Tara Button is the CEO and founder of Buymeonce.com. Having worked in advertising for many years and having been a cluttered impulse shopper for all her life, she is now an active campaigner influencing manufacturers to up their game in terms of product longevity and to encourage consumers to buy once and buy well.

From the author of The Madam and The Mother comes a gripping new thriller that will have everyone talking! ‘I absolutely flipping well loved it’ Gingerbookgeek Sometimes you have to take the law into your own hands… DI Laura Jefferson will do whatever it takes to bring down London’s most notorious crime boss. When her team receive a deadly threat – stop their investigation or the police and their families will be targeted – but they aren’t willing to back down… Then the killings begin. A new body is turns up every day, and with no leads, Laura knows she has to take action. Her family is innocent and she’ll stop at nothing to protect them. When someone close to her is hurt, she’ll break every rule in the book to get vengeance.

A forbidden love. A deadly secret. ‘An absorbing, well-researched story that brings to life an extraordinary period in history’ GILL PAUL, bestselling author of The Secret Wife It’s 1943 and Hitler’s Germany is a terrifying place to be. But Magda Ritter’s duty is the most dangerous of all… Assigned to The Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat, she must serve the Reich by becoming the Führer’s ‘Taster’ – a woman who checks his food for poison. Magda can see no way out of this hellish existence until she meets Karl, an SS officer who has formed an underground resistance group within Hitler’s inner circle. As their forbidden love grows, Magda and Karl see an opportunity to stop the atrocities of the madman leading their country. But in doing so, they risk their lives, their families and, above all, a love unlike either of them have ever known… Lose yourself in this sweeping, heroic love story fraught with danger. The perfect read for fans of Dinah Jeffries and Gill Paul.

A charming and evocative tale of family and fortune from the queen of West Country saga, Linda Finlay. Isabella Carrington has been brought up in a life of privilege in London. Her life seems perfect, until her father suddenly announces bankruptcy. To save Isabella from destitution he sends her to stay with family she has never met, far away on a violet farm deep in Devon. Isabella is horrified to find her uncle expects her to work for her keep, packing up the flowers and selling them in the nearby market. However she soon discovers that life on a violet farm may not be so bad, especially when she meets handsome local farmer Felix Furneaux… Perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Katie Flynn.

‘Brilliantly funny, emotional and uplifting’ Miranda Dickinson Heartwarming, hilarious and joyful – the perfect read for anyone who loved Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, A Man Called Ove, Ruth Jones and JoJo Moyes. Evie Gallagher is regretting her hasty move into a care home. She may be seventy-five and recently widowed, but she’s absolutely not dead yet. And so, one morning, Evie walks out of Sheldon Lodge and sets off on a Great Adventure across Europe. But not everyone thinks Great Adventures are appropriate for women of Evie’s age, least of all her son Brendan and his wife Maura, who follow a trail of puzzling text messages to bring her home. When they finally catch up with her, there are shocks in store . . . because while Brendan may have given up on life and love, Evie certainly has not. 'Lovely . . . a book that assures that life is far from over at seventy' Cathy Hopkins, bestselling author of The Kicking the Bucket List ’Brimming with warmth, humour and a love of life . . . a wonderful escapade’ Fiona Gibson, bestselling author of The Woman Who Upped and Left ‘I absolutely loved everything about this book… 5* out of 5*’ The Ginger Book Geek ‘By its end I’d laughed, cringed, felt really concerned, giggled, cried (rather a lot) and emerged into the rosier future with a heart broken, mended, and singing with joy’ Being Anne ‘5 stars! I Loved Evie . . . She has a Passion and Zest for life… I want to go travelling with her! . . . If you read one book that is a little different this month let it be A Grand Old Time! You won't regret It!’ Dash Fan

