The Dark Side of Game Texturing (Paperback)

by David Franson (Author) "He teaches with care so that his students may learn well....." (more)
Key Phrases: Difference Clouds, Lighting Effects, Castle Wolfenstein (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A perfect and direct starting point for a beginner game texture artist! "The Dark Side of Game Texturing" is also an excellent reference for intermediate artists, or for those who want to further their digital art skills. Learn how to create game textures similar to the eerie, sinister, and ominous textures seen in great video games like Quake, Unreal, Half-Life, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. "The Dark Side Of Game Texturing" features a plethora of dynamic, full color, step-by-step texturing tutorials that reflect the nature of those games and more including military, fantasy, medieval, and sci-fi. You'll learn how to create decals like bullet holes, blast marks, signs, and more. Sprites such as lightning, fires, and explosions are also covered. Focusing on a topic rarely covered in other 3D graphics books, this is an ultimate hands-on guide to creating totally cool game textures that directly reflect the nature of many recently released video games.

From the Publisher
The only game texturing book on the market dedicated to game texturing. Contains full color, stepwise tutorials of the coolest game textures. Useful and informative for both game artists and general 2D digital artists. Includes a CD that contains all software including the Photoshop CS demo, hundreds of textures, and a Photoshop tutorial, so no previous experience is required. Covers every class of texture for all forms of adult (PG-13 and above) video games.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (March 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592003508
• ISBN-13: 978-1592003501
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #467,245 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Course PTR Game Development Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The same as his other book, August 17, 2004

By	Games design Student (Middlesbrough) - See all my reviews

Anyone considering purchasing this who has bought David Franson's other book "2D Artwork and 3D Modelling for Game Artists" should think again. This book is just a much smaller version of that. I bought them both, and I was quite disappointed that David would just blatantly copy his other work. There are a few different tutorials but it's not worth paying the price, get the other book instead.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book that doesn't go quite far enough, May 23, 2006

By	Jason Cisarano (Chapel Hill, NC, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're like me, new to texturing with a bit of Photoshop experience and not much of an artist, you'll appreciate how this book starts slowly and builds to more and more interesting and challenging projects. You'll be surprised and pleased at what Franson can guide you into doing with so little effort on your part. You'll be pleased at finally using parts of Photoshop that you've looked at, but never tried. I think this is a great book to get you started texturing and producing some great results fast.

One great thing that I haven't seen mentioned but shouldn't be ignored is that the author has generously given us hundreds of his own digital photos on the CD to help get us started texturing right away.

However, there are a few problems, some of which people have already mentioned here. First, this book is Photoshop-specific, and that means _no_ Photoshop Elements. Some things just plain won't work with Elements (The open-source Gimp is a great workaround, even though you'll spend a lot of time learning the program itself).

Second, you really need to follow this book in sequential order. If you start with Chpt. 5, you'll find that the explanations are incomplete: Franson says things like "I did this just like in Chpt. 3). Fair enough, I don't need my hand held all the way, but the truth is that many people will skip the chapters that deal with textures they aren't interested in.

Third, this book stops with Photoshop. Someone mentioned not being satisfied with his/her results when imported into Maya, and I can report the same experience with UnrealEd. You'll learn how to make a texture look great in Photoshop, but things change when you go to import them into other applications. Franson gives a quick gloss of different editors and engines, but this really isn't a book about how to get your textures all the way into a game. But then there are so many games out there and so many possible applications of the textures, that maybe it's impossible for one book to be all things to all people.

So to sum up, I had a great experience with what this book gave me, but it left me wanting more, more, more!

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Quite disappointing, July 22, 2004

By	Marque Pierre Sondergaard "World's Best Textu... (Liverpool, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am big on textures for games and 3D. And this one was eagerly anticipated to say the least. I truly wish I was about to write a glorious review, because that would mean I had another new favourite book - but alas that is not so.

First a gripe. Why is it that 80% of the people who write books like this come more across as somebody looking for a job (and using the book as leverage for that), rather than the seasoned pro with several high profile jobs behind them? This seems to be another one.

David Franson takes us through a couple of different scenarios from a lackluster medieval fantasy tutorial to a few weapons tutorials, and ends up with the most interesting piece in the book, a dark futuristic wall tutorial (think Doom 3). However the level of specifications aimed for makes you wonder. At the moment, the world is eagerly awaiting Half Life 2, and Doom 3 will come out just in a few weeks. The texturing work in the current generation of FPS 3D games makes the stuff in this book look laughable. I know the book is fairly recently published, still it is only aiming for quality of work along the lines of Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

So when the users will painstakingly sit and make very dimensional textures, alluding to a lot of shapes and objects beyond the geometry, then they'll quickly and rudely find out that that was ten years ago. These days you have polygons enough for the pipes on your walls.

This seems to completely escape the author, which immediately gives it away as newbie work. So if you are expecting professional grade texture work from this book, don't bother we are unfortunately not even talking skilled mod skinner level, more like hopeful new joiner of mediocre mod team quality level.

I showed the book to my texturing lecturer, who is fresh out of the games industry (where she worked as a texture artist), and immediately the beginners mistakes were jumping at her. Guys, there is nothing in this book you can't find better and more up to date on the web. If you are lost for where to look, check out CG Talk. Or go pick up Matthew Omernick's superb book Creating the Art of the Game, which for once was written by an expert (he worked on Medal of Honor and is now Art Director with Lucasarts - not just gave up his programming or law career like David Franson here), and truly shows it.