3D Game Creation with CDROM (Cyberrookies) [Paperback]

Luke Ahearn (Author)

Book Description

Series: Cyberrookies

For every computer/video game on the market, there are an equal number of new ones brewing, including those you wish you could create. Well now you can turn your game ideas into reality using state-of-the art game creation tools that don't require any programming skills. Whether you want to create a shoot'em up game, a strategy game or another one of the various genres, this text teaches everything about conceptualizing and building a game including how to create and manipulate images, animations, and sound. This is a way for beginners to learn the techniques of game development and gain an in-depth understanding of how the process works. The text features: detailed tutorials walk through the creation of three complete games; an explanation of the basics of 2D and 3D game creation and the types of hardware and software needed to get started; two ready-to-use game engines (The Games Factory and the PIE 3D GCS) that make game creation easy and affordable; information on how to create, capture, and manipulate images and animations to use in your games; information on all the major game genres from maze, card, and quiz games, to shoot 'em up, Sims, fighting and many more. The CD includes the free, unregistered version of TGF to create GAM files that can be played with other TGF users, sample games to play and explore, the PIE 3D GCS, sound utilities, and other valuable tools and assets for a complete game creation package. The games created with this version of TGF can only be saved as .gam files to be played on machines with TGF.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Luke Ahearn (Monterey, CA) is the Art Director/Development Consultant on The Army Game Project and a professor of computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School. He also designed and developed several award- winning game titles, and is the author of Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required and Designing 3D Games That Sell!.

Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media (August 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584500670
• ISBN-13: 978-1584500674
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,525,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good book, June 3, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: 3D Game Creation with CDROM (Cyberrookies) (Paperback)

This book teaches you how to use some pretty amazing software: Clickteam's "The Game Factory". If your goal is to quickly learn how to make 2D games, then this book is for you. The software (which comes with the book) includes a large number of graphics including animated characters, which you can make walk around the screen, fall, jump, kick or die. The 3D section is also good, and shows you how to use Pie-in-the Sky 3D software. This book is not for you if you are a hard-core programmer, but if your goal is to make some pretty good games easily, then this is it. I had a great time with this book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 3D Game Creation by Luke Ahearn, May 1, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: 3D Game Creation with CDROM (Cyberrookies) (Paperback)

I think this is a nice game maker for rookies I got this book but pie in the sky software was old on mine so it wouldn't go because a have a new computer. The games Factory is a fun way to make 2d games. I've made a level on a game and its pretty good. I think this is good for rookies that want to become game makers. It talks you through the different games and walk you through carefully I like it.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An embarrasment, June 24, 2003

By 

"meldorado_harmony" (Earth) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3D Game Creation with CDROM (Cyberrookies) (Paperback)

To me it seems like this is merely an attempt to get kids who don't know about how professional games are made to think that they will be able to make comercial quality 3D games. I have run demo versions for the software in the book and can tell you personally that it's useless. I looked at it at this book store for a short time, but it was long enough for me to realize that all it was was an alternative "manual" for some lame software. I would only recomend buying this if you are under the age of 9, and want to experiment with 3D graphics. I can tell you that anyone over nine who wishes to become a professional game programmer or hobbyist will not have trouble using computer languages like C and C++ along with API's like OpenGL (although you will be making text games for quite a while, it's well worth it), because I myself started at that age. I feel that if I had tried to use this book first, I would have wasted a large amount of time getting nothing productive done. I only give it two stars because of it's value for younger children, and those not serious about large projects.