THE HUNT IS ON When a sniper leaves Ben Hope’s friend fighting for his life, the former SAS major declares war on the men responsible. But what begins as a straightforward revenge mission gets complicated when a mysterious letter reveals Ben to be the real target. And his isn’t the only name on a crazed killer’s list. Professor Anna Manzini has no idea she’s in grave danger from a man she’d thought dead. She’s on the cusp of a major discovery: the location of the lost Babylon idol, a golden statue of immeasurable value. But when word of Anna’s work reaches her enemies, it sets off a cat-and-mouse chase that will lead Ben and Anna halfway across Europe and into the heart of war-torn Syria. To reach the precious idol first, Ben must keep one step ahead of a powerful maniac. If he fails, it won’t just be Ben and Anna’s lives in danger, but the world. BEN HOPE is one of the most celebrated action adventure heroes in British fiction and Scott Mariani is the author of numerous bestsellers. Join the ever-growing legion of readers who get breathless with anticipation when the countdown to the new Ben Hope thriller begins…

Experienced foster carer, Rosie Lewis, takes on the heart-breaking case of Megan, a baby born with a drug addiction and a cleft palate. Addicted to drugs from birth because of her mother’s substance abuse during pregnancy, new-born Megan is taken into Rosie’s loving care. Rosie is supposed to help Megan find her new permanent home, but it turns out that Megan has already found her ‘forever mummy’ in Rosie. Rosie grows incredibly attached to Megan and applies to adopt her, but the system refuses her in favour of a young couple and Rosie is devastated. Against all her instincts, Rosie does her job and prepares Megan for her new ‘forever family’, but everything about Megan leaving feels wrong. When Rosie learns a few months later that Megan’s adoption has broken down, she is saddened but also filled with hope – will this little girl be allowed to return to her true ‘forever home’?

The nail-bitingly tense sequel to THE OUTLIERS by New York Times bestselling author Kimberly McCreight. “Wylie, trust your instincts.” The line goes dead… Wylie may have escaped the isolated camp in the woods, but she is far from safe. The only way to protect herself is to understand her strange abilities as an Outlier, fast. But allowing herself to read other peoples’ emotions isn't just difficult, it's dangerous. And Wylie isn’t the only one at risk. Ever since they returned home, Jasper has been wracked with guilt. He can’t let go of the blame he so desperately feels, especially when someone has been taunting him with reminders of it. Wylie and Jasper would do anything for each other, but is their bond is strong enough to overcome demons from the past? Amid this uncertainty and fear, Wylie is confronted with a choice. She was willing to do whatever it took to help Cassie, but is she prepared to go to the same extremes for complete strangers… even if they are just like her? New York Times bestselling author Kimberly McCreight raises the stakes in the second book of this heart-pounding series about secrets, betrayal and a group of people are blessed – or cursed – with an incredible power.

Build applications and infrastructures that leverage Function-as-a-Service and Docker About This Book ? Implement containerization in Serverless/FaaS environments ? Utilize Docker as a functional unit of work for Serverless/FaaS platforms ? Use Docker as a portable infrastructure for Serverless Applications Who This Book Is For If you are a Developer, a Docker Engineer, a DevOps Engineer, or any stakeholder interested in learning the use of Docker on Serverless environments then this book is for you. What You Will Learn ? Learn what Serverless and FaaS applications are ? Get acquainted with the architectures of three major serverless systems ? Explore how Docker technologies can help develop Serverless applications ? Create and maintain FaaS infrastructures ? Set up Docker infrastructures to serve as on-premises FaaS infrastructures ? Define functions for Serverless applications with Docker containers In Detail Serverless applications have gained a lot of popularity among developers and are currently the buzzwords in the tech market. Docker and serverless are two terms that go hand-in-hand. This book will start by explaining serverless and Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) concepts, and why they are important. Then, it will introduce the concepts of containerization and how Docker fits into the Serverless ideology. It will explore the architectures and components of three major Docker-based FaaS platforms, how to deploy and how to use their CLI. Then, this book will discuss how to set up and operate a production-grade Docker cluster. We will cover all concepts of FaaS frameworks with practical use cases, followed by deploying and orchestrating these serverless systems using Docker. Finally, we will also explore advanced topics and prototypes for FaaS architectures in the last chapter. By the end of this book, you will be in a position to build and deploy your own FaaS platform using Docker. Style and approach A practical guide that offers a simple way to easily understand Serverless Applications utilizing Docker as the development environment.

