Game Design Books

If you are a freelance professional or a student of 3D you are going to find this book very useful. Every year I have to review several books to try to find a teaching tool that is clear and concise. This book hit the spot.

The book fills two vital needs. Not only will you learn to use the color and lighting tools in your program, but if you need to get up to speed on the other software packages that are covered, this book is the answer. The book covers Maya, 3D Studio Max and Lightwave!

If you work for various clients you will find this is a great reference to help get going regardless of software used in most of the production studios you would encounter. If you are a student or have just graduated, this is a wonderful tool to keep handy and help convert from one package to another, fast. There is just enough background or theory to let you understand what you are doing with the tools, as well as actual useful examples that reinforce the instructions in the book. But, wait, that is not enough, what I really appreciate, is that Mr. Summers actually talks about the "Gotchas" and traps that seem to be inherent in all 3D packages. These are the little undocumented software "features" that usually take hours or days of experimentation, e-mails to colleagues, or digging through the underbelly of the internet, to uncover or understand.

Now two things that bother me about the book, and hence the four stars instead of five, are the name of the book and the errors found in it. Now, the errors are all minor and I never found an error that was so bad as to make a lesson unusable (like I have found in so many other books and online tutorials), but I would believe that by now publishers should be able to find good technical editors. Which leads me to the title.

The title just does not do justice to the material. There is so much more in the book then just texturing. I find the book more of a good instructional manual or reference for color and lighting in general. For example, in one lesson Mr. Summers covers not only how to use and make layered textures, but also how to create and control displacement maps and backgrounds, without being overwhelming, dryly technical, or worse, confusingly abbreviated, like so many online tutorials.

The book is not a guide on how to paint textures, there are plenty of... well I call them "efforts" to cover that arena. I suggest you find a way to carefully review those books if that is what you are after. Instead, Mr. Summers has provided a way to form that mental map of the software that will allow you to use it or learn it effectively. In today's fast paced job market and in the everchanging academic environment, this could be the edge you need to succeed.

I love to paint textures, so I looked forward to this book. I just want to straighten that out for texture artists.

This book has a lot of theory on mapping, shaders, procedurals maps and so on. But no information on painting textures. If you are looking for a more theoretic reader on this subject rather than an artistic book, then it might be of use to you. As such I guess programmers would also benefit in part from it.

The funny thing about this book with TEXTURING across the cover is that it seems to cover everything *except* what I'd consider texturing. It has a really good discussion on basic art design principles, then extensive coverage of lighting, color, materials, shaders, and even UV mapping, but nothing on actually creating textures!

In any case, I still recommend this book. All the materials it does cover it covers well. There are really nice color pictures throughout the book, which really helps given the topics.

One thing to note though is that after presenting some topic, the book generally tells you how to accomplish that in Max, Maya, and Lightwave. If you use one or more of those tools, then great, if not, then I think the discussion will still be useful, but obviously you'll get a little less out of it then those who do use those tools.

If you can only have one book on texturing/shading this is the book you would want. As a teacher I look for information on how to do things but more importantly, why. This is an amazing book with depth and breadth to suit the novice, the adept and the expert. You will discover the roots of the science and art of texturing in addition to the how-to.

I haven't had this book very long, so I can't provide an in depth review of it... I will say that while the written information seems very well laid out and useful- the author does assume you will purchase the "Application Skills Module" book & accompanying CD in order to complete the activities at the end of each chapter. I cannot find these additional materials and am very frustrated with my apparent need for them. Considering how much I spent on this book, I think it should include everything I need to work through it. I will hobble my way through- for the text is certainly worthwhile, but I do feel as though I'm missing out on a huge part of the experience I was expecting and paid for.

Typographic design in the Digital Studio by David A. Amdur is a valuable resource for teaching and learning. I am a full time professor of graphic design and find the book to be helpful in that it offers me interesting projects for my course syllabi, quiz resources, exercise assessment criteria and demonstration files for teaching and learning. There is also a companion Application Skills Book that includes QuickTime movies demonstrating software, exercise resources, and type specimens. In short this is an excellent resource for both teacher and student and I found it to be very organized and user friendly.

Every year more colleges seem to be dropping dedicated typography courses, leaving it up to those of us who teach computer applications to beef up that extremely important component of our curriculum. This book enhances the digital aspects of type instruction and use, increasing its value compared to the raft of otherwise fine titles out there that are not medium-specific. The structure is intelligent, rational, and obviously written by a teacher for teachers, but college students (and precocious high-schoolers) who recognize the importance of typography will find this an ideal vehicle for self-guided study.

