3D Game Programming All in One (Paperback)

by Kenneth C Finney (Author) "Before we get into the nitty-gritty details of creating a game, we need to cover some background so that we can all work from the..." (more)
Key Phrases: demo shortcut, program program executable, collision mesh, Paint Shop Pro, Torque Game Engine, Torque Engine (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Are you an aspiring game developer with a great idea, but no practical knowledge for turning that idea into reality? 3D Game Programming All in One is the comprehensive guide you need! This new edition updates the original coverage with the latest version of Torque from GarageGames, and provides the very best tools available to the Indie game maker. This hands-on book not only teaches the technical skills behind 3D game programming, but also provides you with the practical experience you need to create your own games. As you create a first-person shooter, you'll cover the techniques behind the programming, textures, and models that go into successful game creation. You'll also cover the Torque Engine and will learn how to integrate sound and music into your game. 3D Game Programming All in One provides you with the training, experience, and tools you need to turn your dreams of game creation into reality!

From the Publisher
This book and the companion CD contain all of the tools and information necessary to create a complete ready-to-play first person shooter game. Functions as a stand-alone book or 'the next step' for readers of Game Programming All in One (1931841233), which takes the reader through each step of the creation of a full 2D game. Provides thorough explanation of 3D game programming, an emerging market within gaming. The CD is a treasure chest of tools and resources for independent game developers, including a fully featured game engine; tools for modeling, sound and text editing, and image manipulation; sound, image, and music libraries. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1085 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 2 edition (November 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598632663
• ISBN-13: 978-1598632668
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #61,127 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Book's OK,but 3D Game Prog. All in 1 is a misleading Title.., June 4, 2004

By	"maraspin" (Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3D Game Programming All in One (Course Technology PTR Game Development Series) (Paperback)

I've just got and read most of this book and I'll try to give my personal opinions, but from what I hope it could be a somewhat objective point of view. For starters, I can say book is really well written, but still, I'm just giving it book 3 stars, just becouse I was actually expecting something more from it, and the book title was a little misleading to me...

PROS:
Well Written
Comprehensive
Written for Beginners

CONS:
Too Specific to the Torque Game Engine (the word Torque is actually repeated infinitely through the book).
DirectX and OpenGL aren't sufficiently covered (just hint at).
For REAL Beginners (even teaches you how to use Paint Shop Pro)
Doesn't go into mid-low levels (no C++ code, hardware issues, etc)
A bit repetitive sometimes

OVERALL:
As the heading says, calling it 3D Game Programming All in One is maybe a bit misleading, whereas "Creating Games From Scratch w/ the Torque Engine" could have been a more suitable title.
Anyways, the book is very well written, so go ahead and get it if you're a real beginner and you're intrested in learning how to make a game from scratch, just from the designer (not programmer) point of view. You'll be taught some TORQUE, Paint Shop Pro, Ultraedit 32, Milkshape and other tools/game design issues, to make a complete game, at the end; a bit of everything is covered, really.
It's probably not the book for you though, if you know something about programming already and especially if you expect to learn (like I did) some gaming 3D math issues and some "mid level" development stuff (like C++, DirectX, OpenGL).

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book... but...., October 7, 2005

By	S. Guthikonda (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: 3D Game Programming All in One (Course Technology PTR Game Development Series) (Paperback)

This is an awesome, and essential, book if you plan on doing development with the Torque Game Engine (TGE). I had purchased my Indie Developer license (...) before discovering this book. The codebase for TGE is so huge (hundreds of files, thousands of classes, 100's of thousand lines of code). The online tutorials and Garage Game DOCs weren't really enough, I felt, to get started. So, I bought this book to get me started.

I will admit, the title of this book is a bit misleading. It does cover most aspects of 3d Game Programming (coding, textures, 3d modeling, sound, level design), but it is mostly dependent (except the artsy topics) on the TGE. Someone not expecting to work with TGE will be disappointed as all the code in the book is written in TorqueScript, not C++.

Another thing I will say about this book: The beginner-intermediate rating is a bit untrue. I would gear this book more towards the intermediate level. The 'introduction to programming' chapter is a good start, but really doesn't prepare an unexperienced programmer to the concepts of inheritance, scoping, program flow, among others, covered in the book.

Final Conclusion: Buy this book if you are working with TGE. Even if you're an experience TGE user, the references (function/class listings, etc) are extremely valuable. If you are not a TGE user, you should give a good look at it, as it is a great tool for an indie developer (...). If you're working on making your own engine from scratch, this book probably won't help you too much (there are probably better books on texture creation, 3d model creation, and sound that you could pick up instead... along with an actual 'engine development' book in C++).

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice book on Torque... but, June 24, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: 3D Game Programming All in One (Course Technology PTR Game Development Series) (Paperback)

Torque badly needs a book like this, but I hope some of the faults in this work are addressed in a second edition.

First, the good stuff. There is no book to offer a holistic overview of the mighty Torque Game Engine. This book has broken that sad deficiency. The author also writes at a level that will not alienate the experts overly as it offers the neophtes a leg up. The text is playful and fun, but not caked in silliness as I've found similar volumes seeking the same touch. As such, it is a true invitation to explore and learn how to use a complex and capable game engine that has suffered from a "by coders, for coders" darkness in the documentation department for years.

However, as I work through the book, I find a considerable number of errors in the text/code and comments of the sample scripts in the book. There is a threaded post or two on the www.garagegames.com forums where Ken is patiently noting corrections offered by the enthusiastic readers, but one cannot help but feel that the barriers these mistakes will present true newbies are more considerable.

The CD ROM is a misfire, in my opinion. One of Torque's greatest advantages over other game engines is that it support Linux and Mac in addition to Windows machines. But the CD ROM has setup.exe's and such whose function is nothing more involved that to extract compressed data from the CD and place it on your hard disk. This is just a sad mistake which alienates the subset of his audience who would most keenly benefit from having good documentation for such a gem as Torque in that they have so many fewer choices available to them. I strongly urge the publisher to replace such executable archives with plain ZIP files... at least for those containing only chapter "RESOURCES" materials. This would allow Torque to reach its greatest possible audience and put all platforms on a more even footing.

I look forward to finishing the book and walking through its lessons, but the CD ROM has failed to expedite my quest.