Are you an aspiring game developer with a great idea, but no practical knowledge for turning that idea into reality? 3D Game Programming All in One is the comprehensive guide you need! This new edition updates the original coverage with the latest version of Torque from GarageGames, and provides the very best tools available to the Indie game maker. This hands-on book not only teaches the technical skills behind 3D game programming, but also provides you with the practical experience you need to create your own games. As you create a first-person shooter, you?ll cover the techniques behind the programming, textures, and models that go into successful game creation. You?ll also cover the Torque Engine and will learn how to integrate sound and music into your game. 3D Game Programming All in One provides you with the training, experience, and tools you need to turn your dreams of game creation into reality!

3D Game Programming All in One, Second Edition is perfect for anyone interested in learning the skills and processes involved in making games. This new edition of the bestselling book shows you how to design and create every aspect of a fully featured game. Beginning with an introduction to game programming and the gaming industry, you’ll cover the important aspects of game engines, scripts, textures, modeling, sound and music, and more. Written by a professional game programmer with almost 30 years of programming experience, this book allows you to turn you game ideas into reality by combining each new skill that you learn as you create a sample game. The Torque game engine, along with all source code, tools, and other resources needed to complete the exercises in the book, are included on the accompanying CD-Rom.

Very misleading title but good introduciton to Torque

Pros:
Well written in an informal and easy to follow manner.

Provides a good overview of the game development process with a focus on indies.

Great intro. to the Torque game engine. Far superior to the online documentation from Torque.

Cons:
The title "3D Game Programming All in One" is terriblly inappropriate. This book is packed with 1000+ pages of good information but it should have been called something along the line of Introduction to Torque scripting, emphasis on the Intro part.

Many detailed pages are spent on agonizingly basic tasks while more difficult subjects get glossed over, with the reader left spending a few hours inventing a step B cause the author magically went from A to C.

More then once you’ll be following one of his cookbook lessons and you are presented with an options menu with something like 50 options with unintuitive names and he tells you to just accept the defaults then moves on and never looks back. Maybe some tables explaining what those options do would be nice. This is "...All in One" right?

Many many hours will be spent coping code from the book and then executing it in the torque game engine. However, the author has left dozens and dozens of errors in the book code, some of which are grossly inexcusable. Did the author not try his code after he typed it? Come on guy, cut and paste, I know you didn’t crank out this tome using a pen.

My biggest issue is that a lot of software, files and code comes with the book. But half the software does not match versions used in the book and many of the game files aren’t what they are supposed to be. Code does not say what the book says it does, some image files are none existent and some of the animations are clearly works-in-progress just dumped onto the CD. Ogre dieing is actually ogre being bouncing across the screen and then dragged under the floor.

I gave the book 3 stars because despite its many flaws I was able to figure most things out but not without many hours of frustration. This book needs editing and lots of it.

Was the code even reviewed?

I am ready to give up on this book. I have the second edition, and can’t imagine how others are making it work. The code sample for the very first project doesn’t work. I eliminated typing errors by using the code provided on the CD, and it still doesn’t work.
There does not appear to be an errata website.
Many items seem glossed over without any explanation given as to what they do.

Given the price I paid ($65), and the name of the book, I would have expected more breadth, rather than a straight shot at building a FPS game. Running the final version of the end product, it is bad enough that I am now questioning the $150 that I spent on TGE. The physics of the vehicle are so poor, that it frequently gets into oscillation or total rollover on the smallest of obstacles, for example.

I can’t imagine using this tome to attempt to learn TGE. I hope that TGE is better than what is portrayed in this book. At least I didn’t blow the $300 for TGEA!

Pretty Good

This book is actually a text book for my school. I saw a lot of complaints from other people on how much it talks about the Torque engine. Personally I think that is a good thing at 150 the Torque engine is something that most people who want to get into creating games could afford. The unreal engine costs thousands so it would be bad if it went into that or another engine like that, because most of us could not afford to get the engine and use what the book is teaching.

The book is comprehensive and easy to follow

A COMPLAINT.

The book is a treasure of information about the subject matter. However, the included CD if faulty. It doesn’t install. T tried to install it on two different machine in vain. I emailed Thomson Course Technology about this matter and I received no response.

THE PREDICAMENT OF OVERSEAS BUYERS.

Althaugh overseas buyers pay the full amount including postage, they are oftern ignored when it comes to faulty products.

AMAZON Authority should consider overseas buyers’ helplessness in this situation.

I need the CD badly and I am willing to pay any amount for a sound one.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter.

Regards,

Fawzy Youssef.

my son’s xmas present

My son really likes the book. He requested it on his xmas list, and was very pleased when he opened the package with the book inside. Thanks a million. P.B.

Great for the Beginner

- A much needed resource for anyone starting to work with the Torque Game Engine.

