Michael S. Prinke ()
Daniel G. Haddad
Michael S. Prinke
About the Authors
Tom grew up in New Zealand. He is a lecturer in design and also works as an artist. He has picked up UDK over the last few years, having worked previously as a 3D artist on games using 3ds Max and Maya. You can learn more about his work at www.tomofnz.com.
I'd like to thank Mike Prinke for his contribution to the last chapter on Scaleform, for the programming, and for the reviews. For getting this book done, I owe a lot to the kindness and patience of Cindy Devina for keeping me going during my first book commission. I'd also like to tip my hat to the members of the UDK forum, particularly those who helped me with particular problems, including slowJusko, Adam Jaggers, EFF, Xendance, Blade[UG], silsin, John J and Matt Doyle. Thanks also to Hywel Thomas (http://www.3dality.co.uk/) and Ryan Pelcz: (http://pelcz.squarespace.com/ for their very helpful UnrealScript snippets. I'd also like to thank Wilson D'souza and Aaron Rosario for smart and cogent development guidance and support.
Mike Prinke is an MFA graduate student in SCAD's interactive design and game development program. During his studies, he has assisted many projects and works with a wide variety of tools, with special emphasis on Unreal, Kismet, UnrealScript, and Scaleform/Flash, and he is also conducting his MFA thesis on choice-driven narrative in games.
I want to give great thanks to Aram Cookson, without whom I would not have been equipped to work on this book. I also want to thank Timothy Valuato, who showed me how cool it can be to teach.
About the Reviewers
Pralie is currently a game and level design student and independent game developer. She has been studying both game and level design extensively for the past two years, and more recently became an indie developer at her own studio, Katastrophe Games. Although she has only been working in the Unreal Development Kit for almost two years, she has quickly become proficient and now offers guidance to fellow UDK users. On her blog and in her UDK workshop videos, she explains her level design process and offers advice to other students, indies, and anyone working in UDK.
After graduating with a Bachelor in Computer Science, Daniel decided to work on games independently. He started his career by working on several mods for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion game. Shortly after that, he became part of the Ultima Return team and contributed to writing Ultima systems into the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine. At around the same time he decided to get cracking with the newly released UDK and he has been using it ever since. With the release of UDK-Mobile, Daniel has a couple of projects in the works that are sure to be a treat. He also recently won the local Microsoft Imagine Cup competition and third place in the world final People's Choice awards with a game he developed called Tale of a Tree Wisp.
I would like to thank Mr. Wilson D'souza and Ms. Leena Purkait for allowing me to do this, and especially so for their patience while I was too busy with the Imagine Cup World Finals.
Matt Lefevere is a level designer with experience working with each generation of the Unreal Engine. He is active in the Unreal community working as a level designer and scripter on UDK games such as Angels Fall First: Planetstorm and Tactical Assault. His portfolio is located at http://mattlefevere.daportfolio.com/. Matt is a graduate of George Mason University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Management. He is a lifelong musician, with experience performing percussion, piano, and guitar.
Kyle Umbenhower is a level designer at the Guildhall at SMU, graduating in December of 2011. He worked as a designer and scripter for Barking Lizard Technologies, on an unannounced iPhone game. You can see Kyle's work at www.umbygames.com.
I would like to thank my family and my girlfriend Lynea for their support during this project.
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Preface
Unreal Development Kit Game Design Cookbook explores how real-time environments are built. Key features of UDK are examinedassets, animation, light, materials, game controls, user interface, special effects, and interactivitywith the