commercial 3D software, The Essential Blender will get you up to speed with Blender quickly. After a tour of Blender's 3D modeling, animation, and rendering capabilities, you'll learn how best to use Blender for these tasks:

Object manipulation and animation

Mesh and sculpt modeling and shape animation

Materials and texturing (including UV unwrapping)

Lighting and rendering

Particle animation

Character rigging and animation

Node-based composition

The book is modular in its approach, with each topic addressed independently and accompanied by hands-on tutorial sections.

The combined expertise of key members of the Blender community, coupled with the experience of editor Roland Hess, bring you The Essential Blender-the definitive guide to Blender. You'll find a wealth of 3D design information inside that will help you to unlock your artistic potential and get the most out of Blender.

Includes a Complete Version of Blender 2.44 on the CD-ROM. Covers Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (x86 and PowerPC), Solaris, FreeBSD, and IRIX..
Price: $25.79 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Ajax has revolutionized the way users interact with web pages today. Gone are frustrating page refreshes, lost scroll positions and intermittent interaction with a web site. Instead, we have a new generation of fast, rich, and more intuitive web applications. The ASP.NET AJAX framework puts the power of Ajax into the hands of web developers. ASP.NET AJAX, formerly called Atlas, is a new free framework from Microsoft designed to easily add Ajax features to ASP.NET applications. With this technology, ASP.NET developers can easily build more interactive and highly-personalized web applications that work across all most popular browsers.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action is a fast-paced, example-rich tutorial designed for ASP.NET web developers and written by ASP.NET AJAX experts Alessandro "Garbin" Gallo, David Barkol, and Rama Krishna Vavilala. This book introduces you to Ajax applications and to the ASP.NET AJAX technology. Beginners will appreciate the clear explanations of key ideas and terminology. Intermediate and advanced ASP.NET developers will find a no-nonsense learning source and well-organized reference.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action offers a rich set of examples and meticulous explanations. The extensive code samples are accompanied by accurate and rigorous explanations of the concepts behind development with ASP.NET AJAX. In this book, you will discover how to use

Microsoft Ajax Library

Partial rendering with UpdatePanels

Advanced client and server techniques

Ajax Control Toolkit

If you are a web developer looking to bring your web pages to life and to enhance the user experience, this book is for you.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action will give you with the knowledge and tools you need to more easily craft the next generation of Ajax applications. With the help of the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX framework, Ajax development has never been easier and more instinctive for both client-script developers and ASP.NET developers alike..
Price: $24.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Third Edition of Michael Doyle's classic Color Drawing remains the ultimate up-to-date resource for professionals and students who need to develop and communicate design ideas with clear, attractive, impressive color drawings.

Update with over 100 pages, this Third Edition contains an entirely new section focused on state-of-the-art digital techniques to greatly enhance the sophistication of presentation drawings, and offers new and innovative ideas for the reproduction and distribution of finished drawings. Color Drawing, Third Edition Features:
* A complete body of illustrated instructions demonstrating drawing development from initial concept through final presentation
* Finely honed explanations of each technique and process
* Faster and easier ways to create design drawings
* Over 100 new pages demonstrating methods for combining hand-drawn and computer-generated drawing techniques

Step-by-step, easy-to-follow images will lead you through digital techniques to quickly and easily enhance your presentation drawings..
Price: $37.29 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Crafting a perfect rendering in 3D software means nailing all the details And no matter what software you use, your success in creating realistic-looking illumination, shadows and textures depends on your professional lighting and rendering techniques. In this lavishly illustrated new edition, Pixar's Jeremy Birn shows you how to:

• Master Hollywood lighting techniques to produce professional results in any 3D application
• Convincingly composite 3D models into real-world environments
• Apply advanced rendering techniques using subsurface scattering, global illumination, caustics, occlusion, and high dynamic range images
• Design realistic materials and paint detailed texture maps
• Mimic real-life camera properties such as f-stops, exposure times, depth-of-field, and natural color temperatures for photorealistic renderings
• Render in multiple passes for greater efficiency and creative control
• Understand production pipelines at visual effects and animation studios
• Develop your lighting reel to get a job in the industry
  

