The book will provide insider tips, traps, and techniques on how to create 3d assets for use in computer games and simulation systems. The book will consist of a series of tutorials, starting with simpler models and moving up to more complex builds. As the book comes to us directly from successful game artists within commercial game development circles (Gahan + contributors) aspiring game artists will also find keen insights on how to get ahead in the game industry, i.e. how to prepare your personal portfolio to provide an edge in this extremely competitive world of game development.

The strength of this book is that it teaches all of the important game modeling elements of 3ds Max: character modeling, environment modeling, mapping. The book covers how to model, texture and animate credible game characters and levels using 3ds max. As readers move from tutorial to tutorial, they will be building their own portfolio of high quality work.

The DVD contains countless examples of what’s hot and what’s not in 3D modeling and also enough support images and photos to keep the budding artist busy for months; Features:
-step-by-step project files for each chapter
-all the relevant texture files and source photos used to create the texture maps applied to the 3D projects.
-extras: panoramic skies, small scene objects and a many texture maps and models so that artists can create whole scenes very quickly without starting from scratch each time.
-royalty free stock photos that artists can use in their own texture maps, models and scenes.

--Author Gahan is a seasoned professional and leading industry expert. Gahan is a key member of an award-winning game team recently scoring number 1 hits in Japan, Europe and America with the Playstation 3 smash hit "MotorStorm".

--Game Modeling techniques offered with artist’s potential portfolio in mind. Find out what Art Directors and Managers are looking for.

--Essentials of 3D game modeling covered - Characters, Vehicles, Assets and Scenes - including lighting and rendering.

--DVD contains countless examples of what’s hot and what’s not in 3D modeling and also enough support images and photos to keep the budding artist busy for months.

A great book for learning 3d game graphics
This book really helped me get to grips with some of the more difficult aspects of learning 3d for video games, I found it very easy to follow from the start and the files that came on the DVD were really amazing The chapter that covers normal mapping was excellent and well presented. would recommend this book to anyone wanting to start learning computer game graphics with no previous knowledge, as it starts off very slowly and clearly and as you get more confidence, eases you into the more complex areas of 3D without to much fuss!!!

A great book geared towards the Games Industry
This is a great book, and highly recommended for anyone looking for an insight into the working practices of the games industry.
It contains everything you need to know to be able to produce high quality 3D models, with loads of really useful info, specifically relevant for games production.

There’s a load of in-depth, and very easy to understand tutorials covering a wide range of topics. Initially guiding you through the basic fundamentals of low-poly modelling and texturing, through to more complex ‘next-gen’ techniques such as normal mapping.
The 3D modelling aspect of the book focuses primarily on max but I found that many of the principles are relevant to all 3D packages
The DVD is also extremely useful, with relevant max files and example assets for all the tutorials, and tons of photo reference to allow you to jump straight in and make your own models!

This book will prove invaluable to any aspiring 3d artist and is full of useful information for anyone looking to develop a portfolio in order to get a job in the games industry.

GREAT 3dsmax book for beginners to advanced
This is the definitinve guide to starting out modelling for the games industry.
The book shows you exactly what you need to do to start creating 3d models and textures to be used in todays commercial software titles.

Once you have a good grasp of basic modelling, the book takes you through texture creation and using photographs to create texture maps in Photoshop.

Once you have a good grasp of modelling and texture creation, the tutorials get progressively more advanced in simple to follow, step by step tutorials ending in some really complex character modelling and texture baking.

To end everything off, you are guided through a nice environment modelling tutorial and give you a great professional approach to putting a portfolio together and how to conduct yourself in an interview.

This is the very best guide to getting into the games industry on the market, and is completely up to date with 3dsMax 2009 and next generation techniques.

As well as the book there are hundreds of refernce photos from a photoshoot in an abandoned mental hospital in England - more than enough to keep an artist of any ability busy for the next 6 months. As well as the photoshoot and lots of example models to copy and adapt, there is an acompanying website with new content, photoshoots and tutorials planned throughout the comming months.

Highly recommended

Great resource

I have bought a number of modelling books over the years and I find 3ds Max modelling for games a superb resource with step by step instructions that guide the reader from basic modelling to more advanced character and environment building.

I think this book is a good resource for both novice and professional, who may look back on the book to see different styles and methods of object creation.

I will be recommending the book to all my friends who wish to take their 3d models to the next level.

Fantastic!

This book was exactly what I was looking for. I could’nt put it down.

Tutorial after tutorial of information relevant to today’s industry.

There’s everythig from creating and placing textures onto simple objects,

to the more advanced character tutorial which goes into fine detail.

Definatley worth the investment if you are interested in creating game

content.

It’s Got my vote.

An essential purchase

This book is probably your best bet at getting a job in the games industry.

It takes you through the basic stages of prepping up a scene right through to the interview stage -pretty much everything has been thought of.

While some may want to skip ahead of the first few chapters -don’t! You’ll learn a lot about techniques and workflow essential to the job.

Most books will give examples of how a program performs certain tasks and you will struggle to use those techniques as a common practice -not so here, as you will be tutored in industry proven techniques and principles.

If you believe you have the talent but need a focus, welcome to your first port of call. highly reccomneded.

Excellent!!!!

I’ve played around with 3ds max for a few years but never really got to grips with it until now.

3ds Max Modelling for Games has taught me more in a month than every other book and DVD I’ve wasted my money on all together.

The book is extremely simple to begin with, taking you through modelling a box, step by step.

Now I thought that this was a joke initially until I realised that the tutorial was not about modelling a box, but about setting 3ds max up properly with automatic backups, units, scale and the core principles of mapping and unwrapping textures. It even shows how to get a great looking render out of the simplest of models - something I had struggled with in the past.



The book moves on teaching more complex modelling techniques, more complex mapping and even how to take your own photographs and turn them into great looking texture maps - I didn’t expect a number of great Photoshop lessons in a 3ds Max book.



Again the tutorials get more complex and cover normal mapping, dirt maps, ambient occlusion, scratch maps, specular maps, and complex lighting and rendering.

But the best thing about the book is that all of the tutorials grow all fit together as pieces of the final finished scene which is an abandoned warehouse. The models, the vehicle, the character - everything all fits together to make a scene with lots of rendering advice to put a good portfolio together.



Finally the book ends with some of the best advice I’ve ever seen on putting a portfolio together and how to act in an interview.



I haven’t been able to put this book down since I got hold of it and I’m now looking forward to the massive character modelling tutorial.



5 stars from me.



p.s. The book has an accompanying website with extra content promised too.

Awesome for learning 3dsmax from beginner to advanced

I wrote this book as the definitinve guide to starting out modelling for the games industry.
The book shows you exactly what you need to do to start creating 3d models and textures to be used in todays commercial software titles.

Once you have a good grasp of basic modelling, I take you through texture creation and using photographs to create texture maps in Photoshop.

Once you have a good grasp of modelling and texture creation, the tutorials get progressively more advanced in simple to follow, step by step tutorials ending in some really complex character modelling and texture baking.

To end everything off, I take you through a nice environment modelling tutorial and give you a great professional approach to putting a portfolio together and how to conduct yourself in an interview.

This is the very best guide to getting into the games industry on the market, and is completely up to date with 3dsMax 2009 and next generation techniques.

As well as the book there are hundreds of refernce photos from a photoshoot in an abandoned mental hospital in England - more than enough to keep an artist of any ability busy for the next 6 months. As well as the photoshoot and lots of example models to copy and adapt, there is an acompanying website with new content, photoshoots and tutorials planned throughout the comming months.

highly recommended