A compilation of key chapters from the top Focal game art books available today - in the areas of Max, Maya, Photoshop, and ZBrush. The chapters provide the CG Artist with an excellent sampling of essential techniques that every 3D artist needs to create stunning game art.Game artists will be able to master the modeling, rendering, rigging, and texturing techniques they need - with advice from Focal's best and brightest authors. Artists can learn hundreds of tips, tricks and shortcuts in Max, Maya, Photoshop, ZBrush - all within the covers of one complete, inspiring reference.

A compilation of key chapters from the top Focal game art books available today - in the areas of Max, Maya, Photoshop, and ZBrush. The chapters provide the CG Artist with an excellent sampling of essential techniques that every 3D artist needs to create stunning game art. Game artists will be able to master the modeling, rendering, rigging, and texturing techniques they need - with advice from Focal's best and brightest authors. Artists can learn hundreds of tips, tricks and shortcuts in Max, Maya, Photoshop, ZBrush - all within the covers of one complete, inspiring reference.

Good game design happens when you view your game from as many perspectives as possible. Written by one of the world's top game designers, The Art of Game Design presents 100+ sets of questions, or different lenses, for viewing a game’s design, encompassing diverse fields such as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, puzzle design, and anthropology. This Second Edition of a Game Developer Front Line Award winner: Describes the deepest and most fundamental principles of game design Demonstrates how tactics used in board, card, and athletic games also work in top-quality video games Contains valuable insight from Jesse Schell, the former chair of the International Game Developers Association and award-winning designer of Disney online games The Art of Game Design, Second Edition gives readers useful perspectives on how to make better game designs faster. It provides practical instruction on creating world-class games that will be played again and again.

Collects the spectacular artwork behind this legendary fighting game franchise. This book shows you to find character designs, game covers, promotional art, and more. And it's all topped off by a special bonus gallery featuring all-new pin-ups from the hottest artists in comics.

The key word here is art: the dynamic 3D art that defines the world of computer games. This book teaches you everything you need to know about the planning, modeling, texturing, lighting, effects creation, and interface design that go into creating today's most advanced and stunning video games. You'll be learning from a master-veteran 3D artist and instructor Matthew Omernick-as you progress through the carefully chosen, software-agnostic tutorials that make up this beautiful, full-color volume. The end result will be skills you can apply to whatever 3D tool you choose and whatever wildly imaginative game you can think up. Through a unique combination of explanation, tutorials, and real world documentation-including discussions of the creative process entailed in some of today's most popular games augmented by screen captures and descriptions--you'll quickly come to understand the workflow, tools, and techniques required to be a successful game artist. In addition to learning the ropes of game art, you'll also find in depth tutorials and techniques that apply to all aspects of 3D graphics. Whether you are using Photoshop, 3ds max, Maya, or any other computer graphics software, you'll find a wealth of information that you can continue to come back to time and time again.

A "compendium filled with in-depth behind-the-scenes content, ... quotes from top illustrators in the industry, anecdotes from the game developers, and [an] ... assortment of ... concept art, some of which has never been seen by the public"--Publisher marketing.

Anyone can master the fundamentals of game design - no technological expertise is necessary. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality videogames. Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses - one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer - and will understand how to do it.

"This book supports my own 30-year crusade to demonstrate that games are an art form that undeniably rivals traditional arts. It gives detailed explanations of game art techniques and their importance, while also highlighting their dependence on artistic aspects of game design and programming.” — John Romero, co-founder of id Software and CEO of Loot Drop, Inc. "Solarski’s methodology here is to show us the artistic techniques that every artist should know, and then he transposes them to the realm of video games to show how they should be used to create a far more artful gaming experience ... if I were an artist planning to do video game work, I’d have a copy of this on my shelf." — Marc Mason, Comics Waiting Room Video games are not a revolution in art history, but an evolution. Whether the medium is paper or canvas—or a computer screen—the artist’s challenge is to make something without depth seem like a window into a living, breathing world. Video game art is no different. Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is first to examine the connections between classical art and video games, enabling developers to create more expressive and varied emotional experiences in games. Artist game designer Chris Solarski gives readers a comprehensive introduction to basic and advanced drawing and design skills—light, value, color, anatomy, concept development—as well as detailed instruction for using these methods to design complex characters, worlds, and gameplay experiences. Artwork by the likes of Michelangelo, Titian, and Rubens are studied alongside AAA games like BioShock, Journey, the Mario series, and Portal 2, to demonstrate perpetual theories of depth, composition, movement, artistic anatomy, and expression. Although Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is primarily a practical reference for artists and designers working in the video games industry, it’s equally accessible for those interested to learn about gaming’s future, and potential as an artistic medium. Also available as an eBook

Filled with gorgeous illustrations and artwork from HBO's hit series, The Art of Game of Thrones is the definitive collection. Beautifully crafted and presented in a deluxe, large format, these pages present a visual chronicle of the meticulous work done by artists to bring the world of Westeros to life on-screen.

Written by Computer Scientist Andre' LaMothe, the world's best selling game programming author, The Black Art of Video Game Console Design breaks new ground in game development by bridging the alien worlds of hardware and software together for the first time! The Black Art of Video Game Console Design is written for the programmer and/or hobbyist interested in software game development, but also wants to understand the hardware games are implemented on. This book assumes no prior knowledge of Electrical Engineering or Computer Architecture, but takes you on a breathtaking journey from atomic semiconductor theory to the design and construction of basic video game consoles that you can build and write your own games for! Included in the book is the entire design of numerous embedded game systems including the XGameStation systems and much more. The Black Art of Video Game Console Design with 800+ pages covers everything you need to know to design your own game console including: * Basic atomic physics and semiconductor theory primer. * Introduction to circuit analysis; current, voltage, and resistance. * Analog design using discrete components. * Digital electronics and Boolean algebra. * Physical hardware construction and prototyping techniques. * Combinational logic and advanced integrated circuit building blocks. * Finite state machine design. * Computer architecture and design. * Understanding and using microprocessors and microcontrollers. * Developing software for embedded systems. * Designing video (NTSC/VGA), audio, and input device systems. * Interfacing and communications. * The complete design and discussion of numerous game systems including the XGameStations! CD-ROM Contains * PCB and circuit simulation tools. * All necessary data sheets. * Demos and source code. * Complete designs to numerous embedded systems including the XGameStations.