Creating the Art of the Game 1st Edition

by Matthew Omernick (Author)

48 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0735714090

ISBN-10: 0735714096

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If you have some experience with Maya or 3ds max and some knowledge of Photoshop or Painter, Creating the Art of the Game will take you through the process and the associated responsibilities of making a videogame - from an artist's point of view. Learning the ins and outs of particular software packages and playing the latest games won't make you a dynamic game artist: They'll make you a great technician. To make the jump to being a professional game artist, you need to adapt your traditional art skills to the digital media.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Matthew Omernick currently works as a lead artist for LucasArts Entertainment Company near San Francisco, CA. With a B.F.A from The Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL, Matt has more than seven years of industry experience as a 3D artist and animator.

Matt has also taught college-level 3D graphics for four years at Cal State Fullerton and the Academy of Art College in downtown San Francisco. He has worked for companies such as DreamWorks, Day 1 Studios, and Electronic Arts. He began his career working for various film and broadcast studios in Florida and Chicago, then branched into creating 3D art for video games. Some of Matt's credited titles include theMedal of Honor series, RTX Red Rock, and Secret Weapons Over Normandy. He is currently working on several cutting edge projects for multiple platforms.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Riders Pub; 1st edition (March 1, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0735714096
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0735714090
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.62 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.25 x 0.75 x 10 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #554,373 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #210 in Digital Video Production (Books)
- #345 in Computer Graphics
- #357 in Game Programming

Customer Reviews:
48 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		50%
4 star		19%
3 star		15%
2 star		10%
1 star		7%

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Top reviews from the United States

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A. M. Hernandez

Seriously Dated, Geared Toward Total Beginners, More About Working With Old Game Engines Than Creating Art.

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2014

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Creating the Art of the Game by Matthew Omernick was a quick and easy read. However, I wish I had noticed the age of the book (and also the age of the reviews on Amazon). This book is seriously dated, and it has not aged well. Although some of the topics are still applicable, and lot of the stuff he talks about is ancient in the game dev industry. All things considered, it’s not necessarily a bad book, it’s just not very useful at this point.

The book covers a number of fairly basic topics regarding art creation for video games. Some of what is discussed includes: gathering reference, modeling theory, texturing, lighting, user interface, and tips and tricks. It became clear a few short chapters in that this book was really geared at beginners. I mean total beginners, as in still in high school, no experience whatsoever. Had it not been so dated, I could still recommend it to high school students. The only problem is that a lot of the content is not very useful anymore. He talks a lot about things like vertex lighting (saying per-pixel lighting is to intensive for real-time use), faked shadowing using square/circle textures, planar reflection by duplicating and flipping geometry, etc. These are all pre-shader era techniques and are somewhat amusing to look back on.

Omernick refers to the Playstation 2 a lot (the popular console at the time) and makes some interesting predictions about what the “next generation” (now the last generation) would be able to do. Clearly the guy has worked in the industry and knows what he is talking about. It’s just that the state-of-the-art has advanced considerably in the past 10 years, and this book does not stand the test of time. However, I did learn a trick or two regarding texture creation (which fundamentally has not changed much) so I don’t feel too bad about spending a few days reading this book.

Unfortunately I don’t think I could recommend this to anyone at this point, given the beginning level and dated content. No worries, on to the next book.

3 people found this helpful

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Fills In The Gaps

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2006

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I've been reading a lot of books lately that talk about how to create various 3-d art. And also lots of books that talk about programming that assumes that you already have the "art assets", but there is obviously a big gap between those two things! This book fills that gap very well.

This book talks about making art assets for games, period. So when he talks about making various pieces of art, he always puts it in the context of how it will be used in an actual game. Most of his points are illustrated with color photos of very popular games that the author has worked on (e.g. Metal of Honor).

The book offers mostly theory, but the author isn't afraid to get his hands dirty either. Every once in a while to illustrate a point he offers very detailed, step by step instructions on how to do something (mainly using Maya, 3ds Max, or Photoshop). In this regard, users who use those tools will probably get a little bit more out of the book then those who use alternate tools, but most of the book is theory and general discussion.

A lot of books I've been reading lately have been very "heavy" in terms of trying to cram so many facts into each page that I find myself counting down each page to the end of the chapter. Not this book. I find the pages turn a lot more easily and quickly in this book, and it is actually an enjoyable as well as informative read.

3 people found this helpful

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TDenmark

This is the best introduction to creating art for 3d video games

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2005

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There are hundreds of books dedicated to how to create 3d art for video games. If you are a new or intermediate artist set all those other books aside and read this one. If you only pick up one book on how to model and texture for video games get this one. Most books either go into far too much detail, like reading an encyclopedia, or are too light on the important details. This book is focused like a laser beam on what is most important and doesn't detour from its goal by going off into unnecessary tangents like animation or model rigging that are subjects best covered in their own books. When you finish this book you will have a solid understanding of how to build a model and texture it and have it ready for export into a game engine. And the illustrations are gorgeous! Note that this book does cover character modeling but it primarily details environments and props.

