Make the leap from merely playing games to actually creating your own games. 3D Game Programming All in One takes you through the process step-by-step. It provides the instruction, examples, development principles, and, perhaps most importantly, the actual tools needed to create your own 3D game. It is the only book that covers each aspect of developing a 3D game in a hands-on tutorial style. It serves as a logical second step after the 2D game creation techniques covered in Game Programming All in One (159200136X).

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!

Get ready for an amazing journey into the world of game development! "3D Game Programming All in One" is your one-stop tour guide into this new world. If you believe that you can create games that are as cool as?or cooler than?the ones you?ve been playing, now?s your chance to prove it. This book will give you the training, experience, and tools you need to turn your ideas into reality. Using a well-defined toolkit of programs, knowledge, skills, and ideas "3D Game Programming All in One" covers each step required to make a fully featured game. You?ll cover everything from opportunities within the game industry and elements of a 3D game to programming concepts, modeling, textures, and music. All you need to begin your journey is a creative idea and the enthusiasm to bring that idea to life.

longlasting

Our teacher told us this book was to be used in some of our other classes so saving $$ a plus.

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!

boring

First, I can not hide the fact that the author
put a valuable effort in this book, it is a good
book but still I have some criticism. like every
book when it deals with straight forward things,
it gives u full details but when it comes to real
stuff starts summarizing stuff. I can understand
this since the book talks about so many topics
however the main disadvantage of this book is that
it did not succeed in giving the reader a good
understanding on how is the code provided interacts
with the engine. I do not know, I can not word it well
but the key point as u proceed reading the book
u feel like it is easy going but when u reach the
real meat you start feeling that the writer started to
rush. I have no problem with just summaries but what is
important is the context, when u talk about the engine
and scripts, u need to explain what the hell are these
classes and call back functions that are just copied
to this book.

Would Be a Perfect Book for Beginners if it’s Code Flaws didn’t Make it bad

Lets start off with the good. I’m 11 years old and I was able to follow the easy written text and understand the code. Obviously this means the book is definately made for beginners. The other game programming books, most of them, either tell you have to make your own game engine or create 1980’s style 2d games. This game will definately teach you how to make games in 3D so there is no doubt about that. Oh and if your looking for a game written in C/C++/Javascript, go to some other book.This book is written in Torgue script.When you go through the book, aside from the intro, you never get the feeling that there is too much text and not enough code, or too much code and not enough text to explain it. The author gives it enough code and balances it out with a good thorough guide explanation to the different things in the code.

Now I’ll come to the bad. The major thing that brings the rating down is the fact that the about 1/2 the time, the code isn’t correct. A lot of times the code isn’t correct and your program doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. Now if you have had some experience and bought this book to completely grasp the Torque engine, this won’t be a big problem. You can just fix the script on your own, with a few referals to the text you can fix it up no problem. But most people aren’t like you and they are complete beginners(which I am not)who bought this book.This book is supposed to be for beginners and this script problem will stump most beginners. The second, and last, problem is the cd. It contains a full version of Torque, but the rest of the programs are demos. You have milkshape, ultraedit32, and quark6.3 DEMOS. You need to buy the full version.

Bottom line, if you’re a semi-intermidiate or higher and don’t find spending a few extra bucks after getting this book, buy it. If you’re a beginner who has never even heard of Torque (and doesn’t mind spending the extra bucks), buy it and use the online tutorials to get familiar with it. Then you can try out the book. If you are a beginner that doesn’t mind the extra bucks, but wants to jump in headfirst into programming, don’t get the book. Categorize youself and buy or not.

An utter waste of money.