I got the workbook and companion dvd, too.

The adoption of this new text is top priority for my next meeting with my department head. Help is here for design teachers needing to merge type study into computer classes!

I am using this book and workbook not as a graphic designer but as an artist and writer who often needs to produce well-designed print presentations. It's a text that welcomes you into it; the introduction, a history of printing and type design, is fascinating, lucid, and thorough, but never descends into mere specialist obsession. The lessons cover both sides of type design: why printed pages look and work the way they do; and how to make them look and work the way they should. I'm finding it both easy to use (even though I'm not in a classroom, but using it on my own) and really illuminating.

This book would be a great intro text for a type design or graphic design course, but also (and this is a real rarity) an excellent tool for working artists and writers and other professionals who need to do handsome presentations. To top it off, it's even suffused with a charming sense of humor.

I'm very happy to have found it.

Has Artificial Intelligence just become a catchall phrase for any advanced algorithmic programming? Because if you peruse this book, you may consider some methods it describes as just being sophisticated algorithms, and not necessarily anything to do with AI per se.

Ok, let us not try to get bogged down into semantics. The book does have many nice, state of the art (2004) methods for handling diverse problems arising in game coding. For example, the section on speech recognition is quite well done. The main thing to take away from that section is that you need to restrict the problem so that the range of possible user responses is limited. Which may not necessarily be what that author intended. But from your point of view of easier and more robust coding, this is the pragmatic way to use speech recognition.

Of course, an AI purist might argue that what I have just suggested is not really AI. I agree. I use the speech recognition as just one example. You may derive the greatest benefit from this book if you deprecate the AI aspect and just see what methods you can usefully cull. Always remember that true AI is really hard. You are writing games. NOT research. Leave that to others.

All of the books in the Game Programming Gems and AI Wisdom series have been quite useful to me as a game programmer. AI Game Programming Wisdom 2 is a continuation of the Charles River Media series devoted to gaming issues. As with the rest of the series the articles are of varying lengths and detail. Many of the articles simply reference other articles in the series rather than basic or classic works in AI. So, this series is less useful as a bibliographic source. The topics covered in the articles are usually short and written at a high-level, but nonetheless very interesting and worth further research. And therein lies some of the frustration. It is often difficult to find more information about a particular subject since most of the references simply refer to articles in other books in the series, which are themselves are rather vague.

AI Game Programming Wisdom 2 is structured very much the same as the first book in the series. The articles are broken into similar sections, with the addition of a new section on finite-state-machines and splitting the section on learning into two. Having already covered the A* algorithm, its various optimizations, and navigation meshes in the previous books those topics are virtually absent here (though they may be buried as a secondary topic in some of the path-finding articles). I thought that the series had exhausted discussion of finite-state machines, but the editors managed to include a couple of interesting articles. The demand for more realistic AI behavior in character-based games in growing. And while a full simulation of emotions and human characteristics is unteneable, at the moment, there are some interesting ideas in the Learning section of the book e.g. "Motivational Graphs: A New Architecture for Complex Behavior Simulation.".

I can't say that this book is indispensible from an implementation perspective. Most of the articles are simply too vague - though there are notable exceptions throughout the entire series of books. What I found most useful in these articles was that they stimulated thought and helped to generate discussion among the programmers and designers at work.

Honestly, I just had to submit a review to comment on this line from a reviewer of this book. "Ok, let us not try to get bogged down into semantics." What the heck does this mean? I think he/she meant, "Okay, let us not get bogged down in semantics."
What else is wrong with this reviewer's reading/writing skills that contributed to their negative review of this book? If you can't write clearly...

This book is from the sleeper hit game Darkwatch.
There is talk of a new game being created but nothing 100% at this time.

While playing this game I fell in love with the artwork which has a unique blend of Western, Gothic and a touch of Victorian.

Packed with 175 pages you will see the early development of an almost Lucky Luke cartoon western to this more contemporary dark design.

The books structure is as follows conceptual sketches, rough art, final art, this is performed with every character and then moves into environments and vehicles.

There are no in game screen shots, no cg images only beautiful hand drawn and hand rendered artwork.

This is a great book for someone into building their skills in character development or just using this as a reference book.

It's a shame this game didn't get the attention it deserved, I am amazed this book was even available.

If you like the game you will love this book, if you are a 3D modeller you will use this as a great resource.

