The key word here is art: the dynamic 3D art that defines the world of computer games. This book teaches you everything you need to know about the planning, modeling, texturing, lighting, effects creation, and interface design that go into creating today’s most advanced and stunning video games. . You’ll be learning from a master-veteran 3D artist and instructor Matthew Omernick-as you progress through the carefully chosen, software-agnostic tutorials that make up this beautiful, full-color volume. The end result will be skills you can apply to whatever 3D tool you choose and whatever wildly imaginative game you can think up. Through a unique combination of explanation, tutorials, and real world documentation-including discussions of the creative process entailed in some of today’s most popular games augmented by screen captures and descriptions-you’ll quickly come to understand the workflow, tools, and techniques required to be a successful game artist. In add! ition to learning the ropes of game art, you?ll also find in depth tutorials and techniques that apply to all aspects of 3D graphics. Whether you are using Photoshop, 3ds max, Maya, or any other computer graphics software, you?ll find a wealth of information that you can continue to come back to time and time again.

The key word here is art: the dynamic 3D art that defines the world of computer games. This book teaches you everything you need to know about the planning, modeling, texturing, lighting, effects creation, and interface design that go into creating today’s most advanced and stunning video games. You’ll be learning from a master-veteran 3D artist and instructor Matthew Omernick-as you progress through the carefully chosen, software-agnostic tutorials that make up this beautiful, full-color volume. The end result will be skills you can apply to whatever 3D tool you choose and whatever wildly imaginative game you can think up. Through a unique combination of explanation, tutorials, and real world documentation-including discussions of the creative process entailed in some of today’s most popular games augmented by screen captures and descriptions--you’ll quickly come to understand the workflow, tools, and techniques required to be a successful game artist. In addition to learning the ropes of game art, you’ll also find in depth tutorials and techniques that apply to all aspects of 3D graphics. Whether you are using Photoshop, 3ds max, Maya, or any other computer graphics software, you’ll find a wealth of information that you can continue to come back to time and time again.

W-O-W!

This guy knows what he’s talking about! I’ve been in game art for a long time now, but on every page I learn something new. I’m not the reading type of guy, but I’m slurping this up. Great, great stuff! I highly recommend it!

Pretty good general information book

If you are completely new to creating game art then this book is for you. However if you have read a few of these then you prolly wont get much out of it. It is definaly more of a Game are theory book. There is some good information in here on optimising things for their best performance. The book cover all areas not just characters and props but, level design as well.

Still, Very well written. I even though I have read may of these I still found many parts of it very interesting.

Creating the Art of the Game

This book has really helped to guide my texturing skills in a more technical and marketable direction. Having some experience with UV layout, this book picks up with great Photoshop tips to transform boring textures into great ones. A great book for beginners and anyone wishing to look at an industry standard pipeline.

Fills In The Gaps

I’ve been reading a lot of books lately that talk about how to create various 3-d art. And also lots of books that talk about programming that assumes that you already have the "art assets", but there is obviously a big gap between those two things! This book fills that gap very well.

This book talks about making art assets for games, period. So when he talks about making various pieces of art, he always puts it in the context of how it will be used in an actual game. Most of his points are illustrated with color photos of very popular games that the author has worked on (e.g. Metal of Honor).

The book offers mostly theory, but the author isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty either. Every once in a while to illustrate a point he offers very detailed, step by step instructions on how to do something (mainly using Maya, 3ds Max, or Photoshop). In this regard, users who use those tools will probably get a little bit more out of the book then those who use alternate tools, but most of the book is theory and general discussion.

A lot of books I’ve been reading lately have been very "heavy" in terms of trying to cram so many facts into each page that I find myself counting down each page to the end of the chapter. Not this book. I find the pages turn a lot more easily and quickly in this book, and it is actually an enjoyable as well as informative read.

Very Helpful

This book was very helpful when it comes to alpha mapping, bump mapping, and light mapping. I found it very informative and very well written. It’s a must have for your collection.

Great for begginers

Wow! Great book. Deals with the very basics of Maya, Photoshop, 3Ds Max. Goes step by step through the creative process. Not in a tutorial format, but more of a pipeline explanation. I am a newbie with PS and Maya, and this book totally helped me move forward in terms of what to do, and more importantly, WHY to do. Tutorial books lead you through and show you how. This book tells you WHY. Very important to me. Pics are rad. Writing style is easy to understand. Flew through half of this book in one night. This book is, and will be a great reference tool. I should have bought this book first, before any other tutorial books. I was a little confused on UV mapping and texturing. This book helped clear up that mess. Plus, this guy is a teacher and works in th industry. I am so very grateful he shared his knowledge with us. I don’t know if it is, but I think it should be a required text at colleges of game art and design.

Theory and technique

I stepped into this book with a basic understanding of creating game art. I wasn’t happy with the results of my artwork, so I picked up this book. A lot of issues I was encountering in my work were cleared up by this book, as well as many issues I thought I found a solution for.

