Unreal Engine: Game Development from A to Z. Your complete companion to game development in Unreal Engine 4

Nitish Misra, John P. Doran, Joanna Lee

Unreal Engine technology powers hundreds of games. This Learning Path will help you create great 2D and 3D games that are distributed across multiple platforms.The first module, Learning Unreal Engine Game Development, starts with small, simple game ideas and playable projects. It starts by showing you the basics in the context of an individual game level. Then, you'll learn how to add details such as actors, animation, effects, and so on to the game. This module aims to equip you with the confidence and skills to design and build your own games using Unreal Engine 4. By the end of this module, you will be able to put into practise your own content.After getting familiar with Unreal Engine’s core concepts, it’s time that you dive into the field of game development. In this second module, Unreal Engine Game Development Cookbook we show you how to solve development problems using Unreal Engine, which you can work through as you build your own unique project. Every recipe provides step-by-step instructions, with explanations of how these features work, and alternative approaches and research materials so you can learn even more. You will start by building out levels for your game, followed by recipes to help you create environments, place meshes, and implement your characters. By the end of this module, you will see how to create a health bar and main menu, and then get your game ready to be deployed and published.The final step is to create your very own game that will keep mobile users hooked.This is what you'll be learning in our third module, Learning Unreal Engine Android Game Development,Once you get the hang of things, you will start developing our game, wherein you will graduate from movement and character control to AI and spawning. Once you've created your application, you will learn how to port and publish your game to the Google Play Store.With this course, you will be inspired to come up with your own great ideas for your future game development projects.

Hadoop Beginner's Guide. Get your mountain of data under control with Hadoop. This guide requires no prior knowledge of the software or cloud services – just a willingness to learn the basics from this practical step-by-step tutorial

Gerald Turkington, Kevin A. McGrail

Data is arriving faster than you can process it and the overall volumes keep growing at a rate that keeps you awake at night. Hadoop can help you tame the data beast. Effective use of Hadoop however requires a mixture of programming, design, and system administration skills.Hadoop Beginner's Guide removes the mystery from Hadoop, presenting Hadoop and related technologies with a focus on building working systems and getting the job done, using cloud services to do so when it makes sense. From basic concepts and initial setup through developing applications and keeping the system running as the data grows, the book gives the understanding needed to effectively use Hadoop to solve real world problems.Starting with the basics of installing and configuring Hadoop, the book explains how to develop applications, maintain the system, and how to use additional products to integrate with other systems.While learning different ways to develop applications to run on Hadoop the book also covers tools such as Hive, Sqoop, and Flume that show how Hadoop can be integrated with relational databases and log collection.In addition to examples on Hadoop clusters on Ubuntu uses of cloud services such as Amazon, EC2 and Elastic MapReduce are covered.

Mastering Adobe Photoshop Elements 2022. Boost your image-editing skills using the latest Adobe Photoshop Elements tools and techniques - Fourth Edition

Robin Nichols

Managing thousands of images while producing perfectly edited results has now become a must-have skill for bloggers, influencers, all social media users, and photography enthusiasts.Photoshop Elements 2022 has all the right tools to help you manage your growing multimedia assets and significantly boost your creative output.This fourth edition is updated with Elements 2022's latest features, including Adobe's AI-powered tools that perfectly complement its entire creative workflow. Each chapter is designed to help you get the most from your image files in a simple, easy-to-follow way. You'll find out how to add significant visual improvements to your projects using brilliant AI-driven single-click edits or through more complex manual adjustments, all depending on your skill level and requirements. The book is packed with clear instructions to guide you effortlessly through the hundreds of processes, tools, and features in Photoshop Elements 2022. You'll cover everything from developing your organizational skills through to creating remarkable images using photos, text, graphics, downloadable content, animation, and a range of fantastic AI-driven features.By the end of this Photoshop Elements book, you'll have learned how to leverage the impressive tools available in Photoshop Elements 2022 with confidence.

