3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop

by Luke Ahearn (Author)

98 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0240807683

ISBN-10: 0240807685

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3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop
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Game artists, architects, simulation developers, web designers and enthusiasts alike can learn to create everything from bricks to books in Photoshop with this step-by-step instructional guide. Because texture is 99% of what a gamer sees when playing, this topic deserves considerable coverage but has gotten little attention. Unlike anything on the market, this book is the first of its kind to provide an in-depth guide to game texturing with hundreds of high-quality examples. This guide teaches everything a game artist will need to know--from researching textures, basic artistic principles, tools and techniques, to specific step-by-step tutorials that explain how to create textures for a myriad of environments. The goal of this book is to give the reader a guide that will actually help them secure a job as a developer/artist-even providing them with images created using the tutorials that can be used in a portfolio.

* Learn everything you need to create stunning, professional textures from one easy to follow guide which features tutorials and over 500 high-quality images
* Follow the step-by-step tutorials to learn how to create suitable images which you can add to your portfolio and WOW prospective employers
* Companion CD includes sample textures and electronic versions of images you saw in the book-all the tools you need in one place!
* Hit the ground running or get a leg up on the competition with the tips, tricks, and real world examples featured in this comprehensive guide

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"As well as the design angle of creating artwork for games, this book also tackles the business side of creating artwork for commercial purposes, making it a wonderful insight into the world of the professional games artist. After reading this you'll have a far better understanding of what it takes to become successful in the games world, and it will give you the opportunity to begin building a stunning profolio." - Advanced Photoshop

"Discover how to design bullet holes, flames, windows and walls - all the effects that are an essential for today's videogame - with easy-to-follow tutorials. There are a variety of different themes explored throughout this book, covering anything from urban street scenes to the fantasy genre." - Advanced Photoshop, April 2006

"This book can help anyone become a better texture professional...Ahearn's book can and help you become a much better artist, even if you never did much texturing before...The details are simple, but they give anyone who has no Photoshop experience a better idea of what to do. A more experienced reader can gain an in-depth look at how to add improved texture to his projects. 3D Game Textures is a great book for beginners who would like to learn about textures for 3D art. No one should have a problem understanding and using this easy-to-comprehend information." - Apogee Photo Magazine, August 2006

Book Description

A tutorial for beginning game artists and enthusiasts to learn how to create textures at the professional level.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Focal Press (March 7, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0240807685
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0240807683
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.25 x 1 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,255,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #669 in 3D Graphic Design
- #1,025 in Adobe Photoshop
- #2,012 in Digital Art

Customer Reviews:
98 ratings

About the author

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Luke Ahearn

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I was born in New Orleans, LA, lived in Central California for almost twenty years, and now live in Austin, TX.

I am a commercially successfully published author of both fiction and nonfiction, most recently signing a 3-book deal for a thriller series with Devil Dog Press. Many of my nonfiction books are in their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions.

I have over 20 years of professional game development experience in lead positions; designer, producer, and art director that range from AAA first person shooters to mobile and web-based games. I am an expert in Photoshop. I am a self-taught artist, prop builder, and painter.

http://lukeahearn.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukeahearn

https://www.amazon.com/Luke-Ahearn/e/B001ILIBAQ

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GREG P

Save yourself a lot of wasted time...

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2013

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I have been scouring the Internet for texturing tutorials for over a year, now, after reading this awesome book, I think I just saved myself hours and hours of wasted time looking for tips and tricks.
It answered many questions I had, as well as revealing basic fundamentals that I had missed before, which was why I was struggling. Already my texturing has advanced 200% in 1 week!
I am actually using GIMP Paint-studio 2.8, which I know quite well, so that also is a good recommendation that I can use different software and get the same or similar result.
Truly, this is where you should start if you want to learn texture creation for games!
(Although I should point out if you use Gimp or other software than Photoshop, the filters are not named exactly the same, but all the techniques are gone over pretty extensively, so you can figure out how to do it, and you will need to develop your own technique to get the same end result. But it is a good way to learn Texturing.)

