Game Character Design Complete Review

3D polygonal modeling in 3DS Max, the industry standard game character modeling software, is an involved process, including different specialist disciplines in a single tool: character design, sculpting the 3D model, UV mapping and texturing the model, and rigging the model with a skeleton in preparation for animation. Due to the complexity of the program, comprehensive books tackling 3DS Max are difficult to find.

Game Character Design Complete by David Franson and Eric Thomas is such a book. Covering every step of the game character design and creation process, Franson and Thomas assume their readers have a rudimentary knowledge of 3DS Max, and focus on the toolset and processes required to bring a 3D character model to life.

Game Character Design Complete Contents

The book is separated into 8 chapters that fully cover each step of model creation in 3DS Max, from initial concept to 3D box modeling, to unwrapping and texturing the model, and finally, rigging the model with a biped modifier and animating the textured and rigged figure so that it is ready to be exported to a game engine, the example used being the popular and affordable Torque engine by Garage Games.

The chapter structure of Game Character Design Complete is as follows:

• 3D Game Character Design Basics
• Preparing to Model: Configuring 3DS Max and Referencing Sketch Art
• Box Modeling in 3DS Max 8
• Mesh Optimization in 3DS Max
• UV Mapping the Character in 3DS Max
• Skin Texturing with Photoshop CS2
• Rigging a Character with Biped in 3DS Max
• Character Animation in 3DS Max

The book is accompanied by a CD which contains all of the models and textures appearing in the book at their various stages of completion. Also on the CD is a trial version of both 3DS Max and Photoshop, both limited to a 30 day assessment.

Low Poly Model Design in 3DS Max

The model used throughout the book, a variation of the Hicks character from the film Aliens, is complex enough to demonstrate the full potential of 3DS Max, and to explain in depth the tools within the Max interface used to create low poly 3D game models.

3D Character Models Book Criticism

However, if any criticism could be made of the book, it would be in the area of work practice. The authors, throughout the book, are in the habit of collapsing the stack modifier as they develop the Hicks model, which defies the purpose of a modifier stack. This could easily lead the relative newcomer to 3DS Max to encounter problems that cannot be resolved because they can no longer to correct an error by altering the modifications made to their own model as they work alongside the tutorials in the book, because the modifications have been collapsed and are no longer accessible.

A second criticism would be the lack of detailed explanation given to the modeling of the character model face. The face, even in low poly models, is usually the most complex part of a model build, being both detailed and organic. Due to this complexity, most 3D modeling books spend an accordingly lengthy period on methods to model the face.

In Game Character Design Complete, however, readers are told that modeling the face of a character is something that is "difficult to put into words". And as if difficulty of expression is a valid reason not to elaborate on the subject, the authors simply do not bother to expand on the face-building process other than to suggest spending a long time working on this part of the model.

Game Character Design Complete Review Summary

Despite an occasionally questionable methodology, and the omission of a detailed account of how to model a 3D face, there are few books currently available that offer so comprehensive a guide to fully creating a low poly 3D character model for use in a game engine as Game Character Design Complete.

Clearly written, well illustrated and presented in a logical step-by-step manner, Franson and Thomas are well-informed on their subject matter, and their book offers as thorough a guide to game character design in 3DS Max as slightly over 200 pages can allow. Along with Brad Strong's Creating Game Art for 3D Engines, this is a book that any game character modeler, hobbyist and professional alike, should have in their reference library.