Practical Game Development with Unity and Blender / Edition 1

by Alan Thorn

Overview

Today s game developers, particularly those working in smaller, independent studios, need to be expert generalists that is, skilled in a wide range of tasks, from coding and level design to 3D modeling, animation, and more. Beyond knowing how to make great games, they also need the perspective and the experience to develop products quickly all while working with limited resources, time, and budgets. They must take a holistic approach to the art and science of game development, with an emphasis on optimizing workflow. In PRACTICAL GAME DEVELOPMENT WITH UNITY AND BLENDER, author and developer Alan Thorn presents a unique 10-stage workflow for development success, offering advice and ideas (and plenty of practical examples) for developing games quickly and efficiently using some of today s most popular (and free!) software tools. You ll work with Unity (game engine), Blender (3D modeling and animation), and GIMP (image editor), fusing them into a single, productive workflow. Far beyond simply teaching you to operate a specific piece of software, this book guides you through the full process of game creation, with concrete instruction and tangible examples (including project and asset files, available on the book s companion website). PRACTICAL GAME DEVELOPMENT WITH UNITY AND BLENDER will help you become a more powerful developer the kind of broadly skilled generalist who can thrive at any game studio, large or small.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781305074705
Publisher:	Cengage Learning
Publication date:	06/11/2014
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Alan Thorn is a London-based game developer, freelance programmer, and author with more than 13 years of industry experience. He founded the game studio Wax Lyrical Games in 2010 and is the creator of the award-winning game Baron Wittard: Nemesis of Ragnarok. He is the author of ten video training courses and thirteen books on game development, including Practical Game Development with Unity and Blender and UDK Game Development. Alan has worked freelance on more than 500 projects, including games, simulators, kiosks, serious games, and augmented reality software for game studios, museums, and theme parks worldwide. He is currently working on an upcoming 2D-adventure game, Mega Bad Code, for desktop computers and mobile devices.

Table of Contents

1. The 10-Stage Workflow. 2. Blender-to-Unity Workflow. 3. Modular Environments and Static Meshes. 4. Terrain. 5. Animation Workflows. 6. Objects, Dependencies, and Event-Driven Programming. 7. Retopologizing. 8. Saved Games and Persistent Data. 9. Baking. 10. Unity, Blender, and Other Software.