The Blender Gamekit
Blender is the first 3D package to integrate a game engine as well as tools for
editing game-logic and creating interactive animation. The Blender GameKit, 2nd
Edition is the official guide for 3D artists, animators, and game designers
interested in exploring this part of Blender. This completely revised, full-color
edition covers Blender 2.48, including all contributions from the Open Game Yo
Frankie! project.
Ronald J. Harris says, "Of all the books on computer graphics and game
programming I've read, this is my favorite. I'm not exactly sure why. One
reason, though, is that this book impressed me as practical poetry - or do
I mean practically poetic? - compared to most of the others. The book is
targeted towards blender artists and to some extent uses that as an excuse
to take a non-technical approach to the subject. Unfortunately this means
that the book doesn't goes as deep into the subject as most readers would
like. Fortunately it also means that the book doesn't go into dreadful
detail on subjects that in the long run you are going to have to figure out
on your own anyway.
"For such a short book, it covers a lot of material. Sometimes as I was
reading it I felt like I was being cheated, that it wasn't even answering
my most basic questions on the subject. Then I would myself pose a question
on a topic that I felt hadn't been addressed and look into the book for an
answer. Sure enough, in most cases it was there.
"Quite a variety of games are presented in the text and if you want to
write your own in any of the genres presented you should be able to use the
sample programs as a guide to realize your idea. Expect to do a bit or even
a lot of reverse engineering from the examples provided on the disk before
you can make use of the techniques presented. The book's text alone will
not be enough as most of the games are not presented in complete tutorial
format. More often the book's text will just highlight a technique or two
from a game so that you will know where to look on the disk for the examples
you will need to follow.
"The book omits anything significant on the ways of using character
animation other than references to the fairly sophisticated blender open
game project Yo! Frankie. Chapters in another book, Tony Mullen's Mastering
Blender, fill some of the gaps in this area.
"Despite the word Kit in the title, the games are not really kits in the
same sense as say the Aurora Expansion Toolkit was for Neverwinter Knights.
You can modify the games if you want - Yo! Frankie in particular is quite
open to additional levels - but in most cases the games serve more like open
source software programs that you can cannibalize for parts to your own game.
"The book is inexpensive and fun and despite a few faults is still actually
a pretty good introduction to creating games with blender. Recommended."
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