SFML Game Development is a fast-paced, step-by-step guide, providing you with all the knowledge and tools you need to create your first game using SFML 2.0.SFML Game Development addresses ambitious C++ programmers who want to develop their own game. If you have plenty of ideas for an awesome and unique game, but don’t know how to start implementing them, then this book is for you. The book assumes no knowledge about SFML or game development, but a solid understanding of C++ is required.

Each recipe comprises step-by-step instructions followed by an analysis of what was done in each task and other useful information. The book is designed so that you can read it chapter by chapter, or look at the list of recipes and refer to them in no particular order. It is packed with useful screenshots to make your learning even easier. This book is written for both beginners and developers who have a basic knowledge of Inkscape. With this book illustrators who have just started using Inkscape can quickly dive into the world of Inkscape and graphics editing. Software developers and web designers can learn how to create graphics for their software on their own or build SVG and other web-based interfaces. Users of other graphics editing applications can find out how Inkscape can be used as an alternative to solve common graphics problems.

Written for beginners to Cacti, this book contains step-by-step instructions and hands-on tutorials for network operators to learn how to implement and use the core Cacti functions. The book is designed in such a way that you can explore it chapter-by-chapter or skip any chapter without missing a beat. If you are a network operator and want to use Cacti for implementing performance measurement for trending, troubleshooting, and reporting purposes, then this book is for you. You only need to know the basics of network management and SNMP.

Over 90 hands-on recipes to help you create digital comics from page setup to exporting the final product About This Book Design creative and custom digital comics with the perfection equivalent of pen-and-paper drawings Explore the latest features from Manga Studio EX 5 such as custom brush effects, layers, masks, 3D objects, panels, and multiple-page story layout A pragmatic manual with engaging recipes and attractive screenshots that make comic creation fun and easy Who This Book Is For This book is intended for competent comic artists working on Manga Studio who want to create more attractive comics by using powerful tools and features from software for digital comic creation. What You Will Learn Create story files and custom pages for any Web or publishing project Customize brushes for special ink effects, hatching and cross-hatching, and much more Work with vector images in Manga Studio EX 5 Use the new Symmetry ruler and the new Line tools to create your illustrations faster and more efficiently Make and save custom screentones, and add them to your comic pages Punch up your illustrations with color palettes and special effects Add 3D models to create or accentuate your comic scenes Finish a project by exporting it for the Web or for a printed collection In Detail Manga Studio is a software application for the digital creation of comics and manga. Manga Studio EX 5 has all the features of Manga Studio 5, professional story creation tools, and other special features that make it the ultimate illustration tool for serious comic, manga, and graphic artists. Made specifically for comic artists and illustrators, it has some of the most powerful digital art creation tools available. From digital perspective rulers to a library of screentones, Manga Studio 5 works for the artist with an intuitive, customizable interface and tools. With Manga Studio EX 5, you can create custom page templates, save commonly used designs, make custom brushes, mimic traditional media, pose 3D objects directly on the art canvas, and export all of your comic pages for print or the Web. The book starts with everything you need to know to set up custom pages for your comic or Manga project. These recipes will take you all the way through to exporting your illustrations for print or to display them on the Web. You will learn how to create custom brushes that you will use for inking, or for repetitive tasks such as drawing foliage or rubble. Next, you will move on to understanding Layer Modes and Layer Masks. Then, you'll learn how to finish up your illustrations with color, screentones, special effects, and 3D objects. Finally, you will be taught to export your hard work and share it with the world, either through the Web or in print. This cookbook will give you just the right recipes to turn on the power of Manga Studio EX 5 and get you creating more illustrations faster and more efficiently. Style and approach An easy-to-follow, and informative book full of recipes that explore real-world topics for the comic creator. Each recipe is explained with detailed steps and interesting screenshots.

This book is an illustrative how-to guide with many screenshots and examples that helps you to create simple to complex tests and assess them using Moodle. It covers effective usage of tools available in Moodle and offers some Moodle options that you may not have tried yet. It will guide you from the basic philosophy of online testing to creating skill-based assessments in Moodle. If you are a tutor or Moodle Administrator who is responsible for developing and evaluating an online test using Moodle, then this book is for you. This book assumes that you have already successfully installed and set up a Moodle site for teaching.