4 people found this helpful

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SuperDave

which is disappointing because it came highly recommended. Some of the techniques are outdated

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2014

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An ok book for an absolute clueless beginner, but limited real value to anyone whos been in the industry on the artistic side for a while, which is disappointing because it came highly recommended. Some of the techniques are outdated, and only suited to low-fi non-HD graphics, defiantly not suited for next gen development. Its decent at what it does though, so if your clueless about graphics for games, or want to learn some nifty photoshop techniques that you can probably find on youtube for free anyway, go ahead and grab it for the bookshelf!

2 people found this helpful

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Matt Selander

Avoid this book if you want to learn modern game texture techniques

Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2010

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(This review is for the 1st edition only, however I can't imagine the 2nd edition being improved enough to make this at all recommendable)

As others have already stated, this book starts out with some relatively decent advice on texture gathering from photos, explaining Photoshop layer modes (which I did find particularly useful), and some game-engine related information on how textures work, however any useful information in this book stops as soon as you get to the actual texture creation tutorials, which is the whole point people purchased this book.

I bought this book in the hopes that I'd glean some new techniques or workflows to improve my skills. I should have thumbed through it at a book store first. A few other reviewers have experienced the same situation I did when I first went through this book: none of the textures come out the same as the author's end result (because the author clearly doesn't follow his own steps exactly to get these results). I'm a current game artist and seasoned user of Photoshop as well. I even reset to default settings and removed user profiles to be sure I was starting from a blank slate to try to get these right. Didn't help one bit. It's mind-boggling. Not only do none of the tutorials produce accurate results (compare your results with the same completed images on the companion cd...you'll be quite surprised), but most disturbing of all is every single texture is made solely via Photoshop filters. That's it. Filters.

This is NOT how current modern game textures are created. These may be semi-useful for low-poly, mobile/hand-held 3D games, but for todays nex-gen games? Not at all. The average nex-gen game asset today starts with building a high-poly model, then LOD'ing it (making a low-poly version, that is), unwrapping your low-poly model for a good UV layout, then creating the AO and normal map (using the 3D package or a program like xNormal), then creating a diffuse map (with AO, or Ambient Occlusion, applied) in Photoshop, and from there other necessary maps (like reflection, glossy, specular, etc.) are created. And these are often hand-painted or heavily photo-manipulated as well, or a mix of both. You'll barely see any filters used, but rather tonal and color adjustments. Using filters to put in shadows is not a common technique at all either, like we see in most of the tutorials in this book, but rather is handled via game engine light baking, and AO maps help that illusion as well. Even some current work I'm doing involving low-poly assets uses unwrapping and AO baking for the models, and it's a web-based game!

These techniques may have been useful years ago before modern technologies, but they're no longer valid unless a game specifically calls for this style of texturing (which is probably pretty rare by now anyway) or for mobile or hand-held games. To be fair, each game and studio uses different techniques and styles, depending on the game. Having worked on or seen the techniques used for some of today's most popular games, like Dragon Age for instance, I can safely say that you should avoid this book at all costs if you wish to do texturing of that caliber. This book won't teach you that. And learning to do textures via a mass of filters is also something you should avoid as well.

I understand you can't write a book teaching people how to be artists or how to use the tools available to them to produce the best results they can via lots of specific, personal techniques, but using loads of filters? This is just teaching someone how to become dependent on using filters to create convincing textures, which they are anything but in the end. It makes you look like a hack, not an artist. The best resources to learn texturing today can be found by simply searching the net (like on game-artist.net or cg.tutsplus.com for instance) or by using training DVD's through the excellent Gnomon Workshop or Eat3D. Even those may not teach you everything, but they'll get you on the right track, instead of derail you like this book will.

6 people found this helpful

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Todd C. Steen

Good subject matter but missing things*

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2011

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First the good.

The book does a good job of giving you a backround of the texture history and progression. It also gives you a lot of tips and tricks, explained plainly. It also provides step by step instructions on how to do many things that professionals rely on. Overall, it is a well thought out with lots of good information on a professional level.

The bad.

