Unity Character Animation with Mecanim. A detailed guide to the complex new animation tools in Unity, packed with clear instructions and illustrated with original content in the context of a next generation zombie apocalypse adventure game

Jamie Dean

Game animation for independent developers has taken a giant leap forward with Unity 5's Mecanim toolset, which streamlines the import/export, retargeting, and many other aspects of the character animation workflow. Unity Character Animation with Mecanim is a great primer for getting to know the nuts and bolts of Mecanim and other character animation related tools in Unity 5. It offers you step-by-step instructions for preparing and exporting rigged models and animation sequences from commonly used 3D packages, such as Maya, 3ds Max and Blender.This book explores the new set of animation tools introduced with Mecanim in Unity 5. Approaching its subject matter through a typical genre–a zombie action game, character animation techniques are explored using real examples of player input and interaction, enemy behavior, and other aspects of game dynamics. As the book progresses, the reader will understand how these elements fit together in a small game development workflow.We will begin with a demonstration of the process of getting a rigged character into Unity 5 and setting it up to use provided animation sequences. We will also consider a few industry standard 3D packages and how these can be used to rig a humanoid character for use in Unity 5. We will demonstrate the retargeting capabilities of Mecanim’s Humanoid Animation type by adjusting motion sequences to fit disparate character types in our game. After this, we will look at Ragdoll physics and the implementation of this commonly used technique in a Mecanim workflow. The book culminates with a thorough dissection of the enemy character AI script incorporating the Mecanim elements detailed in the previous chapters.Unity Character Animation with Mecanim will provide you with a detailed exploration of the interaction between game development and character animation, and will broaden your understanding of the rich animation toolset within Unity 5

Spring Boot and Angular. Hands-on full stack web development with Java, Spring, and Angular

Devlin Basilan Duldulao, Seiji Ralph Villafranca

Angular makes building applications with the web easy and Spring Boot helps get an application up and running using just a few lines of code and minimal configuration. This book provides insights into building full-stack apps using Angular and Spring Boot effectively to reduce overall development time and increase efficiency.You'll start by setting up your CI/CD pipeline and then build your web application’s backend guided by best practices. You'll then see how Spring Boot allows you to build applications faster and more efficiently by letting the Spring Framework and Spring Boot extension do the heavy lifting. The book demonstrates how to use Spring Data JPA and add its dependencies along with Postgres dependencies in the project to save or persist a user's data in a database for future use. As you advance, you'll see how to write tests and test a service using Mockito. Finally, you'll create a CI workflow or pipeline for a Spring Boot and Angular application to enable operations to deliver quality applications faster.By the end of this Spring Boot and Angular book, you'll be able to build a full-stack web application and deploy it through continuous integration and continuous deployment.

Swift Data Structure and Algorithms. Implement Swift structures and algorithms natively

Erik Azar, Mario Eguiluz Alebicto

Apple’s Swift language has expressive features that are familiar to those working with modern functional languages, but also provides backward support for Objective-C and Apple’s legacy frameworks. These features are attracting many new developers to start creating applications for OS X and iOS using Swift. Designing an application to scale while processing large amounts of data or provide fast and efficient searching can be complex, especially running on mobile devices with limited memory and bandwidth. Learning about best practices and knowing how to select the best data structure and algorithm in Swift is crucial to the success of your application and will help ensure your application is a success. That’s what this book will teach you.Starting at the beginning, this book will cover the basic data structures and Swift types, and introduce asymptotic analysis. You’ll learn about the standard library collections and bridging between Swift and Objective-C collections. You will see how to implement advanced data structures, sort algorithms, work with trees, advanced searching methods, use graphs, and performance and algorithm efficiency. You’ll also see how to choose the perfect algorithm for your problem.

Salesforce DevOps for Architects. Discover tools and techniques to optimize the delivery of your Salesforce projects

Rob Cowell, Lars Malmqvist

Rob Cowell is a Salesforce DevOps Advocate with extensive experience as a Salesforce Developer and Architect, guiding best practices for Salesforce DevOps. Lars Malmqvist, a 32x certified Salesforce CTA, has 15 years of experience building advanced Salesforce solutions and is the author of two books, Architecting AI Solutions on Salesforce and Salesforce Anti-Patterns. As the Salesforce Platform evolves, architects face increasing demand for advanced solutions. This book serves as your definitive guide to mastering effective DevOps practices crucial for successful Salesforce projects. Beginning with cultivating a DevOps mindset focused on collaboration and communication, it emphasizes governance, visibility, and accountability. You'll delve into tools and techniques, leveraging the robust capabilities of SFDX to craft your strategy efficiently. This book stands out for its practical approach to Salesforce packaging and CI/CD stack creation, guiding you to build a seamless automated change delivery system with freely available software. It addresses critical operational concerns such as ticket management, backups, change monitoring, and data seeding. In the final chapters, you'll discover third-party solutions to expedite your Salesforce DevOps journey, empowering you to deliver sophisticated and efficient projects.

Natural Language Processing with Python. Master text processing, language modeling, and NLP applications with Python's powerful tools

Cuantum Technologies LLC

Embark on a comprehensive journey to master natural language processing (NLP) with Python. Begin with foundational concepts like text preprocessing, tokenization, and key Python libraries such as NLTK, spaCy, and TextBlob. Explore the challenges of text data and gain hands-on experience in cleaning, tokenizing, and building basic NLP pipelines. Early chapters provide practical exercises to solidify your understanding of essential techniques.Advance to sophisticated topics like feature engineering using Bag of Words, TF-IDF, and embeddings like Word2Vec and BERT. Delve into language modeling with RNNs, syntax parsing, and sentiment analysis, learning to apply these techniques in real-world scenarios. Chapters on topic modeling and text summarization equip you to extract insights from data, while transformer-based models like BERT take your skills to the next level. Each concept is paired with Python-based examples, ensuring practical mastery.The final chapters focus on real-world projects, such as developing chatbots, sentiment analysis dashboards, and news aggregators. These hands-on applications challenge you to design, train, and deploy robust NLP solutions. With its structured approach and practical focus, this book equips you to confidently tackle real-world NLP challenges and innovate in the field.

Building Python Microservices with FastAPI. Build secure, scalable, and structured Python microservices from design concepts to infrastructure

Sherwin John C. Tragura

FastAPI is an Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface (ASGI)-based framework that can help build modern, manageable, and fast microservices. Because of its asynchronous core platform, this ASGI-based framework provides the best option when it comes to performance, reliability, and scalability over the WSGI-based Django and Flask. When working with Python, Flask, and Django microservices, you’ll be able to put your knowledge to work with this practical guide to building seamlessly manageable and fast microservices.You’ll begin by understanding the background of FastAPI and learning how to install, configure, and use FastAPI to decompose business units. You’ll explore a unique and asynchronous REST API framework that can provide a better option when it comes to building microservices. After that, this book will guide you on how to apply and translate microservices design patterns in building various microservices applications and RESTful APIs using the FastAPI framework.By the end of this microservices book, you’ll be able to understand, build, deploy, test, and experiment with microservices and their components using the FastAPI framework.

SwiftUI Cookbook. A guide for building beautiful and interactive SwiftUI apps - Third Edition

Juan C. Catalan

SwiftUI is the modern way to build user interfaces for iOS, macOS, and watchOS. It provides a declarative and intuitive way to create beautiful and interactive user interfaces. The new edition of this comprehensive cookbook includes a fully updated repository for SwiftUI 5, iOS 17, Xcode 15, and Swift 5.9. With this arsenal, it teaches you everything you need to know to build beautiful and interactive user interfaces with SwiftUI 5, from the basics to advanced topics like custom modifiers, animations, and state management.In this new edition, you will dive into the world of creating powerful data visualizations with a new chapter on Swift Charts and how to seamlessly integrate charts into your SwiftUI apps. Further, you will be able to unleash your creativity with advanced controls, including multi-column tables and two-dimensional layouts. You can explore new modifiers for text, images, and shapes that give you more control over the appearance of your views.You will learn how to develop apps for multiple platforms, including iOS, macOS, watchOS, and more.With expert insights, real-world examples, and a recipe-based approach, you’ll be equipped to build remarkable SwiftUI apps that stand out in today’s competitive market.

Instant Redis Optimization How-to. Learn how to tune and optimize Redis for high performance

Arun Chinnachamy

The database is the backbone of any application and Redis is a next generation NoSQL database which can provide ultra-fast performance if tuned and calibrated correctly. Instant Redis Optimization How-to will show you how to leverage Redis in your application for greater performance and scalability. Instant Redis Optimization How-to will show you how to make the most of Redis. Using real-world examples of Redis as a caching and queuing service, you will learn how to install and calibrate Redis to optimize memory usage, read and write speed, as well as bulk writes and transactions. If you want to use Redis for its blazing fast capabilities, then this book is for you.Instant Redis Optimization How-to shows you how to optimize and scale Redis with practical recipes on installation and calibration for performance and memory optimization as well as advanced features like PUB/SUB.This book starts by providing clear instructions on how to install and fine-tune Redis to work efficiently in your application stack. You will also learn how to maintain persistence, how to optimize Redis to handle different data types, as well as memory usage optimization. You will then learn how to use bulk writes and transactions, as well as publish/subscribe features to get the most out of Redis.Offering best practices and troubleshooting tips, this book will also show you how to manage and maintain performance. This book finishes by recommending the best client libraries for all major programming languages. By the end of this book you will know how to create blazing fast applications using Redis.