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Price: $32.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This is one of the more recent translations of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, about the hero-king of ancient Mesopotamia whose adventures--searching for eternal life, surviving a worldwide deluge in an ark filled with animals, to name a couple--make up one of oldest pieces of literature on record. David Ferry's version attempts to provide the most readable rendering of the epic, artfully finding a poetic voice that's particularly accessible to the modern ear, as well as working to smooth over the gaps in the poem caused by the fragmentary record of the original clay tablets..
Price: $6.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]

One would think that the title of Tomas Moller's and Eric Haines's book, Real-Time Rendering, would be a contradiction in terms. How can such a computationally intensive process as rendering computer graphics ever hope to be done on the fly, in the blink of an eye, without delay--in short, in real time?

The term rendering, as it applies to computer graphics, refers to the mathematically intensive process of creating a picture or sequence of frames based on geometry. The duration of this process is dependent on the complexity of the scene (a forest with many trees and thousands of leaves will take much longer to render than a scene consisting of a white box over a gray background) and the speed of the hardware doing the calculations.

When Pixar's Toy Story was first released, the computer animation community was all abuzz with how it was done, and someone at Pixar mentioned that over 100 SGI workstations were used for rendering the frames over the course of almost two years. Someone else extrapolated this data and figured out that the same movie could have been rendered on one contemporary PC over the course of about 80 years.

The authors deftly answer the question, not only asserting that it can be done, but since this book is a programmer's guide, they list snippets of programming algorithms that help outline how it can be done.

Because the software and hardware is constantly and rapidly evolving due to the insatiable need for more realistic and complex graphics, the book avoids getting too specific. To quote the authors, "The field is rapidly evolving, and so it is a moving target." This lack of specificity doesn't detract from the usefulness of the book, though. Instead, it works at a higher, more abstract level, describing approaches to rendering techniques using generic algorithms. It is up to the programmer to apply these methods to the specific program or system on which it is to be implemented.

Real-Time Rendering describes some very complex methods, and this book is not for the average computer graphics creator. However, if you are working in an industry that depends on real-time rendered animation--like the gaming, medical, or military fields--or you are building the next-generation real-time render engine, this book will offer insight and concepts you can use to build some impressive software. --Mike Caputo.
Price: $89.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Stunningly updated, totally redesigned, practical, and ready to use This new edition of Michael Doyle's classic Color Drawing is the ultimate up-to-date resource for professionals and students who need to develop and communicate design ideas with clear, attractive, impressive color drawings. In an easy to use, step-by-step approach, this comprehensive guide presents a total system of color design drawing that encompasses approaches to sketch communication as well as more finished presentation drawing. Totally redesigned to provide quick, easy access to key information, this Second Edition covers the basics of color phenomena, media, techniques, and approaches to illustrating materials necessary to communicate design ideas. With nearly 400 new color illustrations, it contains a new section on color and design principles for creating more sophisticated presentation drawings and offers innovative ideas for the reproduction and distribution of finished drawings. Color Drawing features:
* A complete body of illustrated instruction that demonstrates the development of design ideas from initial concept through presentation drawing
* Finely honed explanations of each technique and process
* Faster and easier ways to create design drawings
* Methods for combining hand-drawn and computer-generated drawing techniques
This remarkably versatile volume is both an illuminating textbook and a completely reliable self-teaching tool, as well as a handy quick reference. It is an excellent guide for students at any level and an unparalleled resource for design professionals..
Price: $32.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This instructional book approaches the figure organically, showing readers how to observe its basic shapes and subtle nuances through practical exercises and lessons in the art of seeing with a painter's eye.

Step-by-step demonstrations in contour drawing teach how to capture the overall essence of the human form, then lessons in gesture drawing emphasize the body's linear rhythms in various poses. Painting techniques progress from silhouette to three-dimensional forms through clever uses of light, shadow, color, and value..
Price: $7.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Essential LightWave v9 offers an unparalleled development strategy for graphic designers, illustrators, video producers, motion graphic artists, visual effects artists, and animators who are interested in getting the most out of LightWave 3D. As the book touches on nearly every aspect of the software, it is ideal for all skill levels..
Price: $27.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]