Learn how to create commercial-quality game art and make it come alive in a 3D engine! "Creating Game Art for 3D Engines" is the ideal guide for the serious student or aspiring animator who wants to learn how to create and successfully export game art, from simple shapes to full-blown characters. Using Autodesk® 3ds Max® to generate models and animations, and Torque as the 3D game engine, the book provides step-by-step instructions on how to model, unwrap, texture, rig, export, and script all of the essential art assets required for a game. Unlike other books that cover only art creation, Creating Game Art for 3D Engines teaches you how to create art specifically with the game engine in mind. All of the principles and techniques are universal and can be applied to any 3D software or game engine. Get ready to make your game ideas a reality! On the CD: -Sample characters and weapons -Sample pickups and script files -Screen captured movie tutorials -Trial version of the Torque Game Engine

Creating Game Art for 3D Engines is a much needed resource that teaches new game artists and students all of the techniques they need to create commercial quality art assets that will export and work efficiently in a 3D game engine. The books currently available cover art creation, but do not teach how to create art with the engine in mind or how to export art once it is created. Throughout this book, artists learn step-by-step, how to create their own characters and other assets and then make them come to life in the most popular and powerful game engine for independent game developers, the Torque game engine (TGE). The book begins with a primer on Autodesk ® 3ds Max® and then uses it, along with the Torque engine to teach the principles of game art creation and exporting. The principles are universal, however, and are applicable to most 3D software and 3D engines. This is the one resource every game artists should have and every course should be using!

Worth Every Penny

This book does exactly what it sets out to do - explains the entire process of creating 3d game art for the Torque engine in 3DS Max. As such, it is invaluable to a beginner in the Torque engine, as the art pipeline, particularly from 3DS Max, is often frustratingly convoluted if you try to "go it alone".

My only real criticism of the book is that it reads like an engineering manual. There is little levity here, little to break up the masses of information one needs to absorb in order to create, export and code a given model. This makes getting through the book something of a chore at times - it demands a high level of concentration.

That said, there is no wasted space here, and while I found it quite heavy going - in fact, tiresome at times - I’m extremely happy with the results I’ve achieved following Brad Strong’s tutorials.

If you’re serious about creating games for the Torque engine, this is one of the definitive books you really need on your reference shelf. 3DS Max can be intimidating even for those trained in its use, but the author cleverly only covers the toolset required for creating Torque-ready models, and covers them in detail.

Definitely recommended.