Since this is a third edition it makes use of the previous 2 editions and some of the material. Unfortunately it requires use of files that were on a disk from previous editions. There is no CD with this book so several of the exercises and files cannot be followed. There are worthwhile excercises you can do without the files, but it does diminish the value of the book significantly. Until the publisher puts these files online for the users, I can't recommend this version of the book. Very disappointing.

Edit:

I contacted the publisher and they said that a CD does not come with it. Even though the book makes numerous mentions and has tutorials to follow. They also said I should send them all the page numbers with references to a CD so they can delete them. (I thought that is what an editor is supposed to do.)

Do yourself a favor and purchase a different edition so you can get the files or try and and an alternative means of getting the files.

Edit:

Author has since moved downloads to website so you can now access file. In this case it is certainly a worthwhile purchase.

20 people found this helpful

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Razor Shultz

Excellent technically

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2012

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This book spends the first 100 pages or so delivering an excellent primer on the basics of colour, our perception of objects including light/shadows, texture and form. This section is a few pages long and as someone who is clueless about art, it was nice to gain some insight from someone who is clearly in the know about artistic observation and analysis. All the relevant language is introduced rapidly and you'll be able to communicate your thoughts and understand those of others very precisely. This particular part is over with quickly, and we move on from traditional art topics and language to the technological context. Computer colour theory is succinctly explained and again, with all the essential terms clarified so you can communicate meaningfully on the subject. You're introduced to the various kinds of images you'll need to produce as a texture artist; diffuse maps, illumination maps, opacity maps, specularity maps, cube maps, and normal maps. The illustrations that accompany these concepts, which can be difficult to grasp for people who aren't well versed in their knowledge of game technology, are incredible. You'll quickly understand what purposes the various kind of texture maps serve as they are demonstrated individually, and as part of a completely textured object.

The writing is waffle free and everything mentioned is worth understanding. Once you understand the critical technical knowledge of texture art, you'll realise that the job of a game artist is much more than using photoshop to draw nice surfaces that will be wrapped around walls and other models in game. You'll also feel very pleased you understood it all perfectly the first time, because as someone who personally knows a lot of budding game artists, I found they were generally unable to articulate to me exactly what a "normal map" was, and what purpose it serves.

Once the technical stuff is over entirely, you're plunged straight into the texturing tutorials; if you're used to following photoshop tutorials on websites you will feel right at home. You will follow set recipes as means to a certain end effect, and be encouraged to experiment on your own to broaden your skills. If you're the kind of person who says "why would I buy a book just to follow strict tutorials when I can do that on the internet?" Well for one thing, these tutorials are advanced and incredibly well written, and because the effects are explained and you're given direction as to how you can improve on your own. It's all a part of teaching you the fundaments that you can then toy around with yourself.

One last note, this book is NOT for people who are new to photoshop. Although I am no artist (I can't draw or paint or anything like that), I am a seasoned photoshop user with years of experience and I can guarantee you, if you do not have strong photoshop skills you will find it very difficult to follow this book because no time is wasted teaching the readers its functions - this is a book for people who have a working knowledge of photoshop.

To any artists who want to become game artists, I warn you now that there is a lot of technical stuff to understand, so if you don't like the sound of studying how shaders work (programs that combine lots of texture images together for certain effects) then I suggest you give up on games. This is something I will write in every review I write on a game technology career - there is NO career in the game industry that you can do without technical knowledge. Accept you need to understand some complicated technological theory, and you will be fine. As said before, this book makes everything incredibly clear and you will call me an idiot for even suggesting the material is difficult. That said, for serious buyers I wish you fun times with this book, it's great.

One person found this helpful

Heavy Nurgle

Good book on texturing, only minor flaws

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 11, 2012

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This book is pretty good. It seems to be one of the few books that focuses only on textures, and if you don't really know where to begin with making textures, it is definitely going to be useful. Half the book is a general overview which introduces a lot of basic stuff about colour and shaders. Although a lot of this I already knew, some I didn't and it certainly didn't hurt to have it all in one place.

The tutorials are quite good, very useful to give you some idea how you can go about building up your own textures from layers. Occasionally steps are skipped and you have to fill in the blanks. Sometimes the results you get will be different to the ones shown, so they could be better written. If you like to do things exactly as instructed and get the same results as the book, you might find this annoying. If you are happy to experiment and adjust the parameters from those shown, then it isn't going to be too much of an issue. The point is to learn some general workflows, and on this front the book delivers. It will remove a lot of fog for the novice about how things are done, which is very satisfying.