Building efficient Python applications at minimal cost by adopting serverless architectures About This Book ? Design and set up a data flow between cloud services and custom business logic ? Make your applications efficient and reliable using serverless architecture ? Build and deploy scalable serverless Python APIs Who This Book Is For This book is for Python developers who would like to learn about serverless architecture. Python programming knowledge is assumed. What You Will Learn ? Understand how AWS Lambda and Microsoft Azure Functions work and use them to create an application ? Explore various triggers and how to select them, based on the problem statement ? Build deployment packages for Lambda functions ? Master the finer details about building Lambda functions and versioning ? Log and monitor serverless applications ? Learn about security in AWS and Lambda functions ? Scale up serverless applications to handle huge workloads and serverless distributed systems in production ? Understand SAM model deployment in AWS Lambda In Detail Serverless architectures allow you to build and run applications and services without having to manage the infrastructure. Many companies have adopted this architecture to save cost and improve scalability. This book will help you design serverless architectures for your applications with AWS and Python. The book is divided into three modules. The first module explains the fundamentals of serverless architecture and how AWS lambda functions work. In the next module, you will learn to build, release, and deploy your application to production. You will also learn to log and test your application. In the third module, we will take you through advanced topics such as building a serverless API for your application. You will also learn to troubleshoot and monitor your app and master AWS lambda programming concepts with API references. Moving on, you will also learn how to scale up serverless applications and handle distributed serverless systems in production. By the end of the book, you will be equipped with the knowledge required to build scalable and cost-efficient Python applications with a serverless framework. Style and approach The book takes a pragmatic approach, using a real-world example to demonstrate building efficient, secure, and scalable serverless applications.

‘A sumptuous story.’ Rachel’s Random Reads (top 500 Amazon reviewer) Escape to Tuscany this summer with Karen Aldous’s brilliantly uplifting read. A summer she’ll never forget… When Olivia Montague’s grandmother passes away, she decides it’s finally time to make some changes in her own life. So she breaks up with her ‘going nowhere’ boyfriend and embarks on a journey to her Nonna’s home in Tuscany. Until now, Olivia has always believed that she’s incapable of love, after being abandoned by her parents as a baby. But with each day spent at the gorgeous villa nestled in the rolling Italian hills, she feels her heart begin to flutter… And when handsome antiques dealer Hugh St. James arrives on the scene, she realises things might be about to change forever! Perfect for fans of Jules Wake, Erica James and Cathy Kelly. Praise for Karen Aldous: ‘A sumptuous story…what I love about fiction, being able to travel from my armchair!’ Rachel’s Random Reads (top 500 Amazon reviewer) ‘An uplifting story of hope, self-discovery and love, set amid the stunning Italian vineyards.’ Got Books, Babe? ‘A perfect summer read…set in the beautiful Tuscan countryside.’ Rosemary Smith (NetGalley reviewer) ‘Stunning… perfect for reading while on your own Mediterranean break!’ Pretty Purple Polkadots ‘Gloriously escapist, wonderfully entertaining and absolutely impossible to put down! Sure to appeal to fans of Cathy Kelly and Erica James.’ Bookish Jottings ‘Fascinating, heartwarming, engaging, romantic and utterly compelling.’ Sparkly Words