This step-by-step book gives you an empty shell of an AS3 Facebook RIA, and guides you through writing the Facebook interaction code by means of fun examples, exercises, and code snippets.This beginner's guide focuses on getting you through all the major learning points in a smooth, logical order. You'll also see how to avoid some common pitfalls. If you are an AS3 developer who wants to create applications and games that integrate with Facebook – either on the Facebook website itself or off it, then this book is for you. Even if you have no previous experience with Facebook, databases, or server-side programming , you can count on this book.

Packed with practical examples, this book looks at a different aspect of performance tuning in each chapter and shows the reader how to apply them to their existing Java applications. Written to version 5.1, this book also has information about the upcoming 6.0 release and how you can upgrade your existing applications. This book is for Java architects who design and configure Enterprise applications. It is great for Java developers who want to get into the inner details of the application server and of the correct tuning methodology. Application testers will also find this book useful as they will learn how to monitor the performance of the middleware with the correct instruments.

This book is an example-driven introduction to OGRE 3D. Each example shows some new features and you learn step-by-step to create complex scenes with different effects using OGRE 3D. After several examples discussing one topic there is a do-it-yourself part where you will be challenged to solve problems on your own. If you have ever wanted to develop 3D applications with OGRE 3D, this example-driven book will enable you to do so. Understanding of C++ is needed to follow the examples in the book.

Over 90 practical and highly applicable recipes to successfully deploy various OpenStack configurations in productionAbout This BookGet a deep understanding of OpenStack’s internal structure and servicesLearn real-world examples on how to build and configure various production grade use cases for each of OpenStack's servicesUse a step-by-step approach to install and configure OpenStack’s services to provide Compute, Storage, and Networking as a services for cloud workloads Who This Book Is For If you have a basic understanding of Linux and Cloud computing and want to learn about configurations that OpenStack supports, this is the book for you. Knowledge of virtualization and managing Linux environments is expected. Prior knowledge or experience of OpenStack is not required, although beneficial.What You Will LearnPlan an installation of OpenStack with a basic configurationDeploy OpenStack in a highly available configurationConfigure Keystone Identity services with multiple types of identity backendsConfigure Glance Image Store with File, NFS, Swift, or Ceph image backends and use local image cachingDesign Cinder to use a single storage provider such as LVM, Ceph, and NFS backends, or to use multiple storage backends simultaneouslyManage and configure the OpenStack networking backendConfigure OpenStack's compute hypervisor and the instance scheduling mechanismBuild and customize the OpenStack dashboard In Detail OpenStack is the most popular open source cloud platform used by organizations building internal private clouds and by public cloud providers. OpenStack is designed in a fully distributed architecture to provide Infrastructure as a Service, allowing us to maintain a massively scalable cloud infrastructure. OpenStack is developed by a vibrant community of open source developers who come from the largest software companies in the world. The book provides a comprehensive and practical guide to the multiple uses cases and configurations that OpenStack supports. This book simplifies the learning process by guiding you through how to install OpenStack in a single controller configuration. The book goes deeper into deploying OpenStack in a highly available configuration. You’ll then configure Keystone Identity Services using LDAP, Active Directory, or the MySQL identity provider and configure a caching layer and SSL. After that, you will configure storage back-end providers for Glance and Cinder, which will include Ceph, NFS, Swift, and local storage. Then you will configure the Neutron networking service with provider network VLANs, and tenant network VXLAN and GRE. Also, you will configure Nova’s Hypervisor with KVM, and QEMU emulation, and you will configure Nova’s scheduler filters and weights. Finally, you will configure Horizon to use Apache HTTPD and SSL, and you will customize the dashboard’s appearance.Style and approach This book consists of clear, concise instructions coupled with practical and applicable recipes that will enable you to use and implement the latest features of OpenStack.

