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Mastering UDK Game Development
Written as a series of engaging and practical projects, this essential guide will help you take your skills to the next level and become a game development hotshot. If you would like to truly unlock the potential of the Unreal Development Kit or are interested in using Scaleform for your own personal projects, then this book is for you.Mastering UDK Game Development was designed for people who want to truly take their projects to the next level. Those who are familiar with the basics of creating things in UDK will have an easier time, but each project contains step-by-step explanations, diagrams, screenshots, and downloadable content that should make it possible for someone with no prior experience to learn UDK at an accelerated pace.
290 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 17, 2013
The book approaches the subject of game development with UDK engine - Unreal Development Kit (EPIC), a tool used in the game Unreal and free for non-commercial use.
And it starts showing that is not playing around, already a complex goal in the first chapter: "Project 1 - Advanced Kismet - Creating a Platformer Third-person" = D
Topics covered this chapter:
- Changes in configuration files (".ini")
- Kismet (how to program visually within the UDK Editor) and Matinee (cutscenes and cinematics)
- Locating cameras
- Functionality of the player
- Creating landscape
- Concepts about platform game!
And then there's the "Gung-HO" section of each chapter, where the author suggests some challenges for the reader search / develop beyond what was defined in the exercise of each chapter.
The 8 chapters:
- Project One: Advanced Kismet - Creating a Third-person Platformer
- Project Two: Terror in Deep Space
- Project Three: Terror in Deep Space 2: Even Deeper
- Project Four: Creating a Custom HUD
- Project Five: Creating Environments
- Project Six: Dynamic Loot
- Project Seven: Managing Loot
- Project Eight: UnrealScript: A Primer
The first three chapters cover the generation game (chapters 2 and 3 deal with the same game), from start to finish. The other chapters cover important concepts in game development.
Chapter Four: This involves creating HUD (Heads-up Display) interface used in games to provide information to the player, your tasks, your collectibles, using the game map Citadel (EPIC), and the Adobe Flash to create the HUD.
In Chapter Five it is more focused on features 3D UDK Editor, where the user creates an environment with materials and 3D meshes that are part of the library of the UDK (Content Browser). Here it gets a little more technical issue in 3D modeling, mapping and materials. Essential reading!
Chapter Six: Collectible items ... take, buy, sell, use or get rid of them. Here and in the next chapter will be passed concepts for using these items with the tool Kismet (visual programming within the UDK Editor), the ability to interact with the environment through character interaction. In Chapter Seven will be passed some concepts of using these items to alter the characteristics of the player.
Using Adobe Flash and its programming language (actionscript) will be essential for interaction HUD of the game (creating buttons and cursors in Flash) and the player's movements on the map of the environment to actions to collect items.
My opinion:
It is the first book I read on the subject, despite having searched many websites and web videos. Some of the sources cited by the author are fundamental sources of query.
The book is really good, I'll try to read other books that talk about the subject, because I am completing a course of game development in SAGA School of Game (Brazil - São Paulo) and became a big believer in this technology.
Besides allowing the download of packages and game maps, the author was very happy in didactics used, because it is a fairly complex subject that addresses different issues, including knowledge of computer graphics, UV mapping, gameplay, 3D objects and programming (OOP).
The idea of being able to download all images from the book is also great, because sometimes the low resolution images complicate what was done.
Chapter Eight particularly interested me because it improved concepts that were not yet clear. He discusses the programming language UnrealScript (complex issue), the way "first steps" (including the "Hello World!" ), although short was very educational.
A job well done!!
Errata: When I tried to compile the code mentioned in Chapter Eight, it did not work, as below
Page 263 - Item 3
Missing ";" at the end of the line of the class definition
Now replace the code provided with the Following heavily commented code:
Here ==> class extends FlickeringLight PointLightMovable placeable
Book´s link: http://www.packtpub.com/mastering-udk...
And it starts showing that is not playing around, already a complex goal in the first chapter: "Project 1 - Advanced Kismet - Creating a Platformer Third-person" = D
Topics covered this chapter:
- Changes in configuration files (".ini")
- Kismet (how to program visually within the UDK Editor) and Matinee (cutscenes and cinematics)
- Locating cameras
- Functionality of the player
- Creating landscape
- Concepts about platform game!
And then there's the "Gung-HO" section of each chapter, where the author suggests some challenges for the reader search / develop beyond what was defined in the exercise of each chapter.
