Review: Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya: Models, Textures, Animation, & Blueprint by Kassandra Arevalo, Matthew Tovar, Jingtian Li

I’ve read probably hundreds of game development books, and this one, I can say, is the best. Bar none. The authors are clear, and explain their steps as well as the reasoning behind it. They display keen knowledge of the subject matter, the topics are explored in every detail, and the final product is actually a quite impressive little demo. I will delve

Review: Digital Lighting and Rendering by Jeremy Birn

Jeremy Birn’s Digital Lighting and Rendering is a masterful treatise on digital lighting and, in my opinion, a must have on your bookshelf if you’re a 3d artist. While the text is clearly aimed at pre-rendered art, for example in animated movies or live-action effects, most of the concepts are fundamental enough to apply to lighting real-time scenes in games, or even more traditional art

Review: Drawing Basics and Video Game Art: Classic to Cutting-Edge Art Techniques for Winning Video Game Design by Chris Solarski

I’ve been trying to get back into making art (I did go to art school, after all) and this seemed like a well reviewed book. Plus, the Kindle edition was very reasonably priced at $12. Drawing Basics and Video Game Art: Classic to Cutting-Edge Art Techniques for Winning Video Game Design by Chris Solarski is not a long book (at 240 pages) but it’s

Review: Creating the Art of the Game by Matthew Omernick

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

Review: Digital Modeling by William Vaughan

There is no question, Digital Modeling by William Vaughan is a book every 3D modeler (or aspiring modeler) should read. It really captures the essence of what makes a good model, and doesn’t get bogged down with technical details of specific modeling packages. In this review, I will briefly go over why I think everyone with any interest in 3D art should pick up