Become an expert in Bayesian Machine Learning methods using R and apply them to solve real-world big data problemsAbout This BookUnderstand the principles of Bayesian Inference with less mathematical equationsLearn state-of-the art Machine Learning methodsFamiliarize yourself with the recent advances in Deep Learning and Big Data frameworks with this step-by-step guide Who This Book Is For This book is for statisticians, analysts, and data scientists who want to build a Bayes-based system with R and implement it in their day-to-day models and projects. It is mainly intended for Data Scientists and Software Engineers who are involved in the development of Advanced Analytics applications. To understand this book, it would be useful if you have basic knowledge of probability theory and analytics and some familiarity with the programming language R.What You Will LearnSet up the R environmentCreate a classification model to predict and explore discrete variablesGet acquainted with Probability Theory to analyze random eventsBuild Linear Regression modelsUse Bayesian networks to infer the probability distribution of decision variables in a problemModel a problem using Bayesian Linear Regression approach with the R package BLRUse Bayesian Logistic Regression model to classify numerical dataPerform Bayesian Inference on massively large data sets using the MapReduce programs in R and Cloud computing In Detail Bayesian Inference provides a unified framework to deal with all sorts of uncertainties when learning patterns form data using machine learning models and use it for predicting future observations. However, learning and implementing Bayesian models is not easy for data science practitioners due to the level of mathematical treatment involved. Also, applying Bayesian methods to real-world problems requires high computational resources. With the recent advances in computation and several open sources packages available in R, Bayesian modeling has become more feasible to use for practical applications today. Therefore, it would be advantageous for all data scientists and engineers to understand Bayesian methods and apply them in their projects to achieve better results. Learning Bayesian Models with R starts by giving you a comprehensive coverage of the Bayesian Machine Learning models and the R packages that implement them. It begins with an introduction to the fundamentals of probability theory and R programming for those who are new to the subject. Then the book covers some of the important machine learning methods, both supervised and unsupervised learning, implemented using Bayesian Inference and R. Every chapter begins with a theoretical de*ion of the method explained in a very simple manner. Then, relevant R packages are discussed and some illustrations using data sets from the UCI Machine Learning repository are given. Each chapter ends with some simple exercises for you to get hands-on experience of the concepts and R packages discussed in the chapter. The last chapters are devoted to the latest development in the field, specifically Deep Learning, which uses a class of Neural Network models that are currently at the frontier of Artificial Intelligence. The book concludes with the application of Bayesian methods on Big Data using the Hadoop and Spark frameworks.Style and approach The book first gives you a theoretical de*ion of the Bayesian models in simple language, followed by details of its implementation in the R package. Each chapter has illustrations for the use of Bayesian model and the corresponding R package, using data sets from the UCI Machine Learning repository. Each chapter also contains sufficient exercises for you to get more hands-on practice.

Over 90 recipes to help you build and run automated tests for your web applications with Selenium WebDriverAbout This BookLearn to leverage the power of Selenium WebDriver with simple examples that illustrate real-world problems and their workaroundsExplains the testing of mobile applications with Appium for mobile platforms such as iOS and AndroidA pragmatic manual with engaging recipes and attractive screenshots to test your web applications efficiently Who This Book Is For This book is intended for software quality assurance/testing professionals, software project managers, or software developers with prior experience in using Selenium and Java to test web-based applications. This books also provides examples for C#, Python and Ruby users.What You Will LearnUnderstand how the locators work and use various locator methods to build reliable testsBuild reliable and maintainable tests with the Selenium WebDriver APIUse the PageFactory pattern to build a robust and easy to maintain test frameworkBuild data-driven tests and extend Selenium API to implement custom steps and checksIntegrate and use ATDD/BDD tools such as Cucumber, SpecFlow, Capybara, and Behave with the Selenium WebDriver APISet up iPhone/iPad and Android simulators and devices to test your mobile web application with AppiumSet up Selenium Grid for faster and parallel running of tests, increasing test coverage and reducing test execution time for cross-browser testingBuild extended Selenium WebDriver tests for additional coverage In Detail This book is an incremental guide that will help you learn and use the advanced features of the Selenium toolset including the WebDriver API in various situations to build a reliable test automation. You start off by setting up the test development environment and gain tips on the advanced locater strategy and the effective use of the Selenium WebDriver API. After that, the use of design patterns such as data - driven tests and PageFactory are demonstrated. You will then be familiarised with extending Selenium WebDriver API by implementing custom tasks and setting up your own distributed environment to run tests in parallel for cross-browser testing. Finally, we give you some tips on integrating Selenium WebDriver with other popular tools and testing mobile applications. By the end of this book, you will have learned enough to solve complex testing issues on your own.Style and approach This recipe-based guide covers real-life scenarios of testing your web apps with Selenium. Each recipe begins with a short introduction and key concepts along with illustrated examples of use cases, and ends with detailed but informative de*ions of the inner workings of the example.

