Customer Reviews

Game Engine Toolset Development

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book thinking it would help me write a new tool for, say, building 3d models, or some other general tool. When it arrived I got excited just by the shear size of it, it's huge!

However, I started flipping through it browsing each and every chapter (didn't read them all in detail of course, but quite a few) and it doesn't teach you how to make a NEW tool for your game, it teaches you how to make an EXISTING tool better. While that knowledge is extremely valuable (and the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 3), it's not what the description of the book stated: "Readers are not required to have any experience developing game engine tools." If you have no experience developing a tool, you're going to have a little trouble getting started. If you know enough math and have good enough coding skills to get a game engine going, you'll be able to write a tool for your game, but you don't need this book to do it.

Now, with that said, this book IS quite good and worth your money so long as you don't expect to read this book and then write a tool, you're going to need more info. Get the book anyway and use it as a guide, it's usefull in that aspect.

This book is so good at making a tool better, most of it's "gems" can and should be applied to ANY application, game tool or not. Also, it covers some good highlevel (or lowlevel, depending on how you view it) .Net functionality such as interfacing with COM and code documentation, as well as few other excellent techniques. These "gems" are quite valuable on their own.

So, in conclusion, if you know nothing about writing a tool, or you don't know C#, hold off on buying this book (make sure to put it in your wish list however). If you have a tool but find it's difficult to work with, or you want to broaden it's appeal, or just simply make it better, get this book, you won't regret it.

I have been awaiting the arival of this book since I first heard about it over the summer. Now that I have it and have begun reading it, it as lived up to the expectations that I had hoped for. I hope many other game dev studios have someone read this book to get them to switch to .NET for tool development.

I hope to use this book to help influnce the company I work for, Raven Software to switch to .NET at some point.

Great book, I recommend anyone interested in Tools Development read it.

Ryan Hummer
Tools Programmer
Raven Software

This is an excellent book, which covers a lot of important aspects of game/engine tool development, but it is more like a recipe book, as each chapter subject is almost stands on its own - just like game programming gems series. My favorite is how to integrate native code into a managed application. The book is well written (one of the best I've read recently), and the only thing i missed is a few chapters on how-to integrate into an existing pipeline - like importer/exporter for a common 3d package at least. A better title for this book would be "(game)tool programming gems"

Then, as a hobbyist, I'll just let you know that this book not only teaches, but flat you gives you some great modular code that you can work into many different types of tools.

There's also some great design principles covered that have improved my workflow, even though i'm currently working solo.

The game dev industry has been missing a book specific to tools dev for a long time, and this author sure filled in the gap! I got my copy a couple days ago and I haven't put it down since. Not only is the book about building tools with the productivity and stability of .NET, but it's based on the latest cutting edge version, 2.0. Excellent!!!!!

This book uses the industry standard 'gem' (multi-article) layout. The articles are some of the best I have read on the subjects that they cover. The author was very thorough in his explanation of the techniques he presents and his writing style is very simple to follow and keeps you entertained.

This is by far the best tools book I have ever seen for the game industry. I would recommend this book for just about anyone: hobbyists, people just trying to break into the industry, and industry veterans. You're practically guaranteed to find several of the articles helpful. Excellent reference. Will be right next to my desk for years to come. I'm even going to buy an extra copy for the office.

Anthony Whitaker - Chief Technical Officer - Boanerges Studios, LLC.

I had expected the book to cover foundational concepts and cover information about tools that is specific to issues that arise in game development. The book covers some of that superficially, but more in an advisory tone, rather than a hands-on code specific way.

It's more of an overview of general techniques than an in-depth coverage of the topic of building tools that drive content or support games. Not directly useful to me, it turns out, but perhaps for others...

One of the most important parts of game development that is often neglected is the Toolset. Tools can be the difference between a top notch game that is delivered on time and one that is sub par and late.

This book covers many extremely useful topics, and the author uses C# and the .NET Framework 2.0 which are, in my opinion, the best option for rapid tool development.

I will be using this book as I plan and develop tools for my current and future projects.

Roy Eltham
Senior Programmer
Sony Online Entertainment

I just received my copy of Game Engine Toolset Development and I have been unable to put the book down. The author gives a good introduction to .NET 2.0 and relates it to toolset development for games. The chapters are easy to read and follow and he gives good advice on how to build good tools. He could have looked at other toolsets to make the book more complete, but I see this book as a way to introduce students to game programming who have a basic programming background (Java, C++, C, Alice 2.0, etc.).

I picked up this book yesterday and I find it was quite helpful. I find I loved the pace and method used throughout the book. I find this could be useful even for non game developers!

This will likely become my favourite reference guide for development! Especially the .NET 2.0 topics. There are extra chapters at the books website which are so helpful http://www.getdbook.com

I'm definitely looking forward to more from the author!