The Blender GameKit

Author: Carsten Wartmann

Publisher: No Starch Press, 2009 (2nd Edition)
Pages: 320
ISBN: 978-1593272050
Aimed at: Artists, game designers and Blender beginners
Rating: 4.5
Pros: Good introduction, CD includes Blender and examples
Cons: Nothing for expert game developer
Reviewed by: Mike James

This is a well presented book on using the Blender GameKit to create games but you do need to notice its subtitle - "Interactive 3D for Artists". It’s a collection of chapters written by different authors and most of these are walkthroughs concerned with how to build a demo game. The third chapter is a basic introduction to 3D covering coordinates and views. A disc is bound into the back of the book containing all of the examples and a copy of the Blender version that they work under.
The tutorials are organised into beginner and intermediate groups and with the help of the disc you should be able to get them working. Sometimes the explanations are not complete and one or two are just presentations of the development of the game concerned.

You need a sense of exploration to get something from the book - this is a doing book. What it lacks is any real investigation of the game engine itself - but this would be for programmers not artists so it’s a reasonable omission. For a beginner to game construction using Blender this is a good place to start.

Last Updated ( Sunday, 06 September 2009 )