The 8 chapters:
- Project One: Advanced Kismet - Creating a Third-person Platformer
- Project Two: Terror in Deep Space
- Project Three: Terror in Deep Space 2: Even Deeper
- Project Four: Creating a Custom HUD
- Project Five: Creating Environments
- Project Six: Dynamic Loot
- Project Seven: Managing Loot
- Project Eight: UnrealScript: A Primer
The first three chapters cover the generation game (chapters 2 and 3 deal with the same game), from start to finish. The other chapters cover important concepts in game development.
Chapter Four: This involves creating HUD (Heads-up Display) interface used in games to provide information to the player, your tasks, your collectibles, using the game map Citadel (EPIC), and the Adobe Flash to create the HUD.
In Chapter Five it is more focused on features 3D UDK Editor, where the user creates an environment with materials and 3D meshes that are part of the library of the UDK (Content Browser). Here it gets a little more technical issue in 3D modeling, mapping and materials. Essential reading!
Chapter Six: Collectible items ... take, buy, sell, use or get rid of them. Here and in the next chapter will be passed concepts for using these items with the tool Kismet (visual programming within the UDK Editor), the ability to interact with the environment through character interaction. In Chapter Seven will be passed some concepts of using these items to alter the characteristics of the player.
Using Adobe Flash and its programming language (actionscript) will be essential for interaction HUD of the game (creating buttons and cursors in Flash) and the player's movements on the map of the environment to actions to collect items.
My opinion:
It is the first book I read on the subject, despite having searched many websites and web videos. Some of the sources cited by the author are fundamental sources of query.
The book is really good, I'll try to read other books that talk about the subject, because I am completing a course of game development in SAGA School of Game (Brazil - São Paulo) and became a big believer in this technology.
Besides allowing the download of packages and game maps, the author was very happy in didactics used, because it is a fairly complex subject that addresses different issues, including knowledge of computer graphics, UV mapping, gameplay, 3D objects and programming (OOP).
The idea of being able to download all images from the book is also great, because sometimes the low resolution images complicate what was done.
Chapter Eight particularly interested me because it improved concepts that were not yet clear. He discusses the programming language UnrealScript (complex issue), the way "first steps" (including the "Hello World!" ), although short was very educational.
A job well done!!
Errata: When I tried to compile the code mentioned in Chapter Eight, it did not work, as below
Page 263 - Item 3
Missing ";" at the end of the line of the class definition
Now replace the code provided with the Following heavily commented code:
Here ==> class extends FlickeringLight PointLightMovable placeable
Book´s link: http://www.packtpub.com/mastering-udk...
May 12, 2013
Mastering UDK was an interesting tutorial on game development. Reading it as an experiences UDK user, I found my self wishing I had this book when I started developing in unreal years ago. Its most useful features includes its tutorials which teach the reader how to integrate flash files into UDK and in depth instructions on using Kismet. They structure their lessons in a method that was intuitive for me. From reading it,I beleive the writers of this book do infarct know what they are doing in this program and I would trust them in one of my projects.
Be aware that this book delivers what it promises in the title, It tells you how to develop games in UDK, giving good advice and shortcuts as I mentioned earlier. They do not go into the detail of how to use the more artists tools in UDK such as importing texture/models. They do go into explaining materials, but I also feel the section dose not give enough common knowledge on the use of the material editor in UDK.
At the end of the day, even as an experienced UDK developer, I learned plenty of neat tid bits that will definitely help me out down the road in my development career.
Be aware that this book delivers what it promises in the title, It tells you how to develop games in UDK, giving good advice and shortcuts as I mentioned earlier. They do not go into the detail of how to use the more artists tools in UDK such as importing texture/models. They do go into explaining materials, but I also feel the section dose not give enough common knowledge on the use of the material editor in UDK.
At the end of the day, even as an experienced UDK developer, I learned plenty of neat tid bits that will definitely help me out down the road in my development career.
May 14, 2013
I find it to be a good beginner to intermediate book, everything is broken down into simple steps to follow. I recommend it to anyone looking to work with UDK as it covers all the bases, it has a happy balance of what needs to be done on both sides of the line, be it programming and art.
Pick up the Ebook here:
http://www.packtpub.com/mastering-udk...
I like how Packt provides Ebooks in a variety of native formats for all devices.
Pick up the Ebook here:
http://www.packtpub.com/mastering-udk...
I like how Packt provides Ebooks in a variety of native formats for all devices.
July 18, 2013
From going over this book it has great material, wish I would of had this when I was going to school at the Guildhall at SMU. Back in 2004 we were using unreal tournament 2004. Was a great read. Pick it up today.
You can get it here.
link: http://www.packtpub.com/mastering-udk...
You can get it here.
link: http://www.packtpub.com/mastering-udk...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews