Real World Adobe Illustrator CS2

Product Details:
Writer: Mordy Golding
Book Name: Real World Adobe Illustrator CS2
Publisher: Peachpit Press
ISBN: 0321337026
URL: http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321337026&rl=1

The Real World Adobe Illustrator CS2 is your perfect guide to Illustrator CS2. It gives you a full coverage of this vector graphic program, supported with illustrations and demonstration figures.
With the easy way the book uses, you will a professional in Illustrator. This book gives you in 12 chapters all you need to work perfectly with Illustrator. The book starts with introducing the program working environment in the first chapter, and goes deeper step by step in later chapters to let you explore and understand the Vector graphic and Illustrator objects and tools.
Also, it covers some new features in the new Illustrator CS2 such as Live Trace, Live Paint …etc.
By the end of the book, you will learn how to get your work out of Illustrator by discussing saving and exporting files form it.

Although this book is for intermediate and advanced level, I recommend this book for beginner too. And Take advantage of its simple easy way to deliver the info.

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

Reviewing Model RIG Animate 3DS Max 7

Have you ever thought in creating 3D character? If so, then you must asked yourself the following questions:

1-     How do I model my character?
2-     How do I enhance my character look with materials?
3-     How do I animate my new character?

These questions form the basic steps to bring your character to life. Michele Bousquet has answered them in his book Model RIG Animate with 3DS Max 7.

The first and the second chapters answer the first two questions about modeling and adding materials to the character. Starting with pre-training on the tools used in modeling and adding materials, Michele goes step by step in his tutorial and applies each tool on the example included in the book CD.

The preparation for animation process is covered well in the third, fourth and fifth chapters. Chapter 3 teaches you how to assign bones for the model. Adding RIGs to the bones process is described in chapter 4. After completing the bones, chapter 5 is concerned with associating the bones with the model, which is known as the skinning.

My favorite topic, animating the model, is covered in the last two chapters. Chapter 7 is concerned with the character modeling, when chapter 8 concentrates on the facial animation.

This book is a must-have reference for animators, designers and teachers who want to deliver the modeling and animation with rigging features in 3DS Max7 in a simple focused way.

Product Details:

Book Name: Model, Rig, Animate with 3ds max 7

ISBN: 0321321782

Reviewing Macromedia Flash 8 Tutorial Guide

The macromedia Flash 8 tutorial guide for Jay Armstrong and Jen deHaan is the official macromedia tutorial guide for Flash 8. This book is a good book for beginners to Flash 8 as it gives simple organized training examples that help understanding the program features.

The book is divided into tasks starting from creating Flash-working file to using dynamic content in the Flash project.

The best advantage in this book is the simplicity in delivering information, as well as the organizing and the developing of the examples.

Product Details:

Macromedia Flash 8: A Tutorial Guide

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy

Reviewing Macromedia Flash 8 Training from the Source

Macromedia Flash professional 8 training from the Source is a member of the training from the source series that lets you learn by example. The book is good for beginners that need to know about Flash. In the beginning, Tom Green and Jordan L. Chilcott introduce Flash interface and walk through the program features with some useful example for better understanding for the program and its features.
For sure, it is not useful if you want to go deeper and more advanced in the program, but it is still a very good start. This book is also a very useful resource for the Flash certification exam beside the study guide.

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy

Product Details:
Macromedia Flash 8 Training from the Source
Publisher: Macromedia Press
ISBN: 0321336291

Reviewing Inside Outside Design

Product Details:
Writer: Malcolm Grear
Book Name: Inside Outside From the Basics to the Practice of Design
Publisher: New Riders Press
ISBN: 0-321-44067-6
URL: http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321440676&rl=1

Actually, I do not find many books like Malcolm book Inside Outside Design, although I think it is very important for computer designer to know how to merge their academic design and visual studies in their work.Malcolm Grear, the writer of this book, has played a vital role in the industry of design by working as a designer and educator for about 48 years. You can find this obvious from the first paper sin the book.The Inside Outside book provides you a practical way to learn how to use the design and visual concept in the design career. It gives you the basic background that helps your mind generate new ideas based on the theories of design and visual communication, such as working with letters and typography.The book includes a lot of images that help delivering the concept described.You can take the easy way in your designs by following the current styles of designs and animations in your work, but this will not give your ideas the excellence. Understanding the ideas in this book will help you create original creative designs.
Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

Reviewing Inside 3ds Max 7

Before I started reading the Inside 3ds Max 7 book, I had read the authors biography. Most of them got a long history with 3ds Max, which makes this book a must-read experience.

The authors described each tool in the program and showed its strength without focusing on a specific production process, which makes this book suitable for all 3ds Max users in many fields.

The Inside 3ds Max 7 is for intermediate and advanced users. So, if you are new with 3ds Max, try to get a basic background before start reading this book to be able to acquire all the experience included in the book. The 3ds Max 7 book gives you a great experience with the program features that make you able to do professional tricks and effects.

The first part of the book shows what is new in 3ds Max 7 concerning each feature. And the following parts go deeper in program features to fully cover the program tools.

The 3ds Max book is a great book and will surely give you a solid experience with the program and its features.

Product Details:

ISBN: 0735713871

Reviewing Flash Professional 8 Beyond The Basics

The Flash Professional 8 Beyond The Basics for Shane Rebenchied is a practice book that includes some useful tutorial for both Flash designers and developers. About 50 step-by-step tutorials cover many needed techniques to create a professional Flash application. Such as, formatting dynamically loaded text using HTML, CSS and nested images, building preloader with the MovieClipLoader class, adding a progressively downloading multi-track MP3 player and using component to create a feed back form.
For the first time I looked at the book index, I felt like the tutorials are not very well organized, but with another deep look, I realized that the tutorials are pinpoint the problems you may face when creating a Flash application in a professional way.
The book also includes a CD-ROM with exercises and training videos. To know more about this book you can visit http://www.peachpit.com/title/0321293878
Product Details:
Reviewing Flash Professional 8 Beyond The Basics
Publisher: Peachpit
ISBN: 0-321-29387-8

Flash Hacks Book Review

Flash MX 2004 creative work depends -in most of it- on tricks and mind digging. However, like other members in the Hack family, Sham Bhangal’s book (Flash Hack) has dug the minds and came up with 100 of the most interesting Flash tricks that are distinguished in a very smart way depending on their type.

In this book, found a group of the tips and tricks for beginner and professional designers and developers. Beginner designers and developers can develop their ability to create their own tricks through reading this book thoroughly, as beside describing his thoughts within each trick topic, Sham has attached at the end of each trick a Final Thoughts part as a conclusion to ensure that the reader has completely grasped his idea.

This book is written by Sham Bhangal and to find more about it you can visit the following link:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/flashhks/index.html

Reviewing Flash 8 Projects for learning Animation and Interactivity

The Flash 8 projects for learning Animation and Interactivity book is a good resource for beginner to learn animation. It takes you step by step using practice examples to teach you basic animation techniques. The title of the book show two issues the first one is learning animation and I think the writer covered this part very well for beginners. The second issue is Learning Interactivity, which is covered along with the animation. The chapter that causes confusion for me is the 13th chapter. As it talks about e-learning in Flash, which is a very big issue that can not covered in one chapter, even for beginners. I think this part needs another book to cover deeply and give the beginner a strong beginning step in the field of e-learning.
Regardless the 13th chapter I see the book focused well and this helps the beginners to grasp the idea of the animation in Flash.

Product Details:Writer: Rich Shupe & Robert Hoekman, Jr.
Book Name: Flash 8 Projects for learning Animation and Interactivity
Publisher: O’Reilly
ISBN: 0-596-10223-2
URL: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/flashprojects/

The Digital Video Hacks Review

The Digital Video Hacks by Joshua Paul gives you a shortcut to produce low cost movies by providing some useful tips and tools hacks for the movie production process.

With this book, you do not need studio expensive equipments to get a professional looking movie. All you need is to look around you for inexpensive tools to help getting your movie a professional look.

Joshua has organized the hacks in this book into eight chapters according to the stages of the video production process.

* The first chapter describes the most important stage to save money and produce a professional looking movie. It is the preparing stage, where you do the planning, storyboarding and organizing your work.
* The lighting related hacks that help create low cost lighting effects are introduced in the second chapter.
* The third chapter is concerning about acquiring your movie, which include hacks about how to shoot you movie and distribute it.
* The fourth chapter introduces hacks to help create high quality output when editing your movie.
* Chapter 5 shows you how to create audio that will grasp the attention of your audience’s eye and ears. This leaves a greater effect than presenting the idea to  the eye only.
* Effects help deliver your message and visualizing your storyboard with interesting way that remains in the mind of your audience. So, the hacks in the sixth chapter are concerning about this interesting part of the movie production process.
* After finishing your movie, the hacks in the seventh chapter help distributing you work with variety of ways such as using the internet, cell phones and pocket pc.
* Joshua finishes his book with some general hacks that are useful in presenting your movie in chapter 8.

Many of us are interested in creating low cost movies. I think this book is good for all who want to create personal movies for memories. It is also good for web designers who want to enhance their web site design with new video media under the limited budget of the web projects. Digital Video Hacks is one of the rare books that cover this kind of video projects.

The Digital Video Hacks Review

ISBN: 0596009461

Reviewing Digital Photography Pocket Guide

Do you remember when you first hold your new digital camera? Have you got this strong desire to take a professional shots for every thing around you and the people around you?

Then, you hold your camera searching for the power button!! And face the fact that you need to know your camera to be able to get your professional shots. However, many people do not know much about their digital camera and its capabilities, losing chances of great shots.

The Digital Photography Pocket Guide, O’reilly’s best selling book, leads you to know your camera starting from its components, features and software features to how to take good shots with your camera.

The first chapter introduces to you the digital camera and its features. The second chapter tells you alphabetically what every button and menu do starting from Aperture Value to Zooming.

The last chapter includes some useful tips and tricks to consider when taking your shots. And in the end of the book, Derrick Story included important indexes about your digital camera

Actually, the secret of the good shots is to consider your camera the extension of you hand that translate your eyes vision and ideas to camera shots. And the first step to achieve this is to know your camera.

This guide is a very useful for both beginners who want to get a new camera or the user that already have a digital camera but do not know much about it.

Product Details:

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy