Unreal Engine 4 Shaders and Effects Cookbook. Over 70 recipes for mastering post-processing effects and advanced shading techniques

Brais Brenlla Ramos, John P. Doran

Unreal Engine 4 is a powerful game engine, one which has seen a recent boost in widespread adoption thanks to its ease of use and the powerful rendering pipeline that it packs. Seeing as how it's relatively easy to create stunning presentations and visuals, Unreal has quickly become a strong contender in industries where this kind of software had been previously denied entry.With that in mind, this book aims to help you get the most out of Unreal Engine 4 - from creating awe-inspiring graphics to delivering optimized experiences to your users. This is possible thanks to a mixture of hands-on experience with real materials and the theory behind them. You will immediately know how to create that material that you want to display, and you'll also end up with the knowledge that will let you know how to control it.All of this will be done without losing sight of two key components of any real-time application - optimization, and efficiency. The materials that you create will be light and efficient, and they will vary depending on your target platform. You'll know which techniques can be used in any kind of device and which ones should be kept to high-end machines, giving you the confidence to tackle any material-related task that you can imagine. Hop onboard and discover how!

Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design. Take your AuotoCAD design skills to the next dimension by creating powerful 3D models

JOAO ANTONIO C DOS SANTOS

AutoCAD is a computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. AutoCAD supports both 2D and 3D formats. AutoCAD is used in a range of industries and is utilized by architects, project managers, and engineers, among others.Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design will take you beyond the 2D frontier and help you create accurate 3D models that simulate reality. This book is crammed full of creative and practical tutorials which will help you master the third dimension. From exercises on coordinate systems to creating solids and surfaces from 2D, you will wonder how you ever designed without this resource by your side.Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design is full of hands-on studies and projects that will help develop your 3D skills. Starting from the assumption of only a very basic knowledge of AutoCAD, this book will help you master 3D visualization and coordinate systems, create 3D models from 2D drawings, and from basic shapes, measure volumes, and other information, obtain 2D construction drawings from 3D models as well as how to apply lights and materials to get photorealistic images.

FL Studio Cookbook. The lofi, retrowave, and horror music chef's guide to FL Studio music production

Chris Rena

Whether it's overcoming creative blocks, troubleshooting technical issues, or refining your workflow, every budding producer faces challenges. The FL Studio Cookbook is here to provide practical solutions to common problems, empowering you to navigate any obstacle with ease by exploring one of the most renowned, industry-standard DAWs.The recipe-based approach of this book means that you’ll unlock the secrets of crafting captivating melodies and learn the art of composition with practical, step-by-step instructions, discovering how to construct melodies that evoke emotion and leave a lasting impression. From chord progressions to counterpoint, you’ll get actionable insights to help you compose music that resonates with your audience. You’ll also master the intricacies of mixing and mastering, by familiarizing yourself with the entire process from balancing levels and sculpting sounds to applying effects. You’ll also explore the endless possibilities of sculpting sound from scratch, whether you're crafting custom synths, designing unique textures, or layering effects to create otherworldly sounds.By the end of this book, you'll have acquired the skills to confidently craft professional-quality lofi, retrowave, and horror music tracks, gaining the expertise to express your musical vision and take your music production to new heights.

Instant OpenCV for iOS. Learn how to build real-time computer vision applications for the iOS platform using the OpenCV library

Kirill Kornyakov, Aleksander Shishkov

Computer vision on mobile devices is becoming more and more popular. Personal gadgets are now powerful enough to process high-resolution images, stitch panoramas, and detect and track objects. OpenCV, with its decent performance and wide range of functionality, can be an extremely useful tool in the hands of iOS developers.Instant OpenCV for iOS is a practical guide that walks you through every important step for building a computer vision application for the iOS platform. It will help you to port your OpenCV code, profile and optimize it, and wrap it into a GUI application. Each recipe is accompanied by a sample project or an example that helps you focus on a particular aspect of the technology.Instant OpenCV for iOS starts by creating a simple iOS application and linking OpenCV before moving on to processing images and videos in real-time. It covers the major ways to retrieve images, process them, and view or export results. Special attention is also given to performance issues, as they greatly affect the user experience.Several computer vision projects will be considered throughout the book. These include a couple of photo filters that help you to print a postcard or add a retro effect to your images. Another one is a demonstration of the facial feature detection algorithm. In several time-critical cases, the processing speed is measured and optimized using ARM NEON and the Accelerate framework.OpenCV for iOS gives you all the information you need to build a high-performance computer vision application for iOS devices.

SQL Server 2014 Development Essentials. Design, implement, and deliver a successful database solution with Microsoft SQL Server 2014

Basit A. Masood-Al-Farooq

Taking SketchUp Pro to the Next Level. Go beyond the basics and develop custom 3D modeling workflows to become a SketchUp ninja

Anyone who’s worked with it will know that SketchUp is the quickest and easiest way to create 3D models. While its approachable interface makes it super easy to learn, this book will show you how the extremely capable SketchUp software can take you far beyond what you may have initially thought possible. Get ready to level up from a basic user to becoming a SketchUp ninja!Each chapter will take you through the capabilities of SketchUp, challenging you to use tools in innovative ways. This includes organizing your model, modifying native commands, customizing your interface, utilizing inferencing, and much more. Additionally, you’ll learn about the extensions that can be added to SketchUp to supplement the tools you have been using, allowing you to make your 3D modeling process quicker, easier, and more powerful.By the end of this SketchUp book, you’ll have an enhanced understanding of how to use the impressive range of tools and be on your way to customizing SketchUp for your one-of-a-kind workflow.

Apache Flume: Distributed Log Collection for Hadoop. If your role includes moving datasets into Hadoop, this book will help you do it more efficiently using Apache Flume. From installation to customization, it's a complete step-by-step guide on making the service work for you

Steve Hoffman, Steven Hoffman, Kevin A. McGrail

Apache Flume is a distributed, reliable, and available service for efficiently collecting, aggregating, and moving large amounts of log data. Its main goal is to deliver data from applications to Apache Hadoop's HDFS. It has a simple and flexible architecture based on streaming data flows. It is robust and fault tolerant with many failover and recovery mechanisms.Apache Flume: Distributed Log Collection for Hadoop covers problems with HDFS and streaming data/logs, and how Flume can resolve these problems. This book explains the generalized architecture of Flume, which includes moving data to/from databases, NO-SQL-ish data stores, as well as optimizing performance. This book includes real-world scenarios on Flume implementation.Apache Flume: Distributed Log Collection for Hadoop starts with an architectural overview of Flume and then discusses each component in detail. It guides you through the complete installation process and compilation of Flume.It will give you a heads-up on how to use channels and channel selectors. For each architectural component (Sources, Channels, Sinks, Channel Processors, Sink Groups, and so on) the various implementations will be covered in detail along with configuration options. You can use it to customize Flume to your specific needs. There are pointers given on writing custom implementations as well that would help you learn and implement them.By the end, you should be able to construct a series of Flume agents to transport your streaming data and logs from your systems into Hadoop in near real time.

Distributed Machine Learning with Python. Accelerating model training and serving with distributed systems

Guanhua Wang

Reducing time cost in machine learning leads to a shorter waiting time for model training and a faster model updating cycle. Distributed machine learning enables machine learning practitioners to shorten model training and inference time by orders of magnitude. With the help of this practical guide, you'll be able to put your Python development knowledge to work to get up and running with the implementation of distributed machine learning, including multi-node machine learning systems, in no time. You'll begin by exploring how distributed systems work in the machine learning area and how distributed machine learning is applied to state-of-the-art deep learning models. As you advance, you'll see how to use distributed systems to enhance machine learning model training and serving speed. You'll also get to grips with applying data parallel and model parallel approaches before optimizing the in-parallel model training and serving pipeline in local clusters or cloud environments. By the end of this book, you'll have gained the knowledge and skills needed to build and deploy an efficient data processing pipeline for machine learning model training and inference in a distributed manner.