Game Magic : A Designer's Guide to Magic Systems in Theory and Practice

Make More Immersive and Engaging Magic Systems in GamesGame Magic: A Designer‘s Guide to Magic Systems in Theory and Practice explains how to construct magic systems and presents a compendium of arcane lore, encompassing the theory, history, and structure of magic systems in games and human belief. The author combines rigorous scholarly analysis with practical game design advice in the form of a magical recipe book (grimoire).The book gives you an in-depth understanding of the history and structure of magic to make your games richer and deeper. It shows how to set up tables of correspondences and spell components as well as how to write programming code integrating these components as part of game mechanics. It also illustrates how to divide a simulated world into domains of influence (such as alteration, conjuration, and necromancy) and how to use specific rule systems to simulate powers within these realms.Showing you how to weave compelling magic into your games, the book is interspersed with examples that illustrate how to design and program magic systems. Working examples are available for download on a supporting website.

Just add talent!Award-winning animator Tony White brings you the ultimate book for digital animation. Here you will find the classic knowledge of many legendary techniques revealed, paired with information relevant to today''s capable, state-of-the-art technologies.White leaves nothing out. What contemporary digital animators most need to know can be found between this book''s covers - from conceptions to creation and through the many stages of the production pipeline to distribution. This book is intended to serve as your one-stop how-to animation guide. Whether you''re new to animation or a very experienced digital animator, here you''ll find fundamentals, key classical techniques, and professional advice that will strengthen your work and well-roundedness as an animator.Speaking from experience, White presents time-honored secrets of professional animaton with a warm, masterly, and knowledgeable approach that has evolved from over 30 years as an award-winning animator/director.The book''s enclosed CD-Rom presents classic moments from animation''s history through White''s personal homage to traditional drawn animation, "Endangered Species." Using movie clips and still images from the film, White shares the ''making of'' journal of the film, detailing each step, with scene-by-scene descriptions, technique by technique. Look for the repetitive stress disorder guide on the CD-Rom, called, "Mega-hurts." Watch the many movie clips for insights into the versatility that a traditional, pencil-drawn approach to animaton can offer.