I've continued to enjoy books of film and video game conceptual art and, upon finding out that a book of art from Darkwatch had come out, I had to check it out. While I wasn't expecially a fan of the game itself, I loved the concept behind it (cowboys fighting zombies and vampires in a gothic-style version of the old west? Neat!) as well as the look on the game. And The Art of Darkwatch does not disappoint. Taking us from the early days of the game when it was going to be a kooky, light-hearted romp and the characters were styled to match, to the dark and brooding (and downright creepy) version that made it to a PS2 near you, The Art of Darkwatch shows you character designs, designs for equipment, vehicles, monsters and locales in rich detail and vibrant, frightening color. Fans of video games, conceptual art, or horror/fantasy art would do well to pick up this volume.

This Book is an AMAZING Resource for any Artist or Designer looking for that elusive "Concept Art Sketch Look"... their are SO MANY Sketches in the book, of Both Character & More... This Book is Not only a MUST HAVE FOR YOUR reference collection, a smorgasbord for the Visual SENSES !!! definite 5 star *****

I believe this book is great. It provides a good insight into how characters are made with personility and background. The chapters are fun, diving into the different types of characterd (hulking men, femme fatales, dark villians, ect.) and each chapter usually includes an interview from designers working in the industry. Although some might complain that the book lacks real technical information (it does), there are some great pointers and "concept sketches-to-life" pics. It's hard not to be inspired, the book gives you great ideas. Overall, the book is very good and i would highly recommend it.

This is a really interesting book. It gives you a guided tour through video game history by looking at and discussing the art of many historic games. The book has lots and lots of color pictures from popular video games, and offers running commentary on their importantance. Also there are several brief interviews with artists that worked on some of these projects. They share some of their philosophies of character development. There is also some brief discussion about character development workflow.

This book isn't so much instructional as it is inspirational. I don't think you can read (or skim) through this book without getting some new, fresh, ideas of characters for your own game.

You can appreciate this book at several levels. The simplest is merely to gaze admiringly at the lovely illustrations. Naturally, as a book on art, that just happens to be made in computers, the illustrations are very well done.

At a higher level, Hartas strives to convince you that designing attractive game characters rises to the level of art. The word art is used in two closely related, but distinct senses, in the book. One is art as in "art or science". Hartas describes the making of a successful character as having more intangibles than just splicing together polygons and splashing a colour map overlay on the resultant shape.

But the other sense of art that seems to be conveyed in the book is as in "art or craft". That the level of aethetics might be original enough to warrant the character as fine art.

This is a welcome addition to the game development bookshelf. It is oriented to having youngsters begin designing games. If you have a young boy or girl, and they are into playing games on a PC, this book is intended to get them into designing their own games.

The book uses, and supplies a copy on the CD-ROM, Game Maker software. This is a 2D game development system that allows for the creation of games without requiring programming. Building a game, hoever, is not unlike programming. You have to define what the characters look like, you have to define what they can do. You are doing a lot of the same logic that programming requires.

Perhaps your little game player can be made into a game maker. And just possibly he or she will learn something about computers while they are developing their own game. Possibly this will give them an introduction into what they want to do later in life, not necessarily design games, but almost any task in the computer industry.

I know of no other books that take this approach, and I like it.

I bought this book for my kid to learn GameMaker. A very good book for beginners.

Tired of your kids playing video games? Buy this book.
Easy to follow, my 10 and 14 year olds are using this book and having a great time. It is has step by step instructions. They are having fun designing and creating their own game.
No prior experience necessary.
I hope that more books like this are in the works.

The author does a good job of applying well-known and not so well-known psychological principles to game character development. I was surprised to find that the book is mostly substance and doesn't have a lot of fluff. There are interviews from game industry veterans at the end of each chapter which helps to provide more viewpoints on the information. I found the interview with the two japanese designers to be the most interesting.

I think the overall point of the book is to take more into account when designing characters. There are reasons behind every decision you make in anything you do. This book helps to uncover some of the psychology behind characters and their interactions.

With all of this in mind, I would have to say that I don't feel this book's $50 pricetag is completely justified by what I got out of it. The information for me wasn't completely eye-opening; and there's nothing that specifically sticks to mind after having read it that would change my approach to characters a whole lot(other than perhaps their interactions).

The dvd included with the book adds very little to the subject matter; it is nothing but a bunch of low-quality cutscenes from video games. I expected the dvd to have interviews, supplemental reading material, or at least the author commenting on the cutscenes chosen. Unfortunately none of that is included.

The quality of the book physically is very high; it is printed on extremely high quality paper(thermal paper I'm guessing) which seems like it would be very resistant to stains or water damage.