Scalable Data Architecture with Java. Build efficient enterprise-grade data architecting solutions using Java

Sinchan Banerjee

Java architectural patterns and tools help architects to build reliable, scalable, and secure data engineering solutions that collect, manipulate, and publish data.This book will help you make the most of the architecting data solutions available with clear and actionable advice from an expert.You’ll start with an overview of data architecture, exploring responsibilities of a Java data architect, and learning about various data formats, data storage, databases, and data application platforms as well as how to choose them. Next, you’ll understand how to architect a batch and real-time data processing pipeline. You’ll also get to grips with the various Java data processing patterns, before progressing to data security and governance. The later chapters will show you how to publish Data as a Service and how you can architect it. Finally, you’ll focus on how to evaluate and recommend an architecture by developing performance benchmarks, estimations, and various decision metrics.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to successfully orchestrate data architecture solutions using Java and related technologies as well as to evaluate and present the most suitable solution to your clients.

Applied Machine Learning Explainability Techniques. Make ML models explainable and trustworthy for practical applications using LIME, SHAP, and more

Aditya Bhattacharya

Explainable AI (XAI) is an emerging field that brings artificial intelligence (AI) closer to non-technical end users. XAI makes machine learning (ML) models transparent and trustworthy along with promoting AI adoption for industrial and research use cases.Applied Machine Learning Explainability Techniques comes with a unique blend of industrial and academic research perspectives to help you acquire practical XAI skills. You'll begin by gaining a conceptual understanding of XAI and why it's so important in AI. Next, you'll get the practical experience needed to utilize XAI in AI/ML problem-solving processes using state-of-the-art methods and frameworks. Finally, you'll get the essential guidelines needed to take your XAI journey to the next level and bridge the existing gaps between AI and end users.By the end of this ML book, you'll be equipped with best practices in the AI/ML life cycle and will be able to implement XAI methods and approaches using Python to solve industrial problems, successfully addressing key pain points encountered.

Mastering Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy. Master Business Intelligence with Microstrategy 10

Dmitry Anoshin, Himani Rana, Ning Ma, Neil Mehta

Business intelligence is becoming more important by the day, with cloud offerings and mobile devices gaining wider acceptance and achieving better market penetration. MicroStrategy Reporting Suite is an absolute leader in the BI market and offers rich capabilities from basic data visualizations to predictive analytics. It lets you various delivery methods such as the Web, desktops, and mobiles.Using real-world BI scenarios, this book helps you to implement Business Analytics solutions in big e-commerce companies. It kicks off with MicroStrategy 10 features and then covers schema design models and techniques. Building upon your existing knowledge, the book will teach you advanced techniques for building documents and dashboards. It further teaches various graphical techniques for presenting data for analysis using maps, graphs, and advanced charts. Although MicroStrategy has rich functionality, the book will show how to customize it in order to meet your business requirements. You will also become familiar with the native analytical functions that will help you to maximize the impact of BI solutions with powerful predictive analytics. Furthermore, the book will focus on MicroStrategy Mobile Analytics along with data discovery and desktop capabilities such as connecting various data sources and building interactive dashboards. The book will also uncover best practices, troubleshooting techniques for MicroStrategy system administration, and also security and authentication techniques. Lastly, you will learn to use Hadoop for MicroStrategy reporting.By the end of the book, you will become proficient in evaluating any BI software in order to choose the best one that meets all business requirements.

Cracking the Data Science Interview. Unlock insider tips from industry experts to master the data science field

Leondra R. Gonzalez, Aaren Stubberfield, Angela Baltes

The data science job market is saturated with professionals of all backgrounds, including academics, researchers, bootcampers, and Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) graduates. This poses a challenge for companies seeking the best person to fill their roles. At the heart of this selection process is the data science interview, a crucial juncture that determines the best fit for both the candidate and the company.Cracking the Data Science Interview provides expert guidance on approaching the interview process with full preparation and confidence. Starting with an introduction to the modern data science landscape, you’ll find tips on job hunting, resume writing, and creating a top-notch portfolio. You’ll then advance to topics such as Python, SQL databases, Git, and productivity with shell scripting and Bash. Building on this foundation, you'll delve into the fundamentals of statistics, laying the groundwork for pre-modeling concepts, machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI. The book concludes by offering insights into how best to prepare for the intensive data science interview.By the end of this interview guide, you’ll have gained the confidence, business acumen, and technical skills required to distinguish yourself within this competitive landscape and land your next data science job.

