Computer Science *: Game Development

Building Virtual Reality with Unity and Steam VR takes a hands-on approach to getting up and running with virtual reality using the Unity game engine. By utilizing the free SteamVR 2.x libraries, this book and its example code are compatible with the main virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays currently available. This book also looks at some of the main issues surrounding virtual reality, such as motion sickness and performance issues, providing practical ways to reduce their impact to make better VR experiences. Key Features: Discusses some of the key issues facing virtual reality and provides helpful tips for making better VR experiences Practical examples geared to work with any headset compatible with SteamVR, including Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Valve Index.

Learn Unity game development with C# through a series of practical projects ranging from building a simple 2D game to adding AR/VR experiences and machine learning capabilities in a simple yet effective way Key Features Gain a high-level overview of the Unity game engine while building your own games portfolio Discover best practices for implementing game animation, game physics, shaders, and effects Create fully featured apps, including Space shooter and a 2D adventure game, and develop AR/VR experiences and Game AI agents The Unity game engine, used by millions of developers around the world, is popular thanks to its features that enable you to create games and 3D apps for desktop and mobile platforms in no time. With Unity 2020, this state-of-the-art game engine introduces enhancements in Unity tooling, editor, and workflow, among many other additions. The third edition of this Unity book is updated to the new features in Unity 2020 and modern game development practices. Once you've quickly got to grips with the fundamentals of Unity game development, you'll create a collection, a twin-stick shooter, and a 2D adventure game.

This book takes the practicality of other "Gems" series such as "Graphics Gems" and "Game Programming Gems" and provide a quick reference for novice and expert programmers alike to swiftly track down a solution to a task needed for their VR project. Reading the book from cover to cover is not the expected use case, but being familiar with the territory from the Introduction and then jumping to the needed explanations is how the book will mostly be used. Each chapter (other than Introduction) will contain between 5 to 10 "tips", each of which is a self-contained explanation with implementation detail generally demonstrated as pseudo code, or in cases where it makes sense, actual code. Key Features Sections written by veteran virtual reality researchers and developers Usable code snipits that readers can put to immediate use in their own projects. Tips of value both to readers entering the field as well as those looking for solutions that expand their repertoire.

With this book, you will learn user experience design processes and create immersive gameplay experiences designed for entertainment and player comfort. Using the power of Unreal Engine 4's Blueprint visual scripting language, you will build player interaction and locomotion systems from scratch and use these flexible systems to create a sample game, as well as develop functional 2D and 3D user interfaces for players to interact with. And also learn the best practices for creating game art for virtual reality. Finally, you will learn how to test your application with your target audience and finalize your game for distribution.

Google’s new ARCore and Daydream VR platforms enable you to deliver advanced augmented and virtual reality games and apps on a wide spectrum of modern Android devices. Now for the first time, there’s a comprehensive deep dive into both ARCore and Daydream for every Android developer and designer. Multi-award-winning AR/VR developer Sam Keene takes a hands-on approach, leading you through all aspects of the ARCore and Daydream frameworks and SDKs, with step-by-step tutorials and advice for building pro-quality AR/VR games and apps.

A compelling and insightful look at the future of Spatial Computing, and how this cutting-edge technology is changing the way we do business across seven primary industries, and what it means for humanity as a whole. Key Features Discover how Spatial Computing is changing the face of technology Get a roadmap for the disruptions caused by Spatial Computing and how it will affect seven major industries Gain insights about the past, present, and future of technology from the world's leading experts and innovators. What is Spatial Computing and why is everyone from Tesla, Apple, and Facebook investing heavily in it? In The Infinite Retina, authors Irena Cronin and Robert Scoble attempt to answer that question by helping you understand where Spatial Computing ;an augmented reality where humans and machines can interact in a physical spac;came from, where it's going, and why it's so fundamentally different from the computers or mobile phones that came before.

Pokemon Go is not just play--the game has had an impact on public spaces, social circles and technology, suggesting new ways of experiencing our world. This collection of new essays explores what Pokemon Go can tell us about how and why we play. Covering a range of topics from mobile hardware and classroom applications to social conflict and urban planning, the contributors approach Pokemon Go from both practical and theoretical angles, anticipating the impact play will have on our digitally augmented world.

Create a fully featured application that's both sophisticated and engaging. This book provides a detailed guide in developing augmented reality games that can take advantage of the advanced capabilities of new iOS devices and code while also offering compatibility with still supported legacy devices. No programming experience is necessary as this book begins on the ground floor with basic programming concepts in Unity and builds to incorporating input from the real world to create interactive realities. You'll learn to program with the Unity 2017 development platform using C#. Recent announcements of increased AR capabilities on the latest iPhones and iPads show a clear dedication on Apple's part to this emerging market of immersive games and apps. Unity 2017 is the latest version of this industry leading development platform and C# is a ubiquitous programming language perfect for any programmer to begin with.

This book teaches you how to use Unity in order to develop AR applications which can be experienced with devices such as HoloLens and Daydream. You will learn to integrate, animate, and overlay 3D objects on your camera feed, before gradually moving on to implementing sensor-based AR applications. In addition to this, you will explore the technical considerations that are especially important and possibly unique to AR. The projects in the book demonstrate how you can build a variety of AR experiences, whilst also giving insights into C# programming as well as the Unity 3D game engine via the interactive Unity Editor.

An easy-to-understand primer on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are driving the next technological revolution. If you want to get in on the action, this book helps you understand what these technologies are, their history, how they're being used, and how they'll affect consumers both personally and professionally in the very near future. With VR and AR poised to become mainstream within the next few years, an accessible book to bring users up to speed on the subject is sorely needed--and that's where this handy reference comes in! Rather than focusing on a specific piece of hardware (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, iOS ARKit) or software (Unity, Unreal Engine), Virtual & Augmented Reality For Dummies offers a broad look at both VR and AR, giving you a bird's eye view of what you can expect as they continue to take the world by storm.

An examination of free-to-play and mobile games that traces what is valued and what is marginalized in discussions of games. Free-to-play and mobile video games are an important and growing part of the video game industry, and yet they are often disparaged by journalists, designers, and players and pronounced inferior to to games with more traditional payment models. In this book, Christopher Paul shows that underlying the criticism is a bias against these games that stems more from who is making and playing them than how they are monetized. Free-to-play and mobile games appeal to a different kind of player, many of whom are women and many of whom prefer different genres of games than multi-level action-oriented killing fests. It's not a coincidence that some of the few free-to-play games that have been praised by games journalists are League of Legends and World of Tanks.

Do you have an awesome idea for the next break-through mobile gaming title? This updated edition will help you kick-start your project as it guides you through the process of creating several example game apps using APIs available in Android. You will learn the basics needed to join the ranks of successful Android game app developers. the book starts ;with game design fundamentals using Canvas and Android SDK 10 or earlier programming basics. You then will progress toward creating your own basic game engine and playable game apps that work on Android 10 or earlier smartphones and tablets. You take your game through the chapters and topics in the book to learn different tools such as OpenGL ES. And you will learn about publishing and marketing your games to monetize your creation.

A practical guide on how to use Unity for building cross-platform mobile games and Augmented Reality apps using the latest Unity 2020 toolset Key Features Create, deploy, and monetize captivating and immersive games on Android and iOS platforms Take your games into the real world by adding augmented reality features to your mobile projects Kick-start your mobile game development journey with step-by-step instructions and a demo game project Book Description Unity 2020 brings a lot of new features that can be harnessed for building powerful games for popular mobile platforms. This updated second edition delves into Unity development, covering the new features of Unity, modern development practices, and augmented reality (AR) for creating an immersive mobile experience. The book takes a step-by-step approach to building an endless runner game using Unity to help you learn the concepts of mobile game development. This new edition also covers AR features and explains how to implement them using ARCore and ARKit with Unity. The book explores the new mobile notification package and helps you add notifications for your games. You'll learn how to add touch gestures and design UI elements that can be used in both landscape and portrait modes at different resolutions. The book then covers the best ways to monetize your games using Unity Ads and in-app purchases before you learn how to integrate your game with various social networks. Next, using Unity's analytics tools, you'll enhance your game by gaining insights into how players like and use your game. Finally, you'll take your games into the real world by implementing AR capabilities and publishing them on both Android and iOS app stores. By the end of this book, you will have learned Unity tools and techniques and be able to use them to build robust cross-platform mobile games.

Despite its significant growth over the past five years, the mobile and social videogame industry is still maturing at a rapid rate. Due to various storage and visual and sound asset restrictions, mobile and social gaming must have innovative storytelling techniques. Narrative Tactics grants readers practical advice for improving narrative design and game writing for mobile and social games, and helps them rise to the challenge of mobile game storytelling. The first half of the book covers general storytelling techniques, including worldbuilding, character design, dialogue, and quests. In the second half, leading experts in the field explore various genres and types of mobile and social games, including educational games, licensed IP, games for specific demographics, branding games, and free to play (F2P).

The objective of this edited book is to gather best practices in the development and management of mobile apps projects. Mobile Apps Engineering aims to provide software engineering lecturers, students and researchers of mobile computing a starting point for developing successful mobile apps. To achieve these objectives, the book's contributors emphasize the essential concepts of the field, such as apps design, testing and security, with the intention of offering a compact, self-contained book which shall stimulate further research interest in the topic. The editors hope and believe that their efforts in bringing this book together can make mobile apps engineering an independent discipline inspired by traditional software engineering, but taking into account the new challenges posed by mobile computing.