Editorial Reviews:
Book Description
Let your imagination run wild in the world of Unreal Technology. Mastering Unreal Technology: The Art of Level Design knows no boundaries as it shows you how to build custom mods, maps and levels with the Unreal engine. Its tutorial format will give you immediate results through the tips and demos provided from the industry's top level designers. Learn to create your own characters, weapons and gaming environments, as well as how to go beyond the Unreal environment and export custom elements from 3D modeling applications. A CD that contains the Unreal Engine, graphics, examples and code is also included, giving you everything you need to create custom levels in Unreal or build your own games and virtual environments. Mastering Unreal Technology will help put you on the cutting-edge of gaming technology. |
Customer Reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Building Unreal, Aug 14, 2023
I've used a lot of these types of books for learning Maya and other such programs. While those books tend to be difficult to follow and sometimes inaccurate, I am happy to say that Mastering Unreal Technology is like none of these.
If you're looking to learn how to build maps in unreal tournament this book is a must. I've looked on the internet for tutorials for UTE and they are often confusing or simply don't cover what you need to know. In this book you will find just about everything you need to know and it is all presented with tutorials on cd for easy learning. My only complaint is that the book isn't in color. Defiantly recommended.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Excellent Text could use better graphics, Jul 16, 2023
I bought this book to help use the editor that comes with the UT2004 PC game. It gives an excellent description in the text of how to do the different things you need to do to make a new level. I have found it very helpful and am enjoying the tutorials. It comes with all the files needed for these and you can transfer the files to your computer.
The one difficulty I had,and this is a minor point, is that the graphics could be better. They seem to be black and white reproductions of screen shots clipped directly from the game. This means that the pictures of actual perspective views are very dim and that the picutres of viewports showing top or side views are very difficult to use. The top and side viewports in the actual game use colored lines to show shapes and positions of objects. In the book's reproductions, the colors have almost the same gray as the background, and you almost can't see them. I had to use a magnifying glass and study for a while to figure out what they were supposed to show.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
I find it to be very useful, Jun 18, 2023
I bought this "book" a few months ago and have been periodically trying to learn the uncanny amount of skills in this 962 page monster. It went into much clearer detail than many of the tutorials i've seen floating around the internet and gave an insight into the ways that most of this program works. It also includes maya and a 100 pages on how to use it which have proved to be very useful to me. For the people complaining about not being able to do the tutorials without having the game, i can only ask them why they want to learn how to make a game that they aren't even willing to pay $25 for.
As for its shortcomings, the worst in my opinion is that it seems to be missing small pieces of information which can lead to frustration. Also the fact that the pictures are all in black and white makes some things hard to figure out from them. Also the first time i opened it the spine cracked and now it tries to open to the same page no matter what. that just annoys the hell out of me. Overall, the $30-$40 for this book can easily be justified by its usefullness.
0 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
 Deceiving, Jun 16, 2023
This book will change your life.... It will make you be more suspicious when reading exceptionally good reviews.
It's true, the tutorial files don't work with the demo version of the runtime engine included in the package and even so they are half explained. If you have to buy the game in order to do the tutorials, (even the most basic ones) it should be EXPLICITLY stated, otherwise it's kind of deceiving don't you think. There is a lot of god content in the book but and it's not necessary to be shady to sell it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
This Book Will Change Your Life..., Jun 13, 2023
Struggled to find accurate, well-explained tutorials and guides for UnrealEd? Fed up browsing endless forums, only to find no clear explanations for that problem you have with your custom game level in UnrealEd? Don't want to waste yet more precious hours following bad links to useless web pages full of inaccurate tutorials?Mastering Unreal Technology will change all that - for good. Since I got this book, and have been follwoing its tutorials, my experiences with UnrealEd have stopped being confrontational and unresolved, and have become positive, productive and educational. Who knows, at this rate I might even end up releasing a level or two I can be genuinely proud of! The book packs in to it's almost 1000 pages just about every golden nugget of UnrealEd lore there is - from basic level design with UnrealEd to advanced modelling and animation techniques using Maya PLE (included on the CDRom) with UnrealEd. Straight away I was learning how to do stuff that had always baffled me... from curvy corridors to dynamic lighting, from shader making to terrain handling - it's all covered. Best of all, this book is beautifully designed - clear, easy on the eye and illustrated throughout. It has been written in plain English for the artist/designer rather than the programmer and this means everyone, of just about any level, will be able to easily pick up the techniques discussed and follow the many tutorials with ease. ESSENTIAL reading for all budding UnrealEd mod-makers, artists, level designers and machinima makers. 10/10.
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