Supercharge Your Applications with GraalVM. Hands-on examples to optimize and extend your code using GraalVM's high performance and polyglot capabilities

A B Vijay Kumar

GraalVM is a universal virtual machine that allows programmers to compile and run applications written in both JVM and non-JVM languages. It improves the performance and efficiency of applications, making it an ideal companion for cloud-native or microservices-based applications.This book is a hands-on guide, with step-by-step instructions on how to work with GraalVM. Starting with a quick introduction to the GraalVM architecture and how things work under the hood, you'll discover the performance benefits of running your Java applications on GraalVM. You'll then learn how to create native images and understand how AOT (ahead-of-time) can improve application performance significantly. The book covers examples of building polyglot applications that will help you explore the interoperability between languages running on the same VM. You'll also see how you can use the Truffle framework to implement any language of your choice to run optimally on GraalVM.By the end of this book, you'll not only have learned how GraalVM is beneficial in cloud-native and microservices development but also how to leverage its capabilities to create high-performing polyglot applications.

Internet of Things with Arduino Blueprints. Develop interactive Arduino-based Internet projects with Ethernet and WiFi

Pradeeka Seneviratne

Papervision3D Essentials. Create interactive Papervision 3D applications with stunning effects and powerful animations

Jeff Winder, Carlos Ulloa, Joseph Winder, Paul Tondeur

Papervision3D is a powerful real-time 3D engine for Flash. Papervision3D can take externally created 3D models and render them as Flash content, without requiring end-users to download or install an additional plug-in. It has an outstanding reputation within the Flash community and its ease of use has even impressed experienced 3D game developers. However, getting started with Papervision3D can be daunting and mastering it can be challenging. This book guides you through the easiest way to tackle challenges that you may normally face with Papervision3D and master them effectively.The book will show you how to build Papervision3D applications from scratch in the easiest way, providing plenty of examples that make sense even if you're not a Flash expert. Papervision3D Essentials serves as a comprehensive guide to getting you started, as well as being an invaluable reference for every Papervision3D user and developer. By the end of this book you will be able to create your own projects with real-time 3D rendering.Since the first release of Papervision3D in 2007, the authors have been involved in various commercial projects with Papervision3D, building up a deep understanding of the engine. In Papervision3D Essentials, the authors share their knowledge to help you create stunning 3D content in Flash and teach you how to work with one of the most exciting open-source Flash projects around. Papervision3D Essentials shows you how to download Papervsion3D and make it work in Flash, Flash Builder and Flex Builder. It provides a short introduction to Object Oriented Programming and classes for those who are new to non-timeline programming. Then, it takes a closer look at the engine, discussing a broad range of topics from how to work with built-in 3D objects to using and animating cameras, 3D objects, and light. Applying materials and textures, using filters and effects, particles and performance optimizations are also covered. Ultimately, this book will provide you with the information you need to build your first Papervision3D application. Covering the basics, but by no means limited to beginners, Papervision3D Essentials provides a thorough explanation of the engine and numerous tips and tricks, making it a valuable resource for every Papervision3D user.

Getting Started with UDOO. Become an efficient maker by designing and building amazing prototypes with the UDOO platform and Android

Maurizio Caporali, Emanuele Palazzetti

Actionable Gamification. Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards

Yu-kai Chou

Effective gamification is a combination of game design, game dynamics, user experience, and ROI-driving business implementations. This book explores the interplay between these disciplines and captures the core principles that contribute to a good gamification design.The book starts with an overview of the Octalysis Framework and the 8 Core Drives that can be used to build strategies around the various systems that make games engaging. As the book progresses, each chapter delves deep into a Core Drive, explaining its design and how it should be used. Finally, to apply all the concepts and techniques that you learn throughout, the book contains a brief showcase of using the Octalysis Framework to design a project experience from scratch.After reading this book, you’ll have the knowledge and skills to enable the widespread adoption of good gamification and human-focused design in all types of industries.