That pretty much sums up how I’ve found this book. It covers everything someone starting off would need to know and understanding. It is well organized and constantly discussed on the Garage Games website. While it doesn’t delve into rewriting the Torque engine, it does give you the fundamental knowledge of its design and operation. It does this very well and by the end you should firmly understand where all the major components reside, and how to make a nice little demo game.

I must admit it has some flaws. The black and white pictures don’t help explain the texture/terrain sections well enough. It is also a bit outdated - but the coding errors have almost all been corrected online if you have the opportunity to look for them. Lastly, this is a beginners resource. If you are of advanced skill (or a quick learner) you might outgrow the book quickly. It will, however, continue to be a great resource in the future as a result of the sparse documentation accompanying the game engine.

I recommend this resource to anyone delving into Torque Game Engine for the first time, as well as veterans of other engines that are trying to learn what Torque is capable of. And hey, with all the modeling, texturing and terrain editing advice it gives - it might just be helpful for folks using other editors as well... Until Garage Games releases more comprehensive documentation for Torque, resources like this will continue to be the foundation for learning and releasing great Indie games.

3D Game Scripting with Torque Engine

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK UNLESS ALL YOU WANT TO LEARN ABOUT IS THE TORQUE ENGINE. TORQUE.

Torque, Torque, Torque, Torque, Torque, Torque, Torque, Torque... Annoying isn’t it? HA! Try reading this book.

It is NOT "all in one" it is "Torque in one". Torque. Torque is all this this dude talks about. He’s completely & utterly obsessed with Torque. He should marry the freakin’ engine.

3D Game Scripting with the Torque Engine is what this book should be called, because that is ALL this book is about. Torque. The title is completely misleading. I was highly disappointed with this book. Torque.

3D Game Programming All in One

Book arrived in new condition in a short period of time. I was very satisfied with the transaction

I like this book quite alot

I’m a beginner and do work with Torque as my hobby. But i certainly like this book - I’m no programmer but this book is quite excellent. I’m not trying to [...] u :D This is good. I would love it move if it had colorfull pictures!!! And more decent games as examples but yeah wahtever!!! in fact i would have to pay mroe for that. Ah yeah the price is good for such book. In fact i just finished 4 chapters so i can’t say much more than that but already it helped me understand hell lots.

Do Not Buy the Second Edition of This Book

The CD does not match the book text. The first edition may have been a fine book, but this edition has not been edited to match the companion CD. I am very sorry I have bought it.

awesome

This book was just what i was looking for. Right to the point with no walkarounds!

0 stars

This is by far one of the worst books on programming or game design that I have ever read. The book is written out of order, incomplete, ambiguous, and shallow in the explanations of code. To give an excellent example, chapter 5 has you code several modules for client and server based actions but the game won’t run with just the files the book tells you to create. The end of chapter 5 even mentions the AI beast running around; what AI beasts I never typed in a module to control AI? I even checked the code on the CD against the book and there were inconsistencies, I am not going to debug the script to see what the difference is but I can tell you just by glancing through it there were a few problems.
Also the fact that we are jumping around in the book concerns me too since each chapter builds on the one before it except it seems GUIs are not till chapter 10 but are used in the game in chapter 5 and that the book stops creating the game at chapter 7, starts focusing on integrating other programs, and picks up at chapter 18 with weather.

Good book

If you are wanting to make your own games you absolutely need this book.
I recommend it to anyone who is into any phase of 3D game making.

Very Poor

This book has a lot of problems. The code is buggy. The structure of the book makes little sense, and will gloss over many important things. The writing style is difficult and vague. I could not recommend this book any less.

Stay away... there are better ways to learn...

I should have examined this book more closely before purchasing. It’s not a learning tool, most of the chapters focus on following directions with no real explanation why. Needless to say this will leave people out to sea when it comes time to fly solo.
That situation is exacerbated by the fact that the book doesn’t match the cd contents, so it’s impossible sometimes to follow even the step-by-step procedures... not that they would teach you much anyway.
Unfortunately for the publisher, the code given is also buggy... adding the final nail in the coffin for this book.
Stay away, don’t waste your money, there are better resources to learn from.

might be worth it

I bought this book to help me out as I am learning the torque engine. I was a little dissapointed in this book for a few reasons. It has some definite typo problems, in fact some people have said not to use it as a tutorial at all but rather a reference book. That is probably about right, because the book seems to be covering basically the same stuff you can find on the GDN -- which if you purchase Torque you have access to. Also this book is ONLY a tutorial for a FPS genre game, which personally I am extremely sick of. On the other hand this is basically the only book on torque at all and if you can find it fairly cheap, why not?

Good Book - Bad Code

This product is exactly what it says it is, a 3D Programming All in One. It is great for beginner level but will not be as useful for someone who is more experienced. The code in the book has many errors but you may learn alot by debugging it!