Product Description

This book encompasses the world of 2D and 3D software and game artwork techniques in one volume. It is the perfect stepping stone for the beginning or intermediate game artists entering the gaming industry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #204177 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 720 pages

Customer Reviews

Software Specificity
I would normally not consider writing a review until I had read a book from cover to cover, but in this case, I'll break my rule, in order to issue a warning.

I give this book two stars because it is software-specific, in a very expensive way. In addition to Photoshop (which is industry-standard and no-one can complain about) it requires the use of Right Hemisphere's Deep-UV and Deep Paint 3D (which weigh in at about $1450) and Discreet's 3DS MAX (which costs about $3500-4000).

The book would serve the 3D game-developing community far better were it to introduce and explain concepts in a manner that is applicable cross-application, or to use less expensive tools, for example, Cuneyt Ozdas's Texporter for UV mapping.

As it stands, I am very angry at myself for having bought a book that advertises itself as being a general guide (the title is "2D artwork and 3D modelling for game artists) yet which contains content that will be very difficult to apply without possessing Deep UV, Deep Paint 3D and 3DS MAX.

Good content if you have the softwares
As the others have stated, purchasing these softwares (trueSpace 6, 3ds Max 5, Photoshop 6, DeepUV, DeepPaint3D) is a possible problem. However the content of the book is very good. As a programmer, I've always depended on other artists to produce art material. After reading this book, however, I can now make 3D models well with nice textures, so I'm very pleased about that.

In short, you will learn various tricks to model an object (gun) and a moving character (monster), then produce/manipulate/edit textures, learn about UV texture coordinate system in detail and you paste the textures on the models. You will learn how to use bones in 3ds max, and attach it to the character (so you can hand it over to programmers to animate). This book only tells you the basics of skeletal animation, but it is a good introduction for those of you who have been wondering how 3D artists prepare characters for games. If you already know how to model and apply textures well, or if you want to learn about advanced Skeletal Animation in detail, then this book is too shallow.

Personally, I liked how I can now feel right at home using Photoshop, 3ds Max and trueSpace. I became proficient with most Photoshop tools/filters which I used to avoid before and now I'm freely experimenting with confidence. Knowledge of modelling gained in trueSpace helped me to learn 3ds max in detail, which didn't take long on my own. I actually don't know why the book doesn't teach you to model and configure UV in 3ds Max in the first place, but I suppose it's good to get the hang of learning more than 1 software for the same task.

To summarize: If you don't have problems getting the required software, this is such an excellent all-in-one Introduction to the world of 3D modelling artists (in fact, that should be the title of the book). I'm giving 4 stars instead of 5 because the use of 3ds max in this book is wasteful - if you're going to buy 3ds max, you really ought to use it extensively and this book fails at that (but I guess that would have doubled the book).

Great Content
I have this book in hand and, with the previous comment can only agree that whilst the book covers 3D Studio Max for games, which is in fact fairly expensive, the other programs (Photoshop, DeepUV, Truespace) are not only reasonably priced (~£400 each) but are all WIDELY used in the game industry. The author thoroughly covers these programs in the game art design aspect; I especially was interested in the texturing tutorials which spill well over 100 pages.

Aside from possibly obtaining student editions of software, I believe the author was right on with teaching these programs. Should one find work with a game company, would they use junk or third rate software?? Besides, the techniques covered can easily be applied in the same manner elsewhere.

If you need a primer to art and modeling, including efficient UV mapping, modeling and general game engine preparation, this is the book. Very well done, clear and concise, 5 stars.