 | | |
| Mastering Unreal Technology: The Art of Level Design | 
 enlarge | Authors: Jason Busby, Zak Parrish, Joel Van Eenwyk
Publisher: Sams
Category: Book
List Price: £35.99
Buy New: £8.16
You Save: £27.83 (77%)
Buy New/Used from £7.34
Avg. Customer Rating:  (7 reviews)
Sales Rank: 44861
Media: Paperback
Edition: Pap/Cdr
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 984
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.4 x 2.1
ISBN: 0672326922
Dewey Decimal Number: 794
EAN: 9780672326929
ASIN: 0672326922
Publication Date: December 16, 2004
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Excellent book, terrible CD July 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book itself is very well written, starts with the basics and gives a good overview of unreal and how the technology works before starting tutorials.
The tutorials start with the very basics, making this good for those new to Unreal modding (like myself), alongside the tutorial are screenshots to help you along.
The big problem with this book is the CD. It comes with a free trial of the Unreal Editor, however all the examples and textures on the CD require the commercial version to work.
The version of Maya on the CD is version 5.0, the most recent Maya is 8.5 and you cannot get a v5.0 unlock key without using illegal sources. There is no key on the book.
Overall it's a great book, but if you don't have a commercial editor and a 3d modelling program you're going to find it very difficult to get started.
 not quite everything you need. April 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Although things have moved on to Unreal III, (and the collectors edition of that has a fantastic 20 hours of video tutorials on Unreal Ed) this book is great reference material for using Unreal Ed 2.
However, to fully utilise the examples on the disk included with this book, you will need Unreal Tournament 2004, which contains Unreal Ed2.
There is a demo of this on the disk, but this is not able to open the examples.
The good news is that you can now get a brand new copy of UT2004 for under a tenner, making this a good option.
 worth the money... November 13, 2007
even with the updated engine (unreal 3 - unrealed 4) this book is still worth the money, having read it, you are able to either read from start to finish or just flick to the desired area of need, worth picking up and if your using unreal 3 google some tutorials to cover the new aspects such as kizmit and the likes
Not mastered yet. November 11, 2007
I bought this book for my first year at University and already it has helped! The book was the "key text" for my games design module an it is easy to see why, the index is well ordered and clear. Meaning that it is a pleasure (and quick as well) to search for any key topic(s) that is(are) needed.
The order of the book is also very natural meaning it could, if you wished to, be used in order (although it is predominantly a reference text). The layout of the pages is plain and simple, allowing quite complex tasks to be described simply.
I would recommend this book to everyone wanting to use the unreal engine, both pro and novice...and if you just can't get to grips with it, well its BIG and will make a nice paperweight.
Everything you need January 30, 2005
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
Been creating levels for the Unreal series of engines for over a year now. At the time no books were available so I had to learn everything of the internet and posting in various forums. The Unreal engine is extremely powerful and can do amazing things once you have a good understanding of how everything works. It has taken me many hours to figure out how to accomplish what seems a simple thing at times. I can honestly say that if this book was available at the time life would have been so much easier. The book really does go through everything you will ever need to know about creating levels. What's most impressive is how it makes complicated stuff become easy. I may already know a fair amount of level design, but I got this book anyway as it covers everything and I still need to refer back to text at times. I should point out this book is designed to be read from front to back, so it perfect for beginners. With this book and lots of dedication you WILL know how to create visually stunning and complicated levels with a fair amount of ease. For those who are already level creating for some time now will still find this book very helpful, even for reference. Though I am willing to bet you will still learn lots of helpful information. Bottom line is if you want to start using the unreal engine to create your own content get this book to lean all you need to know, with out it you WILL end up searching on the net for hours at a time trying to figure out how to do things. Have fun and good luck with creating your own content.
|
|
|
Nintendo Games Consoles | | |
