The ultimate resource to help you create triple-A quality art for a variety of game worlds; 3D Game Environments offers detailed tutorials on creating 3D models, applying 2D art to 3D models, and clear concise advice on issues of efficiency and optimization for a 3D game engine. Using Photoshop and 3ds Max as his primary tools, Luke Ahearn explains how to create realistic textures from photo source and uses a variety of techniques to portray dynamic and believable game worlds.

From a modern city to a steamy jungle, learn about the planning and technological considerations for 3D modeling, UV layout, and creating textures that goes into developing a realistic and appealing game environment with:
* The entire game world development process: from planning to modeling and texturing.
* Exercises and projects to practice with: each section includes projects to practice creating different world genres.
* CD with source art to practice with and use in your own projects, program demos, and plug-ins.

a book that has been needed for a long time

I just got this book today, so far it looks good. Its strange that this book has no reviews yet considering Ahearn’s other book "3D Game Textures" has 28 reviews. I have that book and in my opinion it is very lacking, reason being that it only covers how to make textures in photoshop of things like metal, brick walls and wood surfaces. There is nothing wrong with having the ability to make textures like that from scratch, but textures like that are readily available for download on the internet which are as good or better than anything you could make on your own. So this new book on Game Environments covers the whole process of composing scenes and how to texture them, something that has been very lacking in 3D graphics books. So I give it 4 stars just on my first impression from thumbing through the book, that I think it will be just what I need to get started making 3D scenes.