"It is 1989, a high point of hope in South Africa's political history. The nation is abuzz with rumours of Nelson Mandela's imminent release, the dismantling of guerrilla camps and the possibility of peace. A band of exiled People's Army soldiers returns to South Africa. After years in Angola they think the change they have been fighting for is finally about to become a reality. They have been ordered to carry and deliver a sealed trunk to an unspecified destination. It is a mission that makes them a target as different parties set out to separate the men from the trunk and its mysterious contents, setting the stage for several fierce conflicts. The Texture of Shadows explores a world of hardened guerrilla fighters, corrupt police officers, ex-political prisoners and the victims of abuse of a system of bannings and beatings. But there are also cracks in this steel-edged world that hope, love and beauty can fill as the reader is swept up in the story of Chaplain Nerissa Rodrigues and her fellow soldiers." -- Back cover.

With step-by-step projects that are designed to help sharpen artists' skills and heighten their confidence, this book demonstrates simple techniques for rendering the textures of everyday objects, such as metal, wood, plastic, hair, fur, feathers, and more. This 64-page book simplifies the process with easy-to-understand instructions and comprehensive illustrations.

A broadly enhanced new edition of Luke Ahearn's cornerstone game art book "3D Game Textures" is here. When digital art software was in its infancy, most digital art, especially vector art, was textureless. With the advance in software, it is now possible to incorporate texture into most types of digital art. However, if the artists cannot build their own textures, they are limited to using commercial textures. In this enhanced 3rd edition of Luke Ahearn's gem of a book, not only does Luke teach you how to create your own unique textures, he also teaches how to create shaders (the visual effects - reflections, refractions, opacity - that make textures come to life) and materials (collections of shaders that fill well together to map to a particular scene or environment). You can now expand your skill set immeasurably, and create more compelling, varied art work from scratch. Unlike anything on the market, this book provides an in-depth guide to game textures, shaders and materials- with hundreds of high-quality examples. The companion website includes: demo versions of relevant software; resource images; all images from the book.

Important elements of games, movies, and other computer-generated content, shadows are crucial for enhancing realism and providing important visual cues. In recent years, there have been notable improvements in visual quality and speed, making high-quality realistic real-time shadows a reachable goal. Real-Time Shadows is a comprehensive guide to t

This book contains the proceedings of the 11th Eurographics Workshop on Rendering, which took place from the 26th to the 28th of June, 2000, in Brno, Czech Republic. Over the past 10 years, the Workshop has become the premier forum dedicated to research in rendering. Much of the work in rendering now appearing in other conferences and journals builds on ideas originally presented at the Workshop. This year we received a total of 84 submissions. Bachpaper was carefully reviewed by two of the 25 international programme committee members, as weil as external reviewers, selected by the co-chairs from a pool of 121 individuals (The programme committee and external reviewers are listed following the contents pages). In this review process, all submissions and reviews were handled electronically, with the exception of videos submitted with a few of the papers (however, some mpeg movies were also sent electronically). The overall quality of the submissions was exceptionally high. Space and time constraints forced the committee to make some difficult decisions. In the end, 33 papers were accepted, and they appear here. Almost all papers are accompanied by color images, which appear at the end of the book. The papers treat the following varied topics: radiosity, ray tracing, methods for global illumination, visibility, reftectance, filtering, perception, hardware assisted methods, real time rendering, modeling for effi cient rendering and new image representations.

"Wonderful . . . J. V. Jones is a striking writer." So says Robert Jordan, the author of The Wheel of Time epic fantasy series. And Jones lives up to that praise in the highly charged epic adventure of Ash March and Raif Sevrance, two outcasts whose fate are entwined by ancient prophecies and need, in the cold, dark world that threatens to be torn asunder by a war to end all wars. Isolated by their birthrights, they are but two who fight the dreaded Endlords, and their strength and courage will be needed if the world is to be saved from darkness." Raif, wrongly accused and cut off from his clan by the treachery of their new headsman, has a talent for killing that is part of his curse and his burden. But he bears another burden of greater weight. Ash is a sacred warrior to the Sull, an ancient race whose numbers have declined. Raised as a foundling, never knowing her true history, she must learn to accept the terrible gifts of her heritage. But as Ash learns more of her greater fate, Raif's task looms dark and desperate, for he must journey through the nightmare realm of the Want, a place where even the Sull now fear to tread. For deep within the Want is the Fortress of Grey Ice, and there he must heal the breach in the Blindwall that already threatens the world. Should he fail, not even Ash's powers can save them. . . . At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Brian & Janet Stoppee have incorporated their decades of daily, hands-on expertise at image-making plus their leading seminars and one-on-one training into the most comprehensive guide to photographic lighting available! It's impossible to be successful in photography without a mastery of light. It's the basis of all things photographic. The Stoppees welcome the reader into their professional world with a conversational tone that makes you feel as if you are a member of their team in pre-production planning, out on a shoot, or back at their studio, in post-production. They've packed the book with full color, vibrant images and lighting diagrams that make the technology easy to quickly understand. This compendium of professional know-how shows you how to both manipulate nature's light and create natural-looking illumination with artificial light sources. Whether you're a professional photographer, you use photography in your profession, or you just want your images to look more professional, this book is your resource to creating far superior digital images. You'll gain a greater understanding of: •Light's Properties •Digital Exposure •Optics •Metering •Color •Pre-Production •Adobe Camera Raw •Scanning •Light Modifying Tools •Support Systems •Daylight Fluorescent •HMI •Wireless Battery Flash •Digital Studio Flash •Digital Tablets •Painter •Professional Printing ...and much more, just like the world's top image-makers. The Stoppees' darkroom is all digital, so without this guide to photography and light, you'll be left in the dark ages! * written by best selling authors * everything you need to know about photographic lighting - all in one place! * loaded with stunning full color images * detailed lighting illustrations

The two-volume set LNCS 9279 and 9280 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing, ICIAP 2015, held in Genoa, Italy, in September 2015. The 129 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 231 submissions. The papers are organized in the following seven topical sections: video analysis and understanding, multiview geometry and 3D computer vision, pattern recognition and machine learning, image analysis, detection and recognition, shape analysis and modeling, multimedia, and biomedical applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality, VAMR 2023, held as part of the 25th International Conference, HCI International 2023, in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 2023. The total of 1578 papers and 396 posters included in the HCII 2022 proceedings was carefully reviewed and selected from 7472 submissions. The VAMR 2023 proceedings were organized in the following topical sections: Designing VAMR Applications and Environments; Visualization, Image Rendering and 3D in VAMR; Multimodal Interaction in VAMR; Robots and Avatars in Virtual and Augmented Reality; VAMR in Medicine and Health; VAMR in Aviation; and User Experience in VAMR.