Mastering Unreal Technology: The Art of Level Design

I was a little skeptical before purchasing this book because I already own and watched the Unreal Tournament 2004 Special Edition training videos produced by the same authors as this book. I was afraid that the 60+ hours of content in those videos would cover all the same material as the book. Boy was I wrong.

Not only does the Mastering Unreal Technology: The Art of Level Design go into detail far surpassing the training videos, including a surprisingly enlightening (and helpful) section on the theory behind how the Unreal Technology works, but Mr. Busby, Parrish, and Van Eenwyk guide you step-by-step through designing a level. As they begin introducing new, more advanced, features they'll explain - option by option - how the feature works and provide numerous examples of where it would be useful. For a level designer, having a single clear guide of what each of thousands of settings do is an invaluable resource.

This book serves as an excellent introduction...Read more

I read this book cover to cover; it is the best way to start creating levels. UnrealEd is a level editor aimed towards artists, the info within this book is the best coverage of a level editor that I have seen. You don't need to know scripting or any programming to create your own levels. The book starts by giving you some generals about game development, goes on to basic UnrealEd, then into more complicated UnrealEd. The last third of the book is basic Maya 5 PLE tutorials, which I found helpful because I hadn't used Maya before.

** !!! You need to own a copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 in order to follow along with the tutorials in this book !!! **

UT2004 Level Editors - This book is aimed at you. If you are already playing UT2004, you have everything you need and this book will help you find out how they made all those cool things you see in the game.

Architecture Visualizing - This book will definitely help you find out how you can...Read more

This book is the definitive bible for creating 3d content using Unreal 2.5 Engine. I have been using it a lot for the level, I'm working on. Instead of scouring the web looking for a tutorial on how to do "that", you can check the index and learn what "that" does and how to use it in your level.

The book covers everything from learning Maya PLE, learning 3dsmax, unwrapping, vehicle modeling, everything that 3D Buzz's team has on their website for download as a video tutorial is in this book, except the information's is right at your finger tips.

I was recommended to this book from a friend who works in the gaming industry and even his company uses the book for a quick reference. Jason Busby, Zak Parrish & Joel Van Eenwyk thank you for making one of the best references a level artist could possibly have!