Paula Berinstein

Game Development Tool Essentials provides must-have tips and tricks from industry professionals for strengthening and streamlining your game tools pipeline. Everyone knows the game tools pipeline is important, but in the current environment of shrinking budgets and increased time pressure, developers often have to settle for inefficient, ad hoc, messy pipelines. This unique book will break you out of that cycle. The practical, expert insights contained within will enable you to work faster and more efficiently, so you can spend more time making cool things. Game Development Tool Essentials pools the knowledge and experience of working developers over four critical aspects of the game tools pipeline: asset and data management, geometry and models, Web tools, and programming. Within those sections, you will learn cutting-edge techniques on essential subjects such as COLLADA rendering, exporting and workflow; asset management and compiler architecture; and moving tools to the cloud. If you’re a game developer, you need Game Development Tool Essentials.Covers readily available tools and tools developers can build themselves.Presents 96 code samples, 81 illustrations, and end-of-chapter references.Special chapter on moving tools to the cloud.

What would you do if you suddenly found yourself mistress of an 18th-century plantation?Esther Rubens is looking forward to getting to know her new community in South Carolina and repairing her troubled marriage. But as soon as she arrives in Charleston her life begins to diverge from the idyllic picture in her mind. Her physicist husband, Melvin, is arrested for driving while black, she inherits a strange English property from a cousin she didn't know existed, and she learns that her great-grandmother Sophie, a brilliant scientist kidnapped by the Nazis, discovered the secret of time travel of all things.Intrigued by Sophie's cryptic journal Melvin begins to experiment with time travel, but his anger at the police makes him careless. The process backfires, killing him and throwing Esther back to 1750. Attacked by an unknown assailant the moment she arrives, she seeks protection at an indigo plantation belonging to a dashing planter with a dangerous secret, negotiating a deal that guarantees her safety. But she soon realizes she's made a terrible mistake. What she discovers on the plantation is far more horrific than anything she could have imagined.Overwhelmed, she attempts to flee just as the planter's mysterious, handsome brother arrives from England seeking refuge-and offering an opportunity that's too compelling to turn down. But can he be trusted? And are the two of them strong enough to vanquish the evil that's pervading the lowlands? Only time will tell.The first title in the Indigo series.

Beware of making promises to Sherlock Holmes . . .After promising Sherlock Holmes he'd look after his descendants, accidental time traveler Nick Muffet discovers he's spoken too soon: from his vantage point in the twenty-first century he can find no trace of Holmes's child with the cunning actress Irene Adler. His only option is to return to the past and look for himself.But time travel is risky and Nick fears he might inadvertently cause a disaster. Still, a promise is a promise. Against his better judgment he commandeers Simon Binkle's time machine and returns to 1890. Unfortunately his search for the elusive offspring leads nowhere and he becomes increasingly desperate. At a loss, he realizes there's only one strategy left to him, and it's fraught with peril. He must seek out Adler herself.Securing a job at the theater where she's appearing, Nick finds himself in the perfect position to observe the actress. But Adler is not the type to make things easy, and his distance is soon compromised. That's just the beginning of his problems though. It seems Adler is involved in much more than just acting, and Nick is in far more trouble than he ever imagined.

Diving for lost jewelry on the bottom of her sparkling pool leads Anna to a fanciful new world of dancing fish, blue-eyed monkeys, and talking bears. But she soon discovers that all is not well in this magical land. The Great Worm of the North is in trouble, and no one can figure out how to save him from the cheese eagles and blue bears that are threatening him and his people.But Anna is not about to let the Worm perish. Accompanied by a monkey named Poppy and a horse named Anton, she travels north to save him, barely making it past a slippery bananasaurus, a testy cactus, and a bear so dense it can't figure out how to tell a knock knock joke. When she arrives at the Worm's palace, however, his enemies have already materialized and the worms are on the verge of defeat. Can Anna save them, or is it too late?The cover for this book was designed by thirteen-year-old Angelina Reyes.

When a cyber attack on the detectives causes a glitch in Simon Binkle's history machine, Amanda and Nick are thrown back to Victorian London where they must confront a huge black shadow monster that's been terrorizing the city. Suspecting that it may have something to do with Professor Moriarty, they gain entry to a high society ball they believe he's targeting.Young, attractive, and vivacious they're the hit of the ball and no one suspects who they really are.But then the hostess is murdered and Amanda is arrested by none other than her great-great grandfather, Inspector Lestrade, who is convinced of her guilt.Now, alone in the 19th century, Nick finds himself powerless to save her unless he can pull off a miracle: find a way to enlist the help of the one man he fears, Sherlock Holmes. But Success is by no means guaranteed: Holmes is asking a price that might just be too high for him to pay.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse . . . A teacher has gone rogue, Nick's sister is in danger, and Holmes is missing. The last thing the detectives need is another problem. But now a secret warning involving a mysterious green monkey has come to light and Amanda must investigate. Too bad she won't get the chance to discover what it means. Just as she begins to make progress the Moriarty brothers re-emerge, and they're mad, bad, and unstoppable. They're also coming for her.

A discussion of conventional energy and energy issues is followed by an overview of the American alternative energy industry in historical, technological, economic, regulatory, environmental, and political contexts.

The Statistical Handbook on Technology is the first easy-to-use resource to provide the general reader with comprehensive statistical information on how technology affects all areas of our lives. More than 250 charts, tables, and graphs are featured, making it easy for users to quickly find answers to such questions as: How has the number of ATM transactions per month grown since 1988? What percentage of U.S. public libraries offers access to the Internet? How many CD players have been sold in the U.S. since 1983? What is the most prescribed drug? What is the average age of the U.S. aviation fleet? Each of the book's 13 chapters includes a short essay introducing the topic and describing the statistics that follow. The Handbook also provides insightful forecasts, information that is normally difficult to find.