At points the book feels maybe a bit too 'old school'. The textures sometimes look a bit like the ones you saw in the grey/brown 3d video games of the 90s (you know the ones), and for all the talk of colour at the beginning, there are actually some fairly horrid colour combinations in a few of the examples given. Also I don't know how relevant some of the direct x stuff mentioned still is: it would have been nice to have had some basic information about other approaches to texturing models directly, which I understand is now possible with tools like zbrush and might be preferable.

However, overall this is a good book to get if like me you wouldn't have a clue where to begin making your own textures in photoshop. And while it might be 'old school' at points, I think it's fair to say that many of the techniques and theory covered are going to be still relevant in games for a long time to come. I'd definitely recommend it for budding texture artists or anyone needing to know the basics.

Amazon Customer

Taught me to create my own great textures with no prior experience

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 9, 2007

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I have been interested in game development for a while now, mainly within the level design, creating new maps etc. I am learning and using the Unreal engine at present. I spent many months learning how to create levels and getting the hang of the level editor, UnrealEd. However, I wanted to start creating new content, never before seen, so somebody playing on the level will not recognise any already used assets such as models and textures. So I then started learning how to create models to include in my levels.

This being all very well, but I desperately needed new textures to use on my models and within the level its self. Im not very good artistically and thought I would never be able to create good textures even using Photoshop, which I used to open, try to use, fail and quit again!

I could do a bit of everything else, so thought I may as well get a book and see if that can help.....even if it helps me create the most basic looking textures!

This book had good reviews and looked like what I wanted to learn to be able to texture my levels my self.

So once this book came I worked through all the tutorials right to the end. They were easy to follow, informative and quite fun. I even then imported them into UnrealEd to use them in mess about levels and they worked a treat.

I found the start of the book a little dull as it went though all the things to look at when creating art such as things being 3D and not just 2D etc, though I understand it was the theory so to speak, I literally just wanted to get into Photoshop and start "doing".....it took a little longer then I wanted to get to the "creating your first texture" part! However, this was just me and im sure many may disagree as learning all the fundamentals about how art is and why it is etc is needed for a base line?

Once you do start creating textures its great fun, as I thought I would never be able to do it well. I was surprised just how easy it can be to get fantastic results. Also the more effort and tweaking you put into a texture the better it looks.

Needless to say after reading this book, I am now creating good quality textures and know how to navigate Photoshop. Though no expert, its certainly made a huge difference in my work and now everything looks even more unique and original which was the overall goal.

However, just a few notes, I was hoping the book would cover UV laying out, but it doesn't, also best tools and methods used to import in and out of game engines and possible some examples of best methods? None of this is covered.

This book literally is just about creating textures in Photoshop and nothing more, though a fantastic book and I would not be were I am now without it, I think it could have done with just a little bit more info about other areas.....again just my opinion.

I would recommend this book for anyone starting of with texture creation. I would say maybe just a little bit of knowledge of Photoshop before hand may help as some parts in the earlier chapters presume you know what to do when asked.

I will certainly be keeping this book near by.

9 people found this helpful

Matthias

Wow.

Reviewed in Germany on October 28, 2008

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Das Buch ist ein echter Gewinn. Anfänger bekommen hier alles gezeigt und viele essententielle Grundlagen angelernt. Für Fortgeschrittene zeigt dieses Buch viele Techniken und Möglichkeiten seine Arbeiten weiter zu verfeinern. Ich beschäftige mich schon seit einigen Jahren mit der Materie und habe viel neues dazugelernt. Das Buch ist eine echte Empfehlung und jeden Cent wert.

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Dieter Johannes Hanisch

Sehr gute Literatur für den Game-Designer

Reviewed in Germany on December 16, 2014

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Das Buch hatte ich als Geschenk gekauft - Der Beschenkte (Game-Designer) arbeitete damit intensiv und kann das Buch nur weiter empfehlen.

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