Overall this book is a worthy read. If the price was closer to the $25 mark or the dvd included more worthwhile material I would definitely rate it a lot higher.

As game budgets get fatter and the profile of the medium gets bigger, a whole new audience will exist with a demand for games that involve meaningful social play and interesting characters. While the techniques and concepts laid out in Dr. Isbister's book are useful for improving the fiction of games, in the form of writing, audio and character art, an experimental designer can infer some groundbreaking mechanics from this text. I'm personally working on an experimental indie game that hinges on inter-character drama, and Dr. Isbister's ideas have served as one of my primary sources of inspiration.

Last review wasn't quite fair. I know the author, and I can tell you that the delays in shipping are entirely due to the publisher and are not the fault of either Amazon or Katherine Isbister.

My prediction is that this text will greatly add to what game developers need to know to incorporate better social intelligence into the NPCs of the next generation of games. In my view, this knowledge is urgently needed in this industry!

This book will take you through detailing features you mght never have thought of, model building is simply a step further more realistic.

Terry Jessee puts in easy to understand terms how to create beutiful models using a number of techniques that can make modeling a hobby for young and old very enjoyable. I got into modeling as a hobby my nine year old son and I could do together. This book gave both of us alot of ideas and enjoyment together. If you have children or even grandchildren get ths book, A couple of models,And enjoy.

Great for all skill levels from the first-time model builder to the advanced hobbyist, this book is very concisely written and illustrated. In an easy to follow manner, author Terry Jesse, shows how to use very simple techniques to achieve outstanding results when building model cars.
While primarily aimed at 1/24- 1/25 plastic kit construction, Build and Detail Like a Pro details techniques that apply to all model car building, including die-cast and resin/multimedia model cars.
I highly recommend this book, becase it is absolutely filled with great tips for building miniature cars. I have read this book at least five times and always find something new to use in my own projects. Having built model cars for over 30 years I wish that I would have had a resource book like this long ago.

If you don't like to get dirty, don't read this book. But for the rest of us, this book is a great source of information that really teaches one how to build a cathedral-styled house, market, or any other design to get get peoples attention!

What did slipform mean ? In which condition I must use slipform ? In which condition I don't have to use slipform

This book is a must have if you are even thinking of building a stone building. Great details with a clear picture of the work involved, and lots of heads up pointers. Could of used more pictures, the ones it had were all black and white. The only thing about this book I didn't like was it was written in 1991 and after 10 years some contruction methods change.

What is now being done in the creation of digital art is nothing short of amazing. This book contains some of the best examples of what has been created to date. It contains works by the digital artists:

*) MarcelBarthel
*) Adam Benton
*) Bernard Dumaine
*) Matt Hansel
*) David Ho
*) Michael Komarck
*) Vod Land
*) James Lee
*) Elizabeth Leggett
*) Duncan Long
*) Ron Miller
*) Socar Myles
*) Tina Oloyede
*) John Picacio
*) Kees Robol
*) Chuck Siebuhr
*) Andy Simmons
*) Audre Vysniauskas
*) Thomas Weiss
*) Christina Yoder
*) Marcin Zemczak

The images are absolutely stunning; I was particularly impressed with some of those with a fantasy/science fiction theme. There have been a few dramatic changes in art since the first cave paintings, but in my mind the greatest of all has been the advent of digital technology. By allowing the artist to truly let their imagination run wild and make an image of what is in their mind, digital technology allows them to create works that simply were not possible only a few years ago.

Behind the provocative title is the affirmative premise that the computer is the medium of the modern age and that digital art deserves recognition alongside traditional art. While I certainly couldn't agree more, this book unfortunately does not carry enough weight to set an example.

The quality of the art within varies greatly, from amazing renders to painting-like portraits to amateur landscapes with figures that look like they were cut and pasted in. My personal favourite is the work of David Ho. The dark and gloomy scenes he portrays in pieces such as "Nature Versus Nurture" and "Man Created God" are among the most striking, well-made and memorable works in the entire book.

Overall not bad, but not enough to get the point across. There are many other sites all over the internet which do a much better job at showcasing the phenomenon of digital art, and for free too.

Digital art - the new media is often considered the bustard son of serious art. This book contains some of the most amazing art created in this genre, and establishes digital art as one of the most expressive and thought provoking forms of art. The artists where carefully chosen from the Renderosity.com site, and represent a wide range of styles and forms. Every artist has a unique style that stands apart from other artists of this genre. This book is a must have for people interested in digital art, or in any other artform.