Getting Started with NativeScript. Explore the possibility of building truly native, cross-platform mobile applications using your JavaScript skill—NativeScript!

Nathanael J. Anderson

NativeScript allows you to build a fast cross-platform application that has a native UI. NativeScript is a true cross-platform framework that generates native speed applications using the native components of the host platform, all using JavaScript. Although NativeScript allows you to build your application in JavaScript, you have full access to the host OS from your code, allowing you to easily tweak or use new platform features instantly at native code speeds.Whether you have already developed multiple applications or zero applications, this book will help you to develop your next application in a cross-platform framework quickly, saving you a massive amount of time and money.This book concisely shows you NativeScript’s built-in framework that allows you to rapidly develop a fully-working compiled cross-platform application in just a few chapters. It starts by laying the foundation of NativeScript and working through the fundamentals to create a basic shell of the application. Moving on, you’ll see how to build a full-fledged application step by step. We’ll show you how to use plugins, and how to communicate with the native OS libraries easily so that you can customize your application as if your app was created in Java or Objective C. We then deal with the issues that arise from being cross platform and compensate for the different screen sizes, screen resolutions, and device abilities. Finally, we progress to testing and deploying your app.

Mastering Hibernate. Learn how to correctly utilize the most popular Object-Relational Mapping tool for your Enterprise application

Ramin Rad, Koushik Srinivas Kothagal

Hibernate has been so successful since its inception that it even influenced the Java Enterprise Edition specification in that the Java Persistence API was dramatically changed to do it the Hibernate way. Hibernate is the tool that solves the complex problem of Object Relational Mapping. It can be used in both Java Enterprise applications as well as .Net applications. Additionally, it can be used for both SQL and NoSQL data stores.Some developers learn the basics of Hibernate and hit the ground quickly. But when demands go beyond the basics, they take a reactive approach instead of learning the fundamentals and core concepts. However, the secret to success for any good developer is knowing and understanding the tools at your disposal. It’s time to learn about your tool to use it better This book first explores the internals of Hibernate by discussing what occurs inside a Hibernate session and how Entities are managed. Then, we cover core topics such as mapping, querying, caching, and we demonstrate how to use a wide range of very useful annotations. Additionally, you will learn how to create event listeners or interceptors utilizing the improved architecture in the latest version of Hibernate.

Combating Crime on the Dark Web. Learn how to access the dark web safely and not fall victim to cybercrime

Nearchos Nearchou

In today’s world, the crime-prevention landscape is impossible to navigate. The dark web means new frontiers of combat against bad actors that pop up daily. Everyone from narcotics dealers to human traffickers are exploiting the dark web to evade authorities. If you want to find your feet in this tricky terrain and fight crime on the dark web, take this comprehensive, easy-to-follow cyber security guide with you.Combating Crime on the Dark Web contains everything you need to be aware of when tackling the world of the dark web. Step by step, you’ll gain acumen in the tactics that cybercriminals are adopting and be equipped with the arsenal of strategies that are available to you as a cybersecurity specialist.This cyber security book ensures that you are well acquainted with all the latest techniques to combat dark web criminality. After a primer on cybercrime and the history of the dark web, you’ll dive right into the main domains of the dark web ecosystem, reaching a working understanding of how drug markets, child pornography, and human trafficking operate. Once well-versed with the functioning of criminal groups, you’ll be briefed on the most effective tools and methods being employed by law enforcement, tech companies, and others to combat such crimes, developing both a toolkit and a mindset that can help you stay safe from such criminal activities and can be applied in any sector or domain. By the end of this book, you’ll be well prepared to begin your pushback against the criminal elements of the dark web.

