Great Book!
by EddieRay · in Torque Game Engine · 04/08/2005 (2:23 pm) · 8 replies
Just got my copy of the book... and so far, I'm very impressed! Great job!
I ended up buying Milkshape so I could follow the modelling tutorials (I had run the demo of Milkshape a while ago, so when I installed the MS 1.7.0 that comes on the book CD, it said it was EXPIRED immediately when I ran it). So... I installed the latest version of Milkshape (1.7.4) and it seems to work fine once registered.
The UVMapper utility is pretty cool for free software. That's a very handy addition to the CD, it it's nice that the author/publisher went to the extra effort to find it and make it available with the book.
There so many step-by-step walkthroughs of the various aspects of game development... it's definitely a must-have, and I haven't even started with the Torque-specific coding and stuff yet (which is the best part)... ;-)
A couple of suggestions: In the appendix, in the list of tools, there was no mention of gameSpace (for DTS work). From what I can tell, gS appears to have one of the most fully featured (and free) DTS exporters I've seen out there (supports DSQs, and other things the Milkshape exporter doesn't support). There is a "lite" version to try out, that you can save and model with, and can even export low-poly models to .X format (polys limited to 750 or so, I think). As far as texturing goes, there was no mention of Texture Maker - which has been around for quite a while. It's basically a paint program on steroids, specifically made for designing/generating/enhancing/testing game textures and such.
Anyway, great work on the book... I'm psyched to have it in my hot hands, and I'm going through it at a feverish pace! :-)
I ended up buying Milkshape so I could follow the modelling tutorials (I had run the demo of Milkshape a while ago, so when I installed the MS 1.7.0 that comes on the book CD, it said it was EXPIRED immediately when I ran it). So... I installed the latest version of Milkshape (1.7.4) and it seems to work fine once registered.
The UVMapper utility is pretty cool for free software. That's a very handy addition to the CD, it it's nice that the author/publisher went to the extra effort to find it and make it available with the book.
There so many step-by-step walkthroughs of the various aspects of game development... it's definitely a must-have, and I haven't even started with the Torque-specific coding and stuff yet (which is the best part)... ;-)
A couple of suggestions: In the appendix, in the list of tools, there was no mention of gameSpace (for DTS work). From what I can tell, gS appears to have one of the most fully featured (and free) DTS exporters I've seen out there (supports DSQs, and other things the Milkshape exporter doesn't support). There is a "lite" version to try out, that you can save and model with, and can even export low-poly models to .X format (polys limited to 750 or so, I think). As far as texturing goes, there was no mention of Texture Maker - which has been around for quite a while. It's basically a paint program on steroids, specifically made for designing/generating/enhancing/testing game textures and such.
Anyway, great work on the book... I'm psyched to have it in my hot hands, and I'm going through it at a feverish pace! :-)
About the author
#2
04/10/2005 (12:00 am)
Is the book helpful at all to someone who has never written a single line of code in his life?
#3
It is helpful to be familiar with some kind of Programming.
But its not necesary.
04/10/2005 (1:43 pm)
Kinda.It is helpful to be familiar with some kind of Programming.
But its not necesary.
#5
Are there any updates for the code that's included on the CD?
04/10/2005 (7:46 pm)
Is there an update supplement (PDF or something) for this book?Are there any updates for the code that's included on the CD?
#6
04/27/2005 (6:25 am)
Just finished the "code" sections of the book... great stuff. I have so much better knowledge of the basic aspects of TGE that I've been missing for the past year. Now on to the art sections...
#7
I've been using the code from the book with the TGE 1.3 EXE and DLLs.
04/27/2005 (6:27 am)
Btw... I've been using the code from the CD, and for the most part, I haven't seen any problems. There is a slight glitch with picking up coins in the Chap. 5 code, but it's minor.I've been using the code from the book with the TGE 1.3 EXE and DLLs.
#8
Once you get past the discrepencies between the book and CD content and some other glitches, it works pretty well. Just takes a little persistence :-)
05/02/2005 (5:44 pm)
Its an excellent book in that it provides the coding examples and info on how to create game assets which get put into the game world.Once you get past the discrepencies between the book and CD content and some other glitches, it works pretty well. Just takes a little persistence :-)
Ben