Navigate the world of data analysis, visualization, and machine learning with over 100 hands-on Scala recipesAbout This BookImplement Scala in your data analysis using features from Spark, Breeze, and ZeppelinScale up your data anlytics infrastructure with practical recipes for Scala machine learningRecipes for every stage of the data analysis process, from reading and collecting data to distributed analytics Who This Book Is For This book shows data scientists and analysts how to leverage their existing knowledge of Scala for quality and scalable data analysis.What You Will LearnFamiliarize and set up the Breeze and Spark libraries and use data structuresImport data from a host of possible sources and create dataframes from CSVClean, validate and transform data using Scala to pre-process numerical and string dataIntegrate quintessential machine learning algorithms using Scala stackBundle and scale up Spark jobs by deploying them into a variety of cluster managersRun streaming and graph analytics in Spark to visualize data, enabling exploratory analysis In Detail This book will introduce you to the most popular Scala tools, libraries, and frameworks through practical recipes around loading, manipulating, and preparing your data. It will also help you explore and make sense of your data using stunning and insightfulvisualizations, and machine learning toolkits. Starting with introductory recipes on utilizing the Breeze and Spark libraries, get to grips withhow to import data from a host of possible sources and how to pre-process numerical, string, and date data. Next, you’ll get an understanding of concepts that will help you visualize data using the Apache Zeppelin and Bokeh bindings in Scala, enabling exploratory data analysis. iscover how to program quintessential machine learning algorithms using Spark ML library. Work through steps to scale your machine learning models and deploy them into a standalone cluster, EC2, YARN, and Mesos. Finally dip into the powerful options presented by Spark Streaming, and machine learning for streaming data, as well as utilizing Spark GraphX.Style and approach This book contains a rich set of recipes that covers the full spectrum of interesting data analysis tasks and will help you revolutionize your data analysis skills using Scala and Spark.

Sharpen your skills in Swift by designing and deploying seven fully functional applicationsAbout This BookDevelop a variety of iOS-compatible applications that range from health and fitness to utilities using this project-based handbookDiscover ways to make the best use of the latest features in Swift to build on a wide array of applicationsFollow step-by-step instructions to create Swift apps oriented for the real world Who This Book Is For If you are a competent iOS developer who wants to develop stunning applications with Swift, then this book is for you. Familiarity with Swift programming is assumed.What You Will LearnGet to grips with the basics of Xcode and Swift for application developmentCreate a Photo Sharing application to capture an image, edit it using different features and share it via social media.Develop applications using the WatchKit and exchange data between iPhone and the WatchUse advanced features such as SpriteKit to build a gameInstall third-party Swift frameworks to improvise on your application developmentDiscover how to simulate home automation with HomeKitBuild an application to monitor the user's weight, heart rate and the number of steps for Health Historic AnalysisManipulate media using AVFoundation framework to merge audio and video. In Detail In this book, you will work through seven different projects to get you hands-on with developing amazing applications for iOS devices. We start off with a project that teaches you how to build a utility app using Swift. Moving on, we cover the concepts behind developing an entertainment or social networking related application, for example, a small application that helps you to share images, audio, and video files from one device to another. You’ll also be guided through create a city information app with customized table views, a reminder app for the Apple Watch, and a game app using SpriteKit. By the end of this book, you will have the required skillset to develop various types of iOS applications with Swift that can run on different iOS devices. You will also be well versed with complex techniques that can be used to enhance the performance of your applications.Style and approach This book takes a step-by-step approach to help you build apps from scratch and learn the methodology to develop real-time applications using Swift.

Learn how to build a complete 3D game using the industry-leading Unity game development engine and Blender, the graphics software that gives life to your ideas About This Book Learn the fundamentals of two powerful tools and put the concepts into practice Find out how to designand buildall the core elements required for a great game - from characters to environments, to props— Learn how to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into your game for sophisticated and engaging gameplay Who This Book Is For This book has been created for anyone who wants to learn how to develop their own game using Blender and Unity, both of which are freely available, yet very popular and powerful, tools. Not only will you be able to master the tools, but you will also learn the entire process of creating a game from the ground up. What You Will Learn Design and create a game concept that will determine how your game will look and how it will be played Construct 3D models of your game characters and create animations for them before importing them into the game Build the game environment from scratch by constructing the terrain and props, and eventually put it all together to form a scene Import and integrate game assets created in Blender into Unity—for example, setting up textures, materials, animation states, and prefabs Develop game structures including a game flow, user interface diagram, game logic, and a state machine Make the game characters move around and perform certain actions either through player inputs or fully controlled by artificial intelligence Create particles and visual effects to enhance the overall visual aesthetic Deploy the game for various types of platforms In Detail In the wake of the indie game development scene, game development tools are no longer luxury items costing up to millions of dollars but are now affordable by smaller teams or even individual developers. Among these cutting-edge applications, Blender and Unity stand out from the crowd as a powerful combination that allows small-to-no budget indie developers or hobbyists alike to develop games that they have always dreamt of creating. Starting from the beginning, this book will cover designing the game concept, constructing the gameplay, creating the characters and environment, implementing game logic and basic artificial intelligence, and finally deploying the game for others to play. By sequentially working through the steps in each chapter, you will quickly master the skills required to develop your dream game from scratch. Style and approach A step-by-step approach with tons of screenshots and sample code for readers to follow and learn from. Each topic is explained sequentially and placed in context so that readers can get a better understanding of every step in the process of creating a fully functional game.

This book has recipes that show enthusiastic users how easy graphic programming can be. Simple explanations in plain English are used. The recipes are built up, in each chapter, starting as simply as possible and moving to more complex programs with which you can comfortably create 2D vector graphics and animations. You will learn how to combine both vector and photo images seamlessly! If you are looking to create animated graphics to represent real-world scenarios then this book is for you. Teachers, scholars, students, and engineers who know it is possible to make fascinating models and demonstrations but have not found a handbook that pulls it all together in one place will find what they need in this recipe bank. Basic knowledge of Python programming is required and access to the Web and Google will be useful.

Written in cookbook style, this book offers solutions to all common theme design problems through recipes. Each recipe contains step-by-step instructions followed by the analysis of what was done in each task and other useful information. The book is designed so that you can read it chapter by chapter, or you can look at the list of recipes and refer to them in no particular order. This book is written for Drupal developers who want to refresh the look and feel of their sites. If you are a Drupal site administrator who is looking to go beyond the basics and customize the presentational aspects of your Drupal site, then this book is for you. It assumes that readers are familiar with rudimentary PHP and acquainted with Drupal installation and general usage. Readers are also expected to have knowledge of CSS and XHTML.

The disorganised array of modules available for Moodle are brought together in ways you can relate to. Reviews include details that will help you decide if a module is worth testing. There are illustrated, step-by-step guides to installing and configuring modules. If you are involved in teaching using Moodle, be it at relatively small institutions running their own Moodle instance, or at large institutions where Moodle is used and administered, or you are an administrator of a Moodle instance who is looking for modules that will be useful to teachers and students at their institution, this book is meant for you.

This book is a step-by-step tutorial that includes complete source code for all of the games covered. It adopts an engaging style to teach all the game development concepts. Each block of code is explained, and game development concepts are diagrammed and covered in detail. Each game begins with a concept de*ion and concludes with suggestions for expanding on the finished game. If you are an aspiring game developer who wants to take a shot at creating games for the Microsoft Windows platform with the XNA Framework, then this book is for you. Using this book, you can get started with creating games without any game development experience. A basic knowledge of C# would be helpful to kick-start your game development, but it's not essential.

This book is written in a hands-on style that actively involves you while you read through its chapters. In every chapter you, along with the author, will be implementing one or more fully working example plugins. The process is accompanied with a detailed step-by-step explanation of the code, at the same time providing you with resources to create your own plugins. If you are a MySQL application developer or a programmer who wants to interface with MySQL server, this book is for you. Basic knowledge of C/C++, SQL, and MySQL in particular is assumed in the book, but no deep familiarity with any of the topics is required.

The book is a tutorial, leading the reader first through the basics of the YUI library before moving on to more complex examples involving the YUI controls and utilities. The book is heavily example driven, and based around an approach of tinkering and extending to improve. This book is for web developers comfortable with JavaScript and CSS, who want to use the YUI library to easily put together rich, responsive web interfaces. No knowledge of the YUI library is presumed.

This book is a concise and practical guide aimed at getting the results you want as quickly as possible. It steers the reader through each point of reporting from setup to *ing, designing, formatting, and deploying BIRT reports using a common example that runs through the book. If you are a Java developer and want to create rich reports using BIRT, then this book is for you. You will need a basic understanding of SQL to follow along.