Tag: ligaz11

Mesmer Press publishes Maya Illuminated: Games

The third book in a series designed for educators and individuals

Seattle-April 5, 2001-Mesmer, Inc. (http://www.mesmer.com) announced today that it has completed production on its third computer animation training book, Maya Illuminated: Games, by author and animator Lane Daughtry.

Mesmer designed the ‘Illuminated’ series for people learning 3D Animation on their own, at work, or in a school setting. A complement to the book, ‘MayaGamesTeacherAide.PDF’ is available to educators and instructors free of charge, and provides lesson plans, chapter overviews, quizzes and more to help teachers make the most of Maya in the classroom.

“Demand for this material is high,” said Brian Demong, Production Manager at Mesmer and Editor of the book. “We’re very excited about it. Making video games is a fun topic, Maya is a superb tool for the job, and it was great to work with an awesome artist and teacher like Lane [Daughtry, the author].”

Maya Illuminated: Games covers the entire Maya polygon toolset, beginner to advanced low-polygon modeling, the UV mapping toolset and techniques, specific animation and character setup concerns for games, environment design, and much, much more. Maya Illuminated: Games also contains 8 easy-to-follow tutorials and scores of short exercises designed to teach core concepts and demonstrate proper workflow.

You can preview and purchase the new Mesmer Press book Maya Illuminated: Ligaz11 Games, ISBN#0-9707530-1-2, at http://www.mesmer.com/books/mayagames.html as well as on www.amazon.com and www.journeyed.com.

Mesmer, Inc. is the leading 3D Animation high-tech training company providing essential information and learning services to the entire 3D technology spectrum-the builders, sellers and users of technology worldwide. With its portfolio of classroom training, physical books and courseware, online learning, on-site corporate training and a 3D user community deployed across the world wide internet, Mesmer is uniquely positioned …

There seem to be differences of opinion on the origin of Poker. Moreover, there seems to be no clear or direct early ancestor of the game. It is more likely that Poker derived its present day form from elements of many different games. The consensus is that because of it’s basic principal, its birth is a very old one.

Jonathan H. Green makes one of the earliest written references to Poker in 1834. In his writing, Green mentions rules to what he called the “cheating game,” which was then being played on Mississippi riverboats. He soon realized that his was the first such reference to the game, and since it was not mentioned in the current American Hoyle, he chose to call the game Poker.

The game he described was played with 20 cards, using only the aces, kings, queens, jacks and tens. Two to four people could play, and each was dealt five cards. By the time Green wrote about it, poker had become the number one cheating game on the Mississippi boats, receiving even more action than Three-Card Monte. Most people taken by Three-Card Monte thought the 20-card poker seemed more a legitimate game, and they came back time and time again. It would certainly appear, then, that Poker was developed by the cardsharps.

The origin of the word Poker is also well debated. Most of the dictionaries and game historians say that it comes from an eighteenth-century French game, poque. However, there are other references to pochspiel, which is a German ligaz11 game. In pochspiel, there is an element of bluffing, where players would indicate whether they wanted to pass or open by rapping on the table and saying, “Ich Poche!” Some say it may even have derived come the Hindu word, pukka.

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