Unity 2021 Cookbook. Over 140 recipes to take your Unity game development skills to the next level - Fourth Edition

Matthew Smith, Shaun Ferns, Chris Gregan

If you are a Unity developer looking to explore the newest features of Unity 2021 and recipes for advanced challenges, then this fourth edition of Unity Cookbook is here to help you.With this cookbook, you’ll work through a wide variety of recipes that will help you use the essential features of the Unity game engine to their fullest potential. You familiarize yourself with shaders and Shader Graph before exploring animation features to enhance your skills in building games.As you progress, you will gain insights into Unity's latest editor, which will help you in laying out scenes, tweaking existing apps, and building custom tools for augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) experiences. The book will also guide you through many Unity C# gameplay scripting techniques, teaching you how to communicate with database-driven websites and process XML and JSON data files.By the end of this Unity book, you will have gained a comprehensive understanding of Unity game development and built your development skills. The easy-to-follow recipes will earn a permanent place on your bookshelf for reference and help you build better games that stay true to your vision.

VMware vSphere Troubleshooting. Gain expertise in troubleshooting most common issues to implement vSphere environments with ease

Muhammad Z Munir (USD), Muhammad Zeeshan Munir

VMware vSphere is the leading server virtualization platform with consistent management for virtual data centers. It enhances troubleshooting skills to diagnose and resolve day to day problems in your VMware vSphere infrastructure environment.This book will provide you practical hands-on knowledge of using different performance monitoring and troubleshooting tools to manage and troubleshoot the vSphere infrastructure.It begins by introducing systematic approach for troubleshooting different problems and show casing the troubleshooting techniques. You will be able to use the troubleshooting tools to monitor performance, and troubleshoot issues related to Hosts and Virtual Machines. Moving on, you will troubleshoot High Availability, storage I/O control problems, virtual LANS, and iSCSI, NFS, VMFS issues. By the end of this book, you will be able to analyze and solve advanced issues related to vShpere environment such as vcenter certificates, database problems, and different failed state errors.

Going the Distance with Babylon.js. Building extensible, maintainable, and attractive browser-based interactive applications using JavaScript

Josh Elster, David Catuhe

Babylon.js allows anyone to effortlessly create and render 3D content in a web browser using the power of WebGL and JavaScript. 3D games and apps accessible via the web open numerous opportunities for both entertainment and profit. Developers working with Babylon.js will be able to put their knowledge to work with this guide to building a fully featured 3D game.The book provides a hands-on approach to implementation and associated methodologies that will have you up and running, and productive in no time. Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts, practical examples, and links to fully working self-contained code snippets, you’ll start by learning about Babylon.js and the finished Space-Truckers game. You’ll also explore the development workflows involved in making the game. Focusing on a wide range of features in Babylon.js, you’ll iteratively add pieces of functionality and assets to the application being built. Once you’ve built out the basic game mechanics, you’ll learn how to bring the Space-Truckers environment to life with cut scenes, particle systems, animations, shadows, PBR materials, and more.By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to structure your code, organize your workflow processes, and continuously deploy to a static website/PWA a game limited only by bandwidth and your imagination.

Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender. Kickstart your career as a 3D artist by learning how to create low poly assets and scenes from scratch

Samuel Sullins

Step into the world of low poly 3D art with Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender—your entry point into Blender and mastering the fundamentals of 3D art. This beginner-friendly guide ensures that you’re fully prepared for the creative adventure that follows.Through a step-by-step learning process starting with the principles of low poly art, this book gradually immerses you in the intricacies of modeling. As you progress, you’ll gain hands-on experience creating diverse projects ranging from designing a simple 3D crate to rendering complete low poly scenes. The book covers a wide spectrum of topics as you navigate Blender's interface, mastering essential modeling tools and exploring both basic and advanced modeling techniques. Advancing to the final chapters, you’ll find ways to breathe life into your models with material creation and gain practical insights into modeling a variety of low poly objects. From end-to-end scene construction to configuring Blender for rendering high-quality images, you’ll be equipped with the foundational skills to propel your career in 3D modeling and explore the boundless creative possibilities that Blender offers.By the end of this book, you'll have a solid understanding of Blender, 3D modeling, low poly methodologies, material design, 3D rendering techniques, and the broader world of 3D art.

Learning OpenStack Networking (Neutron). Wield the power of OpenStack Neutron networking to bring network infrastructure and capabilities to your cloud

James Denton

OpenStack Neutron is an OpenStack component that provides networking as a service for other OpenStack services to architect networks and create virtual machines through its API. This API lets you define network connectivity in order to leverage network capabilities to cloud deployments. Through this practical book, you will build a strong foundational knowledge of Neutron, and will architect and build an OpenStack cloud using advanced networking features.We start with an introduction to OpenStack Neutron and its various components, including virtual switching, routing, FWaaS, VPNaaS, and LBaaS. You’ll also get hands-on by installing OpenStack and Neutron and its components, and use agents and plugins to orchestrate network connectivity and build a virtual switching infrastructure.Moving on, you’ll get to grips with the HA routing capabilities utilizing VRRP and distributed virtual routers in Neutron. You’ll also discover load balancing fundamentals, including the difference between nodes, pools, pool members, and virtual IPs. You’ll discover the purpose of security groups and learn how to apply the security concept to your cloud/tenant/instance.Finally, you' ll configure virtual private networks that will allow you to avoid the use of SNAT and floating IPs when connecting to remote networks.

Data Analysis and Business Modeling with Excel 2013. Manage, analyze, and visualize data with Microsoft Excel 2013 to transform raw data into ready to use information

Hernan D Rojas, David Rojas

Learning Concurrent Programming in Scala. Dive into the Scala framework with this programming guide, created to help you learn Scala and to build intricate, modern, scalable concurrent applications

Aleksandar Prokopec

Expert Data Modeling with Power BI. Enrich and optimize your data models to get the best out of Power BI for reporting and business needs - Second Edition

Soheil Bakhshi, Christian Wade

This book is a comprehensive guide to understanding the ins and outs of data modeling and how to create full-fledged data models using Power BI confidently.In this new, fully updated edition, you'll learn how to connect data from multiple sources, understand data, define and manage relationships between data, and shape data models to gain deep and detailed insights about your organization. As you advance through the chapters, the book will demonstrate how to prepare efficient data models in the Power Query Editor and use simpler DAX code with new data modeling features. You'll explore how to use the various data modeling and navigation techniques and perform custom calculations using the modeling features with the help of real-world examples. Finally, you'll learn how to use some new and advanced modeling features to enhance your data models to carry out a wide variety of complex tasks. Additionally, you'll learn valuable best practices and explore common data modeling complications and the solutions to supercharge the process of creating a data model in Power BI and build better-performing data models.By the end of this Power BI book, you'll have gained the skills you need to structure data coming from multiple sources in different ways to create optimized data models that support high-performing reports and data analytics.

Learning Pentaho CTools. Acquire finesse with CTools features and build rich and custom analytics solutions using Pentaho

Miguel Gaspar

Pentaho and CTools are two of the fastest and most rapidly growing tools for practical solutions not found in any other tool available on the market. Using Pentaho allows you to build a complete analytics solution, and CTools brings an advanced flexibility to customizing them in a remarkable way. CTools provides its users with the ability to utilize Web technologies and data visualization concepts, and make the most of best practices to create a huge visual impact.The book starts with the basics of the framework and how to get data to your dashboards. We'll take you all the way through to create your custom and advanced dashboards that will create an effective visual impact and provide the best user experience. You will be given deep insights into the lifecycle of dashboards and the working of various components. Further, you will create a custom dashboard using the Community Dashboards Editor and use datasources to load data on the components. You will also create custom content using Query, the Freeform Addins Popup, and text components. Next, you will make use of widgets to create similar sections and duplicate components to reproduce other components on a dashboard. You will then learn to build a plugin without writing Java code, use Sparkl as a CPK plugin manager, and understand the application of deployment and version control to dashboard development. Finally, you will learn tips and tricks that can be very useful while embedding dashboards into other applications.This guide is an invaluable tutorial if you are planning to use custom and advanced dashboards among the solutions that you are building with Pentaho.