SAP HCM - A Complete Tutorial. Deploy and implement the diverse functionalities of SAP HCM

Ganesh Karthik S

Marketing Automation with Mailchimp. Expert tips, techniques, and best practices for scaling marketing strategies and ROI for your business

Margarita J. Caraballo

Are you looking for an all-in-one comprehensive guide to implementing Mailchimp channels and automation for your business? Then Marketing Automation with Mailchimp can be your go-to guide. You’ll start by learning common terms used in the Mailchimp environment, as well as about account setup and audience management for businesses. After that, you’ll find out how to set up channels, where you’ll actively interact with your contacts and begin to add new ones. Additionally, you’ll gain an understanding of how to set up a consistent marketing presence in the form of emails and websites and the benefits of determining a brand identity.You’ll also explore advanced Mailchimp features to optimize platform utilization using analytics, reporting, A/B and multivariate testing, the customer journey builder, and the Mailchimp e-commerce store. Toward the end, you’ll discover some important shopping, payment, and CRM integrations that can be connected to your Mailchimp platform for custom business needs. With this book, you’ll gain insights into real-world use cases to implement a marketing strategy to extend your existing work.By the end of this book, you’ll be well-equipped to implement Mailchimp marketing automation seamlessly into your business to grow your customer base and revenue.

Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico. Build autonomous robots with the versatile low-cost Raspberry Pi Pico controller and Python

Danny Staple

The field of robotics is expanding, and this is the perfect time to learn how to create robots at home for different purposes. This book will help you take your first steps in planning, building, and programming a robot with Raspberry Pi Pico, an impressive controller bursting with I/O capabilities. After a quick tour of Pico, you’ll begin designing a robot chassis in 3D CAD. With easy-to-follow instructions, shopping lists, and plans, you’ll start building the robot. Further, you’ll add simple sensors and outputs to extend the robot, reinforce your design skills, and build your knowledge in programming with CircuitPython. You’ll also learn about interactions with electronics, standard robotics algorithms, and the discipline and process for building robots. Moving forward, you’ll learn how to add more complicated sensors and robotic behaviors, with increasing complexity levels, giving you hands-on experience. You’ll learn about Raspberry Pi Pico’s excellent features, such as PIO, adding capabilities such as avoiding walls, detecting movement, and compass headings. You’ll combine these with Bluetooth BLE for seeing sensor data and remotely controlling your robot with a smartphone. Finally, you’ll program the robot to find its location in an arena.By the end of this book, you’ll have built a robot at home, and be well equipped to build more with different levels of complexity.

Essential Linux Commands. 100 Linux commands every system administrator should know

Paul Olushile

The role of a system administrator is ever-evolving, with the Linux command line at its core. This makes Linux command-line mastery an essential skill to demonstrate your ability to efficiently manage and maintain systems efficiently. Essential Linux Commands addresses a diverse range of topics, including package management, file manipulation, networking strategies, system monitoring, and diagnostic tools. Each command is intricately explained to eliminate any ambiguity, ensuring ease of implementation in real-world scenarios.This book explains how to use SELinux to maintain security, run Linux machines on AWS Cloud, and transfer and download files to remote systems. With the help of practical examples and use cases, you’ll not only gain a thorough understanding of a command’s syntax but also grasp its functional breadth and limitations. The book also explores commands frequently used by system administrators to check network card statistics and firewall rules.Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced administrator, this book is an invaluable resource, filling in the gaps in your skill set and helping you improve your skills and expertise in Linux administration.

Getting Started with Ionic. Get up and running with developing effective Hybrid Mobile Apps with Ionic

Rahat Khanna

Hybrid Apps are a promising choice in mobile app development to achieve cost effectiveness and rapid development. However, they were not preferred over native apps until few years back due to a poor performance and bad user experience, but everything has changed with the release of Ionic. It has evolved as the most popular choice for Hybrid Mobile App development as it tends to match the native experience and provides robust components/tools to build apps.Getting Started with Ionic equips any web developer with the basic knowledge needed to use modern web technologies to build amazing hybrid mobile apps using Ionic. This fast-paced, practical book explains all the important concepts of AngularJS and Cordova Framework required to develop apps, then gives you a brief introduction to hybrid mobile applications. It will guide you through setting up the environment to develop mobile apps, and through the multiple options and features available in Ionic so you can use them in your mobile apps. Features such as the Side Menu, Tabs, Touch Interactions, and native features such as Bar Code, Camera, and Geolocations are all covered.. Finally, we’ll show you how to use Cordova plugins and publish your apps.