I had looked at the Torque Game Engine and was very excited to see that a book had been written about it. I immediately purchased the book. I started the book and was immediately put off by the amount of material covering a text editor. The second half of chapter 2 teaches the reader about Torque Script from a nonprogrammers perspective. Chapter 3 seems very pieced together. Chapter 4 is basically a ton of script with incoherent descriptions about what is going on. I wonder why the author didn’t provide an explanation of each function, the parameters to be passed, and what the purpose of the function is. Chapter 5, 6, and to some degree 7 are the same junk as chapter 4. The rest of the book is VERY basic coverage of several different tools that you can use to make the visuals for your game. You can find better tutorials on the internet for free.

I would not recommend this book because it is beyond the ability of a nonprogrammer and not very challenging to the average programmer. I would recommend downloading the Torque Game Engine demo and look at all of the free tutorials and references on Torque on the internet. If you have the money to spend on this book, perhaps it would be better to hold on to it and buy the full version of Torque for $100.

If you really must buy a book, wait for "The Game Programmer’s Guide to Torque." This book is based off the tutorials commonly called EGTGE on the internet. You can find it for free on the Torque website.

Great Book... but....

This is an awesome, and essential, book if you plan on doing development with the Torque Game Engine (TGE). I had purchased my Indie Developer license (...) before discovering this book. The codebase for TGE is so huge (hundreds of files, thousands of classes, 100’s of thousand lines of code). The online tutorials and Garage Game DOCs weren’t really enough, I felt, to get started. So, I bought this book to get me started.

I will admit, the title of this book is a bit misleading. It does cover most aspects of 3d Game Programming (coding, textures, 3d modeling, sound, level design), but it is mostly dependent (except the artsy topics) on the TGE. Someone not expecting to work with TGE will be disappointed as all the code in the book is written in TorqueScript, not C++.

Another thing I will say about this book: The beginner-intermediate rating is a bit untrue. I would gear this book more towards the intermediate level. The ’introduction to programming’ chapter is a good start, but really doesn’t prepare an unexperienced programmer to the concepts of inheritance, scoping, program flow, among others, covered in the book.

Final Conclusion: Buy this book if you are working with TGE. Even if you’re an experience TGE user, the references (function/class listings, etc) are extremely valuable. If you are not a TGE user, you should give a good look at it, as it is a great tool for an indie developer (...). If you’re working on making your own engine from scratch, this book probably won’t help you too much (there are probably better books on texture creation, 3d model creation, and sound that you could pick up instead... along with an actual ’engine development’ book in C++).

Torque Howto

Ive been working with the Torque engine about a year before i bought this book. This book is great, i easily learned more information just reading this book than i would have ever by learning Torque and game creation through irc/garagegames/other devlopers. Its a MUST have if you are remotely serious about the Torque engine. Im already half way through my first book and have ordered his 2nd book Advanced 3D Game Programming All in One. However if you arent sure what engine you are using this book most likely isnt your style. It does go over a lot of basic concepts such as mapping systems / how rendering works and so on, but you really need to be a torque buff to want this book. However if you seriously think that buying a book will make a game for you and teach you everything there is to the industry then you are sorely mistaken. This book is the bible of the Torque engine so if you want to get your money out of the book, buy a torque liscense.

Not a great book

I bought this book hoping to learn how to make a 3D game as the title suggested. I am a programmer (i think you need to be to write a game) but i found the book really annoying and unhelpful. After the first two chapters one of the major aspects is learning how to use the GUI provided by the engine that comes on the disk. You are told to press the tilde (’~’) key to open up a console window and it doesnt work. I wasted a whole day figuring out how to remap the key so i could go back and finish this chapter. There are many problems like this throughout the book. You have to type in phenomenal amounts of code directy out of the book. The code is not in electronic format on the disk and it doesnt tell you how to run a script to see if it compiles or anything. So after writing out 17 pages of code if you didnt do it character perfect your screwed. There are also syntax errors throughout the code, one major one that would make the script not run. I had a nightmare with this book, i read ten chapters then burnt it because i didnt want anyone else to go through what i just had. More to the point, the book should be titled "the Torque engine and how to use it".

