Japanese Game Graphics: Behind the Scenes of Your Favorite Games [Paperback]

Works Corporation (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 2004

Japan is the world power in video games, producing the most popular video hardware and software in the world that has won countless fans worldwide.  Now these fans can take a look at the making of their favorite games in Japanese Game Graphics, which goes behind-the-scenes of the most-talked about and popular titles released for Playstation 2 and other consumer videogame hardware.  Each of the 26 games covered (including Final Fantasy X2, Soulcalibur 2, and Oni Musha 2) gets its own fully illustrated chapter to describe the game and take readers beyond what is seen on the screen.The artists, illustrators, and creators of each game are extensively interviewed and they themselves describe what is unique about their game, what challenges they had to overcome to create the game, and how the characters and stories were created. They also describe what software and digital techniques (often invented especially for the game) were used to create the look and feel of each game and game world.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

For the past ten years, Japan-based Works Corporation has published various magazines on graphic design, animation, and computer graphics including "DTP World" and "CG World," whose circulations are the largest in the Japanese market.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Collins Design; illustrated edition edition (June 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060567724
• ISBN-13: 978-0060567729
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,073,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than it looks!, January 12, 2006

By 

Timothy Reilly (Nashua, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Japanese Game Graphics: Behind the Scenes of Your Favorite Games (Paperback)

From the cover I expected a fluffy rehash of game desktop wallpapers. Instead, it's packed with lots of great, technical information about the creation of game graphics! Highly recommended for aspiring 3d artists.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Intro to Eastern Games Genre, October 10, 2005

By 

pharvey (Brisbane, AUS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Japanese Game Graphics: Behind the Scenes of Your Favorite Games (Paperback)

I'd probably give this 4 and a half stars out of five but rounded up. I took a punt on it and am pleased i did.
In contrast to the previous poster i think it's a more interesting purchase than Art of Game Worlds (but only if you have some interest in Max/Maya and the process of game-making.)

I'm quite unfamiliar with Japanese games (don't have a PS2) and maybe because of this the artwork seemd quite fresh and exotic to me, more so than many games developed in the US/UK/Australia etc.
The quality of the artwork throughout is very high..this book has serious eyecandy value as well as being an interesting read.
Recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great imagery, nice overall, August 14, 2005

By 

Pea (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Japanese Game Graphics: Behind the Scenes of Your Favorite Games (Paperback)

This book is very well presented, and makes a nice coffee table type addition to anyones collection. The art is great and varied, and the mixture of rendered shots, in-progress shots, concept graphics and screenshots of the art being produced in the various applications is very nice.

The information contained in the book is insightful, and gives many tips and snippets of how the artists and animators achieved certain effects, or managed to come up with the final result. There is actually more information than you would expect, but don't expect to be able to use this book as a guide to producing your own graphics :).

The only niggle I have is that some of the writing (which I presume has been translated from japanese) is very difficult to follow, and on occasion doesn't make much sense :) An example of this is (pg. 106) -start paragraph- "However, perfect drawings were not created right away. CG and the overall design were both created by mutually adjusting the forms. Of course, during the presentation stage, the motions were considered and the model was shown, The model that consisted of visual motions was ehibited and the technically difficult parts were described." -end paragraph-

I also purchased 'The art of game worlds' which I prefer to 'Japanese Game Graphics', although it is less technical.