3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop

This book is great for beginners, and is a pleasent read, however I found some of the tutorials to be missleading or unclear and often was left with a very different result to the author of the book.

Because of this, I personally found this book a waste of money because I already knew most of the information it contained and what I baught it for mostly where the tutorials to improve my Photoshop Skills.

Forget the Dark Side (0/0 people found this helpful)

Couldn't begin to recommend this book enough, out of the several I've used to help me brush up on my skinning and 3D skills it's by far the best. It sure puts "The Dark side of games texturs" to shame, that's for sure. If you're getting into 3D or skinning, check it out.

Taught me to create my own great textures with no prior experience (2/2 people found this helpful)

I have been interested in game development for a while now, mainly within the level design, creating new maps etc. I am learning and using the Unreal engine at present. I spent many months learning how to create levels and getting the hang of the level editor, UnrealEd. However, I wanted to start creating new content, never before seen, so somebody playing on the level will not recognise any already used assets such as models and textures. So I then started learning how to create models to include in my levels.

This being all very well, but I desperately needed new textures to use on my models and within the level its self. Im not very good artistically and thought I would never be able to create good textures even using Photoshop, which I used to open, try to use, fail and quit again!

I could do a bit of everything else, so thought I may as well get a book and see if that can help.....even if it helps me create the most basic looking textures!

This book had good reviews and looked like what I wanted to learn to be able to texture my levels my self.

So once this book came I worked through all the tutorials right to the end. They were easy to follow, informative and quite fun. I even then imported them into UnrealEd to use them in mess about levels and they worked a treat.

I found the start of the book a little dull as it went though all the things to look at when creating art such as things being 3D and not just 2D etc, though I understand it was the theory so to speak, I literally just wanted to get into Photoshop and start "doing".....it took a little longer then I wanted to get to the "creating your first texture" part! However, this was just me and im sure many may disagree as learning all the fundamentals about how art is and why it is etc is needed for a base line?

Once you do start creating textures its great fun, as I thought I would never be able to do it well. I was surprised just how easy it can be to get fantastic results. Also the more effort and tweaking you put into a texture the better it looks.

Needless to say after reading this book, I am now creating good quality textures and know how to navigate Photoshop. Though no expert, its certainly made a huge difference in my work and now everything looks even more unique and original which was the overall goal.

However, just a few notes, I was hoping the book would cover UV laying out, but it doesn't, also best tools and methods used to import in and out of game engines and possible some examples of best methods? None of this is covered.

This book literally is just about creating textures in Photoshop and nothing more, though a fantastic book and I would not be were I am now without it, I think it could have done with just a little bit more info about other areas.....again just my opinion.

I would recommend this book for anyone starting of with texture creation. I would say maybe just a little bit of knowledge of Photoshop before hand may help as some parts in the earlier chapters presume you know what to do when asked.

I will certainly be keeping this book near by.

Fantastic Resource... (4/4 people found this helpful)

This is a quality book. Half of the book is dedicated to discussion on texture methods inside realtime engines, how different maps are used, and the different approaches required. There is a lot of emphasis of learning by eye, and the importance of visual awareness.

The second half is probably going to be the part that grabs you. Luke goes into the texture asset creation for three different staple scenarios (sci-fi, fantasy and urban, with clearly written details as to the workflow. My only quibble would be that during some of the tutorials sections, you are told what to do, but not why you are actually doing it, though when you read his creation method for the base metal texture, you can begin to appreciate how hard it would be to actually justify the steps with an explanation.

In all, this is an excellent resource for people who are a little daunted by the prospect of texturing, BUY IT! ;D

NOTE: There was a typo in the first edition that causes a texture to come up VERY different to Luke's. If you have an earlier edition, and encounter problems, Luke himself posted this on Amazon.com:

First edited by: Luke Ahearn "Luke Ahearn" (CA) on Feb 11, 2006
Last edited by: Luke Ahearn "Luke Ahearn" (CA) on Nov 28, 2006

Here are corrections for this edition:

- In chapter 5 (page 152 ) Creating Base Metal step 5 should read 70 instead of -70.

- When applying the spotlight at the end of step nine of this exercise
the spotlight should be round and go just beyond the image edges. Do
this by dragging out the handles.

- Also, in an early example of tiling there is a source image on the DVD
and it is the wrong one. This is the one you need.[...]

Great book (1/1 people found this helpful)

This book is great for beginners to even advanced. The book delivers clear and concise examples an tutorials on making an eclectic array of textures.

The book will give you an overview on design aspects as well as a quick crash course on the layout of photoshop. In a bout 30 mins to an hour you can be creating great textures without any difficlty at all.

I highly recommend this book.

3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop

Luke Ahearn

Reader Reviews:

It's alright. (0/0 people found this helpful)

Forget the Dark Side (0/0 people found this helpful)

Taught me to create my own great textures with no prior experience (2/2 people found this helpful)

Fantastic Resource... (4/4 people found this helpful)

Great book (1/1 people found this helpful)

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