Machine Learning for Cybersecurity Cookbook. Over 80 recipes on how to implement machine learning algorithms for building security systems using Python

Emmanuel Tsukerman

Organizations today face a major threat in terms of cybersecurity, from malicious URLs to credential reuse, and having robust security systems can make all the difference. With this book, you'll learn how to use Python libraries such as TensorFlow and scikit-learn to implement the latest artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and handle challenges faced by cybersecurity researchers.You'll begin by exploring various machine learning (ML) techniques and tips for setting up a secure lab environment. Next, you'll implement key ML algorithms such as clustering, gradient boosting, random forest, and XGBoost. The book will guide you through constructing classifiers and features for malware, which you'll train and test on real samples. As you progress, you'll build self-learning, reliant systems to handle cybersecurity tasks such as identifying malicious URLs, spam email detection, intrusion detection, network protection, and tracking user and process behavior. Later, you'll apply generative adversarial networks (GANs) and autoencoders to advanced security tasks. Finally, you'll delve into secure and private AI to protect the privacy rights of consumers using your ML models. By the end of this book, you'll have the skills you need to tackle real-world problems faced in the cybersecurity domain using a recipe-based approach.

Joomla! 1.5 Templates Cookbook. Over 60 simple but incredibly effective recipes for taking control of Joomla! templates

Richard Carter, Chris Davenport

Templates in Joomla! provide a powerful way to make your site look exactly the way you want either using a single template for the entire site or a separate template for each site section. Although it sounds like an easy task to build and maintain templates, it can be challenging to get beyond the basics and customize templates to meet your needs perfectly.Joomla! 1.5 Templates Cookbook consists of a series of self-contained step-by-step recipes that cover everything from common tasks such as changing your site's logo or favicon and altering color schemes, to custom error pages and template overrides. It starts off with the basics of template design and then digs deep into more complex concepts. It will help you make your site more attractive and user-friendly. You will integrate your site with various social media such as Twitter and YouTube; make your site mobile-friendly with the help of recipes for creating and customizing mobile spreadsheets; and use miscellaneous tricks and tips to get the most out of your website. You get all of this in a simple recipe format that guides you quickly through the steps and explains how it all happened.

Hands-On High Performance with Go. Boost and optimize the performance of your Golang applications at scale with resilience

Bob Strecansky

Go is an easy-to-write language that is popular among developers thanks to its features such as concurrency, portability, and ability to reduce complexity. This Golang book will teach you how to construct idiomatic Go code that is reusable and highly performant.Starting with an introduction to performance concepts, you’ll understand the ideology behind Go’s performance. You’ll then learn how to effectively implement Go data structures and algorithms along with exploring data manipulation and organization to write programs for scalable software. This book covers channels and goroutines for parallelism and concurrency to write high-performance code for distributed systems. As you advance, you’ll learn how to manage memory effectively. You’ll explore the compute unified device architecture (CUDA) application programming interface (API), use containers to build Go code, and work with the Go build cache for quicker compilation. You’ll also get to grips with profiling and tracing Go code for detecting bottlenecks in your system. Finally, you’ll evaluate clusters and job queues for performance optimization and monitor the application for performance regression.By the end of this Go programming book, you’ll be able to improve existing code and fulfill customer requirements by writing efficient programs.

Data Ingestion with Python Cookbook. A practical guide to ingesting, monitoring, and identifying errors in the data ingestion process

Gláucia Esppenchutz

Data Ingestion with Python Cookbook offers a practical approach to designing and implementing data ingestion pipelines. It presents real-world examples with the most widely recognized open source tools on the market to answer commonly asked questions and overcome challenges.You’ll be introduced to designing and working with or without data schemas, as well as creating monitored pipelines with Airflow and data observability principles, all while following industry best practices. The book also addresses challenges associated with reading different data sources and data formats. As you progress through the book, you’ll gain a broader understanding of error logging best practices, troubleshooting techniques, data orchestration, monitoring, and storing logs for further consultation.By the end of the book, you’ll have a fully automated set that enables you to start ingesting and monitoring your data pipeline effortlessly, facilitating seamless integration with subsequent stages of the ETL process.