8 people found this helpful

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Timothy Smith

Creating 3D artwork

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2015

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This is a very good book to talk about creating artwork for video games in 3D. There are MANY photos that show in the game engine that your using how to do some of the things. I never knew so much work went into building the artwork alone. I bought this book when I was taking game design courses in college. It is a very good read, has a lot of information and if anyone is designing video games, very good for beginners and people who want extra tips.

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Robo_Mac

Creating the Art of the Game

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2013

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This is from 2004. This book is useful for beginner game developers. I did find some information useful though. The author explains about modeling, texturing, lighting, effects and tips and tricks for games. I wish he went into more detail for each chapter and gave more examples. If the author is still around, I think he should do a more advanced version of this book.

One person found this helpful

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Lewis R. Strasburg

Absolutely

Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2010

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I whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in 3D modeling for games. This book is easy to read, full of excellent techniques and tips, and all organized in a logical manner. There are numerous pictures, some of them directly from AAA titles the author worked on himself, specific steps for Maya or 3Ds Max, and some tricks that even some seasoned game artists have not learned yet. I am thrilled with the new material I learned from this book and in a short time. It has expanded my artistic horizons further than I would expect a single book to do.

2 people found this helpful

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Miss_e

Great for the 3D beginner

Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2014

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Really love this book. It uses beautiful clear crisp images and great explanations for creating 3D environments and objects. It also includes a cd with material to create some of the things in the book quickly. It's probably a little outdated now though but still great basic techniques :)

One person found this helpful

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Jennifer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2016

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My niece loved this book! We got it for her for Christmas, and it was a huge hit!

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Mr. Lee C. Blacklock

Good beginners book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2009

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This book teaches in such a way that you learn how to do things but also know how you have done it, some books/tutorials will guide you through every step and at the end you'll have something that looks great but leaves you thinking could i do that again without the tutorial?

I used this book to learn the methods and apply the techniques to my own projects at the same time, i personally got the most out of the normal map creation tutorials. Since buying this book i have gone on to other books and understood them i think better for first working though this book in the beginning.

Also alot of books have been how to model, texture etc in max or maya, but this book is targetted on how to create models textures etc for use in games.

A very good book and one that i would most recommend to someone that was a beginner out of my whole collection, its a great 1st stepping stone book, and one that i have actually gone back to again to refresh my memory on certain techniques etc.

Phil

good for a basic insight into the industry

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 22, 2013

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It covers a lot of the basics needed for the gaming industry, and tries to do this without being specific to any 3d package, however its methods are dated and examples are from the days of the PS2.

Dominic M.

Ein ausgezeichneter Titel für jeden neueinsteiger

Reviewed in Germany on January 9, 2013

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In Creating art of the game wird man sowohl als Neueinsteiger als auch als Fortgeschrittner im Bereich Games Art und Games Design an verschiedene Themen Herangeführt.

Ich habe durch dieses Buch einige sehr nützliche Tipps und Tricks in Erfahrung bringen können, mit Hilfe derer ich nun mit Photoshop und Maya effektiver arbeiten kann.
Der Autor geht dabei nicht wie in anderen Fachbüchern darauf ein, wie die einzelnen Programme genau zu bedienen sind, sondern veranschaulicht Vorangehensweisen, die man als Gamedesigner und als Gameartist allgemein in jedem Programm anwenden kann.

Dabei ist die Sprache sehr einfach und verständlich gehalten, so dass kein großes Vorwissen an Fachsprache in diesem Bereich nötig ist und sich jeder sofort gut zurecht finden kann.
Der Autor behandelt dabei Themen über die Programme 3Ds Max und Maya von Autodeks und Photoshop von Adobe. Allerdings lassen sich die genannten Tipps und Tricks nicht nur auf diese Programme beschränken sondern sind zum Teil Ratschläge aus dem Alltag eines Gamedesigners und Gameartist die dabei helfen, Vorangehensweisen an ein bevorstehendes Projekt zu vereinfachen.

Durch das Buch habe ich einige nützliche Dinge im Bereich boxed modeling, texturing, lightning, spezial effects und der Verwendung von Alpha maps in Erfahrung bringen können,die ich als Game Arts Stundent nun selber erfolgreich anwenden kann.

Allerdings sollte man nicht erwarten, dass einem erklärt wird wie man genau bei bestimmten Situationen vorzugehen hat , denn der Autor führt den Leser nur in die richtige Richtung. Wer wissen möchte, wo eine bestimmte Funktion für ein bestimmtes Programm zu finden ist, sollte sich das dafür spezielle Handbuchbesorgen.
Einige wenige Aspekte indiesem Buch sind zwar schon überholt da die Erstveröffentlichung bereits 2004 war und Spiele teilweise schon neuere Technoligien benutzen als hier beschrieben,
größtenteils jedoch werden Aspekte angesprochen, die heutzutage genau so noch in der Gamesbranche von Bedeutung sind.

Daher würde ich dieses Buch jedem empfehlen, der als Gamedesigner oder Gameartist einsteigen möchte und dabei von Anfang an nützliche Tipps für ein erfolgreiches Arbeiten erhalten möchte.

One person found this helpful

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