It’s a good start, but needs some work

Overall, I believe this book does a decent job of teaching you how someone else designed a game with the torque engine. In fact, that’s probably what it should have been titled, "Case Study: Torque Engine". The book outlines the major concepts of building a 3D game with the torque engine, but if you really want to learn 3D programming, I would get a different book. The code in the book is somewhat hit & miss, too many bugs for my taste. I would have expected an editor or someone to try and run the scripts contained in the book. Most of them require some kind of debugging, and since most of the coding is done in TextPad or UltraEdit, i’m sure you can appreciate how frustrating it is to debug.

If you’re looking for a good overall picture of how to create & organize a 3D game engine, then this book will probably work for you. (just don’t count on code always working) If you’re like me and want a little more comprehension, I would look around for an alternative.

The Best Game programming book on the market bar none.

I am a senior computer science student at Clemson University. I have taken game engine design courses and I have read many gaming books. This is by far the best that I have ever read! I have had this book for two weeks and I have not put it down! I spend at least 13 to 17 hours on this book each day. I am reading through it for the second time now refining what I have learned and improving the game that I am working on. GarageGames has the best game engine on the market and this book compliments the well designed engine. If you do not know how to program well or you’re already a seasoned pro, you can learn from this book. I appreciate all of the hard work that Mr. Finney has put into making this book. I have always dreamed of making my own game that I can contribute to our youth in church. Now it is a reality and I will be revealing it real soon after my friends help me tweak the images made for the game. This has been the smartest investment that I have made for my future development into the gaming industry. Thank you and I will continue to support GarageGames. Thanks again Mr. Finney!!! You ROCK!!!

-- Fitzgerald Stowers

Yes it does come with a stock version of Torque

Just responding to a mistake by another reviewer. This book comes with an unmodified stock version of Torque, specifically version 1.2, downloaded from CVS on January 10, 2004. If you buy a Torque license (cost $100), you will be able to download that old version of the Torque source.

>The book includes a pre-compiled version of the TGE,
>however it is not a stock version and no source code
>is included in the book, so the book’s engine cannot
>be re-compiled or debugged. The TGE included in the
>book also has been modified by the book’s author at
>the C++ code level. Therefore, it doesn’t behave like
>the stock TGE in all respects.

I have not read this book, and my rating is based on its reputation among Torque users. It is a good beginner book with occassional (minor) mistakes in the code.

Awesome For What It Is

But was is it? To answer that I will first say what it’s not: An all-in-one guide to 3d programming. Far from it.

I would, however, say this book is *the* title to pick up if you are serious about making games using Garage Games’ "Torque" engine (the engine behind the "Tribes" series). This book *is* the definitive all-in-one beginners guide to creating 3D games with Torque. I I have been making online games professionally for the last 5 years and I can tell you from experience that no single individual has a chance in the proverbial hell to achieve a high production value, AAA Massively Multiplayer title (which seems to be the first thing on many people’s mind).

MMO’s are out of the grasp of 99.9999% of all indie developers. Fun, exciting and *profitable* multi-player games, however are well within the reach of one or few indie developers. The Torque engine gives you to the tools you need to develop a top-end multi-player 3D game. There are a *lot* of issues to be considered in such a game, but most of them are gracefully handled by the Torque engine.

In this book you will learn how to harness the various tools within this engine... all in one book. :)

I wholeheartedly recommed this book and this engine for anyone with some programming background interested in making a game within a reasonable amount of time. The engine is only $100 bucks (no royalties unless you make over a quarter of a million bucks on the game) with all of the source code, but you get a copy of the engine on the CD included with this book.

Definitely pick this one up

Perfect for beginners

Its an awesome book you "feel like hes sitting next to you teaching you" its perfect for kids who want to do game programming and are inexpirenced it literaly covers **EVRYTHING**

Could be much better

Does anyone notice that this book is rather boring. I started off excited to learn something, but that wore off when I was forced to read page after page of code. The author never explained why there are certain files, or even what files are neccessary.