Unlike a lot of books, this book goes through theories and technique - not tutorials. I know how to use my software, so I was looking for something that would tell me how to improve my work, and what I was doing wrong. I found it in this book. If you are looking for are looking for a book that will step you through making game art, look elsewhere. You will probably want to check this book out later though.

Much of the content here is basic, but it is what I needed to boost the confidence in my work. If there were a book like this that continued on to more advanced theory and technique, I would buy it.

Best game art book available

I bought this book because I wanted to know about game art in particular, not 3D art and technique in general. This book gave me exactly what I was looking for. Omernick draws on his extensive experience to show you EXACTLY how game art is put together and how it relates to the rest of game production. He shows you what standard techniques and 3d package features are used in the big name studios. He gave me a bar to measure my own work by and a variety of 3d concepts that I need to know to get into game art. More than anything else, he inspired me by taking the mystery out of the genre and made it graspable. The problem with the other game books is that they are either way outdated, simply game art gallery books, or written by guys who aren’t much further into their career than the reader. Omernick clearly knows what he is talking about. This is not a tutorial book as it isn’t really application specific though he does show where most of the features are located in Maya and 3ds Max. If you want to learn a software package, there are plenty of good books for that. This book gives you a focus for game art, if that is what you want to do. There is also a lot on next gen features that are important. After reading this book, I new pretty much what I was going to need in my portfolio, and as I played video games after reading it, I really had a good understanding of almost everything I saw. This book is a MUST HAVE for anyone interested in a game art career.

This is the best introduction to creating art for 3d video games

There are hundreds of books dedicated to how to create 3d art for video games. If you are a new or intermediate artist set all those other books aside and read this one. If you only pick up one book on how to model and texture for video games get this one. Most books either go into far too much detail, like reading an encyclopedia, or are too light on the important details. This book is focused like a laser beam on what is most important and doesn’t detour from its goal by going off into unnecessary tangents like animation or model rigging that are subjects best covered in their own books. When you finish this book you will have a solid understanding of how to build a model and texture it and have it ready for export into a game engine. And the illustrations are gorgeous! Note that this book does cover character modeling but it primarily details environments and props.

Nice pictures but no real projects

The book has nice full colour pictures of games, and touches the surface of moddeling in 3ds max, but does’t work out real examples of modeling. examples of cubes and primitives are all that are supplied, no professional quality buildings or scenes as the cover suggests. not money well spend. Recomended book from Quake Arena modeler Paul Steed is Modeling a character in 3ds max

This book is definitely for Beginners.

This book does a great job at covering the important areas of game art production, like what is to be expected from a game artist and what a game artist should expect to encounter while working in the game industry, but the author doesn’t elaborate enough on the problems that are associated with modeling and texturing for games, i.e. the technical aspect. He over emphasizes what game art should look like, but does not dwell on how to achieve the best, most efficient results on modeling and texturing objects that may be difficult to work well in real-time game environment.

There is not enough "meat on the bones", sort of speak. The author covers a wide range of topics briefly, highlighting pros and cons and then quickly moving on. Personally, I was left with many unanswered questions, chapter after chapter. The examples throughout the book were oversimplified; using pine trees, wooden crates, and basic shapes (triangles, squares, and circles) to get some of the points across. Clearly, the author was thinking the reader would be completely new to game art.

On average, the screenshots took up about 50%-80% of the page. The rest is filled with very short paragraphs. I was amazed as to how much space was left blank on each page, almost as if it were there to jot down notes or do quick sketches.

The "tips and tricks" at the end of the book are, unfortunately, not that groundbreaking. You come across a lot of these "tricks" just by simply surfing the web or reading one of the various tutorial books and magazines that are out there.

One upside, however, is that most of this book is devoted to motivating and inspiring you, the game artist, to find out things for yourself and to raise the quality bar on your own. At times, it almost feels like your reading a self-help book for game artists, but at least his makes for easy reading.

-LatinMessiah
(Game Art Student)

Wow! Finally...

I was beginning to think that we’d never get a book on games art written by a true veteran. I suppose they are all to busy. But here it is. In truth I have not been so psyched up about, and felt so rewarded by an art book since Owen Demers brilliant texturing book.

Matthew takes the reader through all the nooks and crannies of creating art for games, from games interfaces, blocking out levels to alpha masks for textures and normal maps. The funny thing is, it is not an endless line of tutorials to show how its done, but at the end of it, you still feel, when you see the cutting edge art out there in games, ’yeah, I know how that is done.’ All you need then is talent and perspiration.

The book illustrates every technique with in depth examples in both Maya and 3ds Max side by side. Another great feature. I know you hear those marketing cliches of "If you are only gonna buy one book on XX, then..." every day, but if you want games art and how its done, then THIS IS THAT BOOK.