Develop, deploy, and streamline your data science projects with the most popular end-to-end platform, Anaconda About This Book ? Use Anaconda to find solutions for clustering, classification, and linear regression ? Analyze your data efficiently with the most powerful data science stack ? Use the Anaconda cloud to store, share, and discover projects and libraries Who This Book Is For Hands-On Data Science with Anaconda is for you if you are a developer who is looking for the best tools in the market to perform data science. It’s also ideal for data analysts and data science professionals who want to improve the efficiency of their data science applications by using the best libraries in multiple languages. Basic programming knowledge with R or Python and introductory knowledge of linear algebra is expected. What You Will Learn ? Perform cleaning, sorting, classification, clustering, regression, and dataset modeling using Anaconda ? Use the package manager conda and discover, install, and use functionally efficient and scalable packages ? Get comfortable with heterogeneous data exploration using multiple languages within a project ? Perform distributed computing and use Anaconda Accelerate to optimize computational powers ? Discover and share packages, notebooks, and environments, and use shared project drives on Anaconda Cloud ? Tackle advanced data prediction problems In Detail Anaconda is an open source platform that brings together the best tools for data science professionals with more than 100 popular packages supporting Python, Scala, and R languages. Hands-On Data Science with Anaconda gets you started with Anaconda and demonstrates how you can use it to perform data science operations in the real world. The book begins with setting up the environment for Anaconda platform in order to make it accessible for tools and frameworks such as Jupyter, pandas, matplotlib, Python, R, Julia, and more. You’ll walk through package manager Conda, through which you can automatically manage all packages including cross-language dependencies, and work across Linux, macOS, and Windows. You’ll explore all the essentials of data science and linear algebra to perform data science tasks using packages such as SciPy, contrastive, scikit-learn, Rattle, and Rmixmod. Once you’re accustomed to all this, you’ll start with operations in data science such as cleaning, sorting, and data classification. You’ll move on to learning how to perform tasks such as clustering, regression, prediction, and building machine learning models and optimizing them. In addition to this, you’ll learn how to visualize data using the packages available for Julia, Python, and R. Style and approach This book is your step-by-step guide full of use cases, examples and illustrations to get you well-versed with the concepts of Anaconda.

Optimize the powerful techniques of Java 9 to boost your application's performance About This Book ? Tackle all kinds of performance-related issues and streamline your development ? Dive into the new features of Java 9 ? Implement highly efficient and reliable codes with the help of new APIs of Java ? Embedded with assessments that will help you revise the concepts you have learned in this book Who This Book Is For This book is targeted at developers who would like to build reliable and high-performance applications with Java. What You Will Learn ? Familiarize with modular development and its impact on performance ? Learn various string-related performance improvements, including compact string and modify string concatenation ? Explore various underlying compiler improvements, such as tiered attribution and Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation ? Learn security manager improvements ? Understand enhancements in graphics rasterizers ? Use of command-line tools to speed up application development ? Learn how to implement multithreading and reactive programming ? Build microservices in Java 9 ? Implement APIs to improve application code In Detail Java 9 which is one of the most popular application development languages. The latest released version Java 9 comes with a host of new features and new APIs with lots of ready to use components to build efficient and scalable applications. Streams, parallel and asynchronous processing, multithreading, JSON support, reactive programming, and microservices comprise the hallmark of modern programming and are now fully integrated into the JDK. This book focuses on providing quick, practical solutions to enhance your application's performance. You will explore the new features, APIs, and various tools added in Java 9 that help to speed up the development process. You will learn about jshell, Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation, and the basic threads related topics including sizing and synchronization. You will also explore various strategies for building microservices including container-less, self-contained, and in-container. This book is ideal for developers who would like to build reliable and high-performance applications with Java. This book is embedded with useful assessments that will help you revise the concepts you have learned in this book. Style and approach This book is a fast-paced guide that provides practical solutions to enhance your application’s performance. Note: This book is a blend of text and quizzes, all packaged up keeping your journey in mind. It includes content from the following Packt product: ? Java 9 High Performance by Mayur Ramgir and Nick Samoylov

Learn how to write efficient, clean, and reusable code with Scala About This Book ? Unleash the power of Scala and apply it in the real world to build scalable and robust applications. ? Learn about using and implementing Creational, Structural, Behavioral, and Functional design patterns in Scala ? Learn how to build scalable and extendable applications efficiently Who This Book Is For If you want to increase your understanding of Scala and apply design patterns to real-life application development, then this book is for you.Prior knowledge of Scala language is assumed/ expected. What You Will Learn ? Immerse yourself in industry-standard design patterns—structural, creational, and behavioral—to create extraordinary applications ? See the power of traits and their application in Scala ? Implement abstract and self types and build clean design patterns ? Build complex entity relationships using structural design patterns ? Create applications faster by applying functional design patterns In Detail Design patterns make developers’ lives easier by helping them write great software that is easy to maintain, runs efficiently, and is valuable to the company or people concerned. You’ll learn about the various features of Scala and will be able to apply well-known, industry-proven design patterns in your work. The book starts off by focusing on some of the most interesting and latest features of Scala while using practical real-world examples. We will be learning about IDE’s and Aspect Oriented Programming. We will be looking into different components in Scala. We will also cover the popular "Gang of Four" design patterns and show you how to incorporate functional patterns effectively. The book ends with a practical example that demonstrates how the presented material can be combined in real-life applications. You’ll learn the necessary concepts to build enterprise-grade applications. By the end of this book, you’ll have enough knowledge and understanding to quickly assess problems and come up with elegant solutions. Style and approach The design patterns in the book are explained using real-world, step-by-step examples. For each design pattern, there are tips on when to use it and when to look for something more suitable. This book can also be used as a practical guide, showing you how to leverage design patterns effectively. We've designed the book to be used as a quick reference guide while creating applications.

Build rich and collaborative applications using client-side code with React, Redux, and Firebase About This Book ? A practical guide covering the full stack for web development with React 16 and Firebase ? Leverage the power of Firebase Cloud Storage, messaging, functions, OAuth, and database security to develop serverless web applications. ? Develop high-performance applications without the hassle of setting up complex web infrastructure. Who This Book Is For This book is for JavaScript developers who have some previous knowledge of React and want to develop serverless, full-stack applications but without the hassle of setting up a complex infrastructure. What You Will Learn ? Install powerful React.js and Firebase tools to make development much more efficient ? Create React components with Firebase to save and retrieve the data in real-time ? Use Firebase Authentication to make your React user interface secure ? Develop React and Firebase applications with Redux integration ? Firebase database security rules ? Firebase Cloud Storage Integration to upload and store data on the cloud ? Create a complete real-time application with React and firebase ? Using Firebase Cloud messaging and Cloud functions with React ? Firebase Cloud Storage integration with React In Detail ReactJS is a wonderful framework for UI development. Firebase as a backend with React is a great choice as it is easy, powerful, and provides great developer experience. It removes a lot of boilerplate code from your app and allows you to focus on your app to get it out quickly to users. Firebase with React is also a good choice for Most Viable Product (MVP) development. This book provides more practical insights rather than just theoretical concepts and includes basic to advanced examples – from hello world to a real-time seat booking app and Helpdesk application This book will cover the essentials of Firebase and React.js and will take you on a fast-paced journey through building real-time applications with Firebase features such as Cloud Storage, Cloud Function, Hosting and the Realtime Database. We will learn how to secure our application by using Firebase authentication and database security rules. We will leverage the power of Redux to organize data in the front-end, since Redux attempts to make state mutations predictable by imposing certain restrictions on how and when updates can happen. Towards the end of the book you will have improved your React skills by realizing the potential of Firebase to create real-time serverless web applications. Style and approach Practical insights rather than just theoretical concepts while including basic to advanced examples – from hello world to a real-time seat booking app and Helpdesk application.

Leverage the power of Python and its de facto GUI framework to build highly interactive interfaces About This Book ? The fundamentals of Python and GUI programming with Tkinter. ? Create multiple cross-platform projects by integrating a host of third-party libraries and tools. ? Build beautiful and highly-interactive user interfaces that target multiple devices. Who This Book Is For This book is for beginners to GUI programming who haven’t used Tkinter yet and are eager to start building great-looking and user-friendly GUIs. Prior knowledge of Python programming is expected. What You Will Learn ? Create a scrollable frame via theCanvas widget ? Use the pack geometry manager andFrame widget to control layout ? Learn to choose a data structurefor a game ? Group Tkinter widgets, such asbuttons, canvases, and labels ? Create a highly customizablePython editor ? Design and lay out a chat window In Detail Tkinter is a modular, cross-platform application development toolkit for Python. When developing GUI-rich applications, the most important choices are which programming language(s) and which GUI framework to use. Python and Tkinter prove to be a great combination. This book will get you familiar with Tkinter by having you create fun and interactive projects. These projects have varying degrees of complexity. We'll start with a simple project, where you'll learn the fundamentals of GUI programming and the basics of working with a Tkinter application. After getting the basics right, we'll move on to creating a project of slightly increased complexity, such as a highly customizable Python editor. In the next project, we'll crank up the complexity level to create an instant messaging app. Toward the end, we'll discuss various ways of packaging our applications so that they can be shared and installed on other machines without the user having to learn how to install and run Python programs. Style and approach Step by Step guide with real world examples

本书共有10大主题，包含从校园到职场，从传统到现代的方方面面，80篇文章均为韩国现代社会的真实写照，学习韩语的同时带你一览真实的韩国。 全书采用韩汉对照形式，韩文地道规范，译文准确流畅，并用双语录制，扫书中二维码即可收听。 每一篇文章均配有“核心词汇”和“重语法”，帮助大家在阅读的同时积累更多韩语知识，轻松迎战韩语TOPIK中高级。

This fast-paced guide will quickly enhance your skills to develop a highly scalable Cloud environment About This Book ? Efficiently build a highly scalable and reliable cloud environment for your applications with AWS ? Leverage the various AWS components and services to build a secure, reliable, and robust environment to host your applications on ? This quick-start guide will quickly enhance your skills to develop highly scalable services Who This Book Is For This book is for IT professionals and system administrators looking to design, deploy, and manage your applications and services on the AWS cloud platform. It’s also ideal for developers looking to build highly scalable cloud-based services. A basic understanding of AWS would be beneficial. What You Will Learn ? Find out about IAM to access AWS services securely ? Explore EC2 (virtual server) and scale up/down your application based on heavy traffic ? Learn about unlimited data storage service S3 and host a static website within minutes ? Get to grips with Relational Databases and NoSQL databases under the AWS ecosystem ? Understand the caching mechanism ? Get to know about notifications service and monitor AWS services ? Secure and troubleshoot your AWS architecture In Detail AWS is at the forefront of Cloud Computing today. Businesses are adopting AWS Cloud because of its reliability, versatility, and flexible design. The main focus of this book is teaching you how to build and manage highly reliable and scalable applications and services on AWS. It will provide you with all the necessary skills to design, deploy, and manage your applications and services on the AWS cloud platform. We’ll start by exploring Amazon S3, EC2, and so on to get you well-versed with core Amazon services. Moving on, we’ll teach you how to design and deploy highly scalable and optimized workloads. You’ll also discover easy-to-follow, hands-on steps, tips, and recommendations throughout the book and get to know essential security and troubleshooting concepts. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to create a highly secure, fault tolerant, and scalable environment for your applications to run on. Style and approach This book is all about fast and intensive learning. That means we don’t waste time helping you get started. The new features provided by AWS resources are being covered with highly-effective examples to develop new things, demonstrating different ways to create and use the AWS resources efficiently.

Learn how to execute web application penetration testing end-to-end About This Book ? Build an end-to-end threat model landscape for web application security ? Learn both web application vulnerabilities and web intrusion testing ? Associate network vulnerabilities with a web application infrastructure Who This Book Is For Practical Web Penetration Testing is for you if you are a security professional, penetration tester, or stakeholder who wants to execute penetration testing using the latest and most popular tools. Basic knowledge of ethical hacking would be an added advantage. What You Will Learn ? Learn how to use Burp Suite effectively ? Use Nmap, Metasploit, and more tools for network infrastructure tests ? Practice using all web application hacking tools for intrusion tests using Kali Linux ? Learn how to analyze a web application using application threat modeling ? Know how to conduct web intrusion tests ? Understand how to execute network infrastructure tests ? Master automation of penetration testing functions for maximum efficiency using Python In Detail Companies all over the world want to hire professionals dedicated to application security. Practical Web Penetration Testing focuses on this very trend, teaching you how to conduct application security testing using real-life scenarios. To start with, you’ll set up an environment to perform web application penetration testing. You will then explore different penetration testing concepts such as threat modeling, intrusion test, infrastructure security threat, and more, in combination with advanced concepts such as Python scripting for automation. Once you are done learning the basics, you will discover end-to-end implementation of tools such as Metasploit, Burp Suite, and Kali Linux. Many companies deliver projects into production by using either Agile or Waterfall methodology. This book shows you how to assist any company with their SDLC approach and helps you on your journey to becoming an application security specialist. By the end of this book, you will have hands-on knowledge of using different tools for penetration testing. Style and approach In this book, you will learn and understand the workflow of application security testing. Starting from analysis using threat modeling until the testing phase and before the web project goes into production, you will be able conduct effective penetrating testing using web intrusion tests , network infrastructure tests, and code review.

Bring realism to your games by mastering post-processing effects and advanced shading techniques in Unity 2018 About This Book ? Learn the secrets of creating AAA quality shaders without writing long algorithms ? Master shader programming through easy-to-follow examples ? Create stunning visual effects that can be used in 3D games Who This Book Is For Unity Shaders and Effects Cookbook is for developers who want to create their first shaders in Unity 2018 or wish to take their game to a whole new level by adding professional post-processing effects. A solid understanding of Unity is required to get the most from this book. What You Will Learn ? Understand physically based rendering to fit the aesthetic of your game ? Write shaders from scratch in ShaderLab and HLSL/Cg ? Combine shader programming with interactive scripts to add life to your materials ? Design efficient shaders for mobile platforms without sacrificing their realism ? Use state-of-the-art techniques, such as volumetric explosions and fur shading ? Master the math and algorithms behind the most used lighting models ? Understand how shader models have evolved and how you can create your own In Detail Since their introduction to Unity, shaders have been seen as notoriously difficult to understand and implement in games. Complex mathematics has always stood in the way of creating your own shaders and attaining the level of realism you crave. Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook changes that by giving you a recipe-based guide to creating shaders using Unity. It will show you everything you need to know about vectors, how lighting is constructed with them, and how textures are used to create complex effects without the heavy math. This book starts by teaching you how to use shaders without writing code with the post-processing stack. Then, you’ll learn how to write shaders from scratch, build up essential lighting, and finish by creating stunning screen effects just like those in high-quality 3D and mobile games. You'll discover techniques, such as normal mapping, image-based lighting, and animating your models inside a shader. We'll explore how to use physically based rendering to treat light the way it behaves in the real world. At the end, we’ll even look at Unity 2018’s new Shader Graph system. With this book, what seems like a dark art today will be second nature by tomorrow. Style and approach The recipes in this book contain step-by-step instructions, complemented with screenshots, code, and real-world examples.

Transform games into environments using machine learning and Deep learning with Tensorflow, Keras, and Unity About This Book ? Learn how to apply core machine learning concepts to your games with Unity ? Learn the Fundamentals of Reinforcement Learning and Q-Learning and apply them to your games ? Learn How to build multiple asynchronous agents and run them in a training scenario Who This Book Is For This book is intended for developers with an interest in using Machine learning algorithms to develop better games and simulations with Unity. The reader will be required to have a working knowledge of C# and a basic understanding of Python. What You Will Learn ? Develop Reinforcement and Deep Reinforcement Learning for games. ? Understand complex and advanced concepts of reinforcement learning and neural networks ? Explore various training strategies for cooperative and competitive agent development ? Adapt the basic script components of Academy, Agent, and Brain to be used with Q Learning. ? Enhance the Q Learning model with improved training strategies such as Greedy-Epsilon exploration ? Implement a simple NN with Keras and use it as an external brain in Unity ? Understand how to add LTSM blocks to an existing DQN ? Build multiple asynchronous agents and run them in a training scenario In Detail Unity Machine Learning agents allow researchers and developers to create games and simulations using the Unity Editor, which serves as an environment where intelligent agents can be trained with machine learning methods through a simple-to-use Python API. This book takes you from the basics of Reinforcement and Q Learning to building Deep Recurrent Q-Network agents that cooperate or compete in a multi-agent ecosystem. You will start with the basics of Reinforcement Learning and how to apply it to problems. Then you will learn how to build self-learning advanced neural networks with Python and Keras/TensorFlow. From there you move o n to more advanced training scenarios where you will learn further innovative ways to train your network with A3C, imitation, and curriculum learning models. By the end of the book, you will have learned how to build more complex environments by building a cooperative and competitive multi-agent ecosystem. Style and approach This book focuses on the foundations of ML, RL and DL for building agents in a game or simulation