Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume II: Advanced Level Design Concepts with Unreal Engine 3 [Paperback]

Jason Busby (Author), Zak Parrish (Author), Jeff Wilson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0672329921 | ISBN-13: 978-0672329920 | Publication Date: October 2, 2009 | Edition: 1

Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume II: Advanced Level Design Concepts with Unreal Engine 3 is your start-to-finish guide to state-of-the-art Unreal Tournament 3 modding and level design. Here’s everything you need to know to take your game design skills to the next level, creating content with breakthrough depth and interactivity! Your authors aren’t just the world’s #1 Unreal game development trainers: They’ve built the training mods that shipped with Unreal Tournament. Now, working with the full cooperation of Unreal Engine 3’s creators, Epic Games, they introduce innovative, pro-quality techniques you’ll find nowhere else: outstanding solutions for everything from particle effects to physics, materials to cinematics. Packed with tips, hands-on tutorials, and expert insight, Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume II will help you take Unreal Tournament 3 and Unreal Engine 3 to the limit...and then blow right by it!

 

You’ll find expert tips on

• Creating advanced materials that leverage the full power of UnrealEd’s Material Editor
• Bringing levels to life with objects affected by gravity, collisions, and player influence
• Creating fire, smoke, sparks, and more with Unreal Engine 3’s particle effects system
• Building custom user interfaces, including Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) that update constantly
• Using SoundCues to mix, modulate, crossfade, and attenuate sounds
• Generating real-time camera-based effects, including depth of field, motion blur, and color adjustment
• Using post process effects to quickly transform a scene’s look and feel without changing existing materials or textures
• Animating characters and vehicles that move with unprecedented realism
• Creating in-game cinematics that develop your characters and move your story forward

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jason “Buzz” Busby is president and chief executive officer of 3D Buzz, Inc. For more than five years, he has taught 3D animation, programming, and game design through his website 3dbuzz.com, which has more than 275,000 members. He coauthored Mastering Unreal: The Art of Level Design and Mastering the Art of Production with 3ds Max 4 and has created and overseen the production of more than 1,000 hours of video training.

 

Zak Parrish, chief of operations at 3D Buzz, Inc., has developed hundreds of video tutorials over 3D animation and game design. He helped produce training videos that shipped with Unreal Tournament 2004: Special Edition as well as those that shipped with Unreal Tournament 3: Limited Collector’s Edition. Zak also coauthored Mastering Unreal.

 

Jeff Wilson, 3D Buzz’s technical consultant for the Unreal Engine, helps develop the company’s Unreal Technology training videos. He has been studying the Unreal Engine for five years while creating modifications for Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004. Wilson moderates the 3D Buzz forums.

 

Busby, Parrish, and Wilson are also coauthors of the companion book Mastering Unreal® Technology, Volume I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal® Engine 3.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1080 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (October 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672329921
• ISBN-13: 978-0672329920
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #230,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Decent, Comprehensive UDK Book, November 22, 2010

By 

Dale Broadbent "dalewb2" (Charlotte, NC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume II: Advanced Level Design Concepts with Unreal Engine 3 (Paperback)

First, let me address some complaints written about this book by other reviewers:
1. "The book isn't in color and it really should be because the cost for color is negligible." The cost for color in books is astronomical! And this book has TONS of screen captures through it's pages. In fact, I estimate at least 1/3 of the book's contents are nothing but screen captures. Yes the quality isn't all that great, but if they were in color this book would rarely sell because it would cost around $80 if not more.
2. "It's written for the Unreal Tournament 3 game editor and doesn't work with UDK." This is completely false. While it is true that the UT3 game editor and UDK are not the same tools, UDK CAN read UT3 level and package files - you just have to insert a *.* into the file name field to force it to show you all files (UDK is programmed to open only UDK files by default) - presto! There are the UT3 files available and they work fine. It could be in future versions of UDK this might not be the case, but as of September 2010, they work just fine.

These "Mastering Unreal Tech" books from 3D Buzz are really great tools for those looking to learn how to develop with Unreal 3 technology. Quite often they can be used as reference material as well. The authors do a fantastic job of giving you more information than you ever thought existed on the subjects they cover, leaving me wondering quite often "How do they KNOW that?" They even tell you when a certain feature included in the tools is non-functional. They must work side-by-side with Epic when making these books, is the only conclusion I can come to.

The problems I've run into with following their tutorials usually come down to missing assets from their packages - they sometimes reference levels or packages that just don't exist on the DVD. If you go to the website mentioned in the introduction (informit.com) you can download the missing files for chapter 2 after registering an account and your book.

The only other problem isn't their fault at all. The book was written back when Unreal Tech 3 was available only in the editor that comes with Unreal Tournament 3 - back in Sept 2009. Since then Epic has continued to update their engine through their toolset called UDK (www.udk.com). The Unreal Tourn 3 editor has remained frozen in time and has been replaced by UDK, slowly making the screen captures and files become outdated. But rest assured even if the files are using an old format, they still work in UDK; and their methods are still iron-clad and transition to UDK very well.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I am a game developer and this book is a must have, March 28, 2010

By 

M. Gantar (Slovenia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume II: Advanced Level Design Concepts with Unreal Engine 3 (Paperback)

I am a game developer, I needed this book in my learning process, it covers a lot of things that are "not covered" in other tutorials!
The book requires the basic understanding of unreal engine 3 and its editor, so it takes you in detail, explaining many of the advanced features of unreal engine 3, I learned a lot from this book, I was especialy happy with parts about working with UI interfaces,faceFX , cinematics and postprocessing, etc!

Overall I must say I "love" the book, and the price was low for such a gem,
I think this book is a must have for all Unreal Engine game designers!
I cant wait for the release of Volume 3, which will cover unreal script,I am sure it will be a great succes and will teach me a lot!
Tnx for this great book!!!

1.0 out of 5 stars Needs to be updated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, August 5, 2011

By 

johnny - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume II: Advanced Level Design Concepts with Unreal Engine 3 (Paperback)

This covers UDK technology that is almost 3-5 years old. This book needs to be updated to adhere with the new UDK engine. Alot of features in this book are outdated but you can still learn the essentials. Good beginners book.