Synopses & Reviews
A broadly enhanced new edition of Luke Ahearn's cornerstone game art book "3D Game Textures" is here. When digital art software was in its infancy, most digital art, especially vector art, was textureless. With the advance in software, it is now possible to incorporate texture into most types of digital art. However, if the artists cannot build their own textures, they are limited to using commercial textures. In this enhanced 3rd edition of Luke Ahearn's gem of a book, not only does Luke teach you how to create your own unique textures, he also teaches how to create shaders (the visual effects - reflections, refractions, opacity - that make textures come to life) and materials (collections of shaders that fill well together to map to a particular scene or environment). You can now expand your skill set immeasurably, and create more compelling, varied art work from scratch. Unlike anything on the market, this book provides an in-depth guide to game textures, shaders and materials- with hundreds of high-quality examples. The companion website includes: demo versions of relevant software; resource images; all images from the book.
- Learn everything you need to create stunning, professional textures from one easy to follow guide which features tutorials and over 500 high-quality images.
- Give your digital art depth and breadth; anyone can create a stone surface in Photoshop, learn to make that stone shine like it is wet, look as if it has actual depth and surface.
- NEW coverage of shaders and materials (the next generation of textures). Advance your CG art with textures (surface images), shaders (visual effects that you can add to textures) and materials (collections of shaders that fit well together).
- Companion website includes sample textures, shaders, materials, actions, brushes, and all art from the book- all the tools you need in one place!
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 "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
*"the most valuable single resource I've ever seen, with specific instructions and workflow strategies that can be put to use immediately. And I'd tell anyone who does any texture art, for games or other purposes, to buy a copy." - Ann Brundige Studios *"For students, professionals, or anyone else interested in learning to develop art using PS for video game development....There are NOT any other worthy titles that I have found."- Jeff Huff, Professor of Computer Graphics.
"Ahearn's book can and will help you become a much better artist" Apogee Photo Magazine, August 2006
About the Author
Luke Ahearn has over fifteen years of professional game development experience as designer, producer, and art director on seven published game titles including Dead Reckoning and Americas' Army and worked as a background artist at EA. He has authored six books on game development.
Luke Ahearn has over 15 years of professional game development experience. He has published 7 game titles, including Dead Reckoning and America's Army, as well as authored 7 books on game development.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Textures
Art Theory
Breaking the world down visually
Recreating the world visually in Photoshop
Art as applied to CG applications
Shaders and Materials
Shader vs. Material
What is a material system
Nodes
Node Input
Node types and functions
Material Examples
Diffuse
Specular
Ambient
Reflection real and faked
Refraction
Transparency
Bump/ Displacement/ Normal mapping
Specialized Materials; Skin etc.
Creating Complex Materials
Metals
Glass
Wood
Compound Materials