Drupal 10 Development Cookbook. Practical recipes to harness the power of Drupal for building digital experiences and dynamic websites - Third Edition

Matt Glaman, Kevin Quillen

This new and improved third edition cookbook is packed with the latest Drupal 10 features such as a new, flexible default frontend theme - Olivero, and improved administrative experience with a new theme - Claro. This comprehensive recipe book provides updated content on the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing experience, improved core code performance, and code cleanup.Drupal 10 Development Cookbook begins by helping you create and manage a Drupal site. Next, you’ll get acquainted with configuring the content structure and editing content. You’ll also get to grips with all new updates of this edition, such as creating custom pages, accessing and working with entities, running and writing tests with Drupal, migrating external data into Drupal, and turning Drupal into an API platform. As you advance, you’ll learn how to customize Drupal’s features with out-of-the-box modules, contribute extensions, and write custom code to extend Drupal.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to create and manage Drupal sites, customize them to your requirements, and build custom code to deliver your projects.

Real-Time Animation with Adobe Character Animator. Animate characters in real time with webcam, microphone, and custom actions

Chad Troftgruben

Adobe Character Animator is a power app for non-animators that provides easy rigging and easy-to- understand tools that enable you to create entertainment or business videos in no time.This guide to Character Animator gives you a comprehensive overview of the app, helping you learn the entire process—from importing a character designed in Adobe Photoshop to animating a sequence. Complete with background art, multiple character rigs and Character Animator project files, this book will show you how to animate a scene in Character Animator from start to finish.Starting with a character PSD from another artist, you’ll organize and condense the file to prepare it for rigging and animation. From there, you’ll systematically rig the character while exploring advanced behaviors and triggers to animate a complex scene that takes advantage of the app’s best features.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to create appealing animations in Character Animator for any purpose.

Build Stunning Real-time VFX with Unreal Engine 5. Start your journey into Unreal particle systems to create realistic visual effects using Niagara

Hrishikesh Andurlekar

While no game would be complete without visual effects, the ever-evolving VFX industry churns out stellar digital environments that can make your games stand out from the crowd. Build Stunning Real-time VFX with Unreal Engine 5 is here to help you boost your creativity using Niagara to make jaw-dropping particle systems backed by the power of Unreal Engine 5—without a line of code.This handy guide for VFX artists takes you through the principles and concepts of designing particle systems and design workflows, along with the architecture of Niagara, Unreal Engine 5’s VFX system. Throughout the book, you’ll build a series of mini projects that will put your particle system knowledge to the test. As you advance, you’ll cover topics such as creating your own custom modules, debugging workflows, and controlling particles with blueprints, and conclude by working on two projects that will bring everything together into a neat package.By the end of this VFX book, you’ll have a deeper understanding of particle systems, improving your skills, portfolio, and the chances of being employed by studios using Unreal Engine 5.

Oracle WebLogic Server 12c Advanced Administration Cookbook. If you want to extend your capabilities in administering Oracle WebLogic Server, this is the helping hand you’ve been looking for. With 70 recipes covering both basic and advanced topics, it will provide a new level of expertise

Dalton Iwazaki

Getting Started with PowerShell. Learn the fundamentals of PowerShell to build reusable scripts and functions to automate administrative tasks with Windows

Mike Shepard, Sherif Talaat, EDRICK GOAD, Vinith Menon, ...

Mastering Cocos2d Game Development. Master game development with Cocos2d to develop amazing mobile games for iOS

Alex Ogorek

IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale 6

Anthony Chaves

A data grid is a means of combining computing resources. Data grids provide a way to distribute object storage and add capacity on demand in the form of CPU, memory, and network resources from additional servers. All three resource types play an important role in how fast data can be processed, and how much data can be processed at once. WebSphere eXtreme Scale provides a solution to scalability issues through caching and grid technology. Working with a data grid requires new approaches to writing highly scalable software; this book covers both the practical eXtreme Scale libraries and design patterns that will help you build scalable software.Starting with a blank slate, this book assumes you don't have experience with IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale. It is a tutorial-style guide detailing the installation of WebSphere eXtreme Scale right through to using the developer libraries. It covers installation and configuration, and discusses the reasons why a data grid is a viable middleware layer. It also covers many different ways of interacting with objects in eXtreme Scale. It will also show you how to use eXtreme Scale in new projects, and integrate it with relational databases and existing applications.This book covers the ObjectMap, Entity, and Query APIs for interacting with objects in the grid. It shows client/server configurations and interactions, as well as the powerful DataGrid API. DataGrid allows us to send code into the grid, which can be run where the data lives. Equally important are the design patterns that go alongside using a data grid. This book covers the major concepts you need to know that prevent your client application from becoming a performance bottleneck. By the end of the book, you'll be able to write software using the eXtreme Scale APIs, and take advantage of a linearly scalable middleware layer.