Today’s game audiences expect Hollywood-quality cinematography. But to produce this quality in games, programmers need to understand the traditional film principles of lighting, camera positioning, and motion. Unlike movies, games provide non-linear, interactive storytelling, so to use film and T.V. techniques effectively, the techniques need to be modified for games. Real-Time Cinematography for Games provides this translation by teaching programmers and artists how to incorporate tried-and-true filmmaking techniques into their games. Beginning with an overview of filmmaking and cinematography basics, the book teaches how to tell a compelling story using camera placement based on character and environment. It explains how to handle a camera for panning, zooming, and cradle movement, and it details how to program these techniques into your games through code examples. From there, camera lenses and methods for achieving a variety of effects with software cameras are explored. Hands-on examples illustrate the importance of good lighting and how to handle transitions to new lighting arrangements. The next part of the book covers the essential areas of filters, sound effects, interactive music, movement, and dialog, including coverage of current voice recognition technology. The book wraps up with coverage of directing essentials. Programmers will find the entire book extremely useful, and designers and artists will find the large amount of creative uses of filmmaking techniques invaluable. Every chapter is written with two major parts: creative and technical. The creative section looks into the techniques and practices of the film industry and teaches how artists and designers can use these techniques in games. The technical sections then explain how to implement these techniques into games through practical code and equations. The technical sections require knowledge of basic programming and computer graphics concepts. This is the one resource programm

Today’s game audiences expect Hollywood-quality cinematography. But to produce this quality in games, programmers need to understand the traditional film principles of lighting, camera positioning, and motion. Unlike movies, games provide non-linear, interactive storytelling, so to use film and T.V. techniques effectively, the techniques need to be modified for games.

Real-Time Cinematography for Games provides this translation by teaching programmers and artists how to incorporate tried-and-true filmmaking techniques into their games. Beginning with an overview of filmmaking and cinematography basics, the book teaches how to tell a compelling story using camera placement based on character and environment. It explains how to handle a camera for panning, zooming, and cradle movement, and it details how to program these techniques into your games through code examples. From there, camera lenses and methods for achieving a variety of effects with software cameras are explored. Hands-on examples illustrate the importance of good lighting and how to handle transitions to new lighting arrangements. The next part of the book covers the essential areas of filters, sound effects, interactive music, movement, and dialog, including coverage of current voice recognition technology. The book wraps up with coverage of directing essentials.

Programmers will find the entire book extremely useful, and designers and artists will find the large amount of creative uses of filmmaking techniques invaluable. Every chapter is written with two major parts: creative and technical. The creative section looks into the techniques and practices of the film industry and teaches how artists and designers can use these techniques in games. The technical sections then explain how to implement these techniques into games through practical code and equations. The technical sections require knowledge of basic programming and computer graphics concepts. This is the one resource programmers and designers need to ensure that they are producing Hollywood-quality graphics that will keep your players coming back for more!

TOPICS COVERED:
* Cinematography—Position
* Cinematography—Motion
* Acting—Dialogue
* Acting—Hitting the Mark
* Cinematography—Lenses
* Foley Artist—Sound Effects
* Lighting—Reality versus Hollywood
* Editing—Filters and Effects
* Composing—Making Music
* Editing—Transitions
* Editing—Selection
* Directing

Key Features
* Presents traditional film techniques adapted for use in games
* Provides practical code examples that can be easily implemented
* Includes an extensive color insert illustrating the techniques covered
* Focuses on the concepts of cinematographic lighting to improve real-time lighting
* Integrates coverage of graphics, editing, sound, and artificial intelligence
* Includes insightful interviews with leading professionals in the film industry
* Includes a companion Web site with all the source code for the examples in the book, new code, videos, and other useful tools covered in the book

A very disappointing and vague book for the game developer

This book is OK at discussing real-time cinematography techniques in general. It is not good at all at tying it into something that can be incorporated into games. There are no algorithms, no mention of what specific software packages or scripting languages to use for specific techniques, and absolutely no math. Every time the book gets to a point where it would need to get into details, it just refers you to some other book. Usually, it’s a different book every time, so to follow the author’s directions you would wind up with an armful of books besides this one. Thus, this book is really just an introductory novel on the theme of real-time cinematography with the "for Games" thrown into the title to hook the game programmer/developer into purchasing it. The problem is, there really isn’t a great book on this topic, although "Digital Lighting and Rendering" by Birn comes close. For a book on image processing with more of a mathematical touch you could look at "Digital Image Processing with Application to Digital Cinema", although that book doesn’t get into real-time issues or games at all.

How to translate programming techniques into effective games

Modern game player expect high-tech cinematography in their games, which demands game programmers understand the basics of lighting, camera positioning, and more. If it’s a brush-up on the basics and insights into how programmer translates into high-quality real-time gaming which is needed, then Brian Hawkins’ Real-time Cinematography For Games is your ticket. Hawkins is well versed in using scripted character animation and game development routines: his expertise translates to technical discussions which explain how to translate programming techniques into effective games. Programmers who have basic programming and graphics concepts down already will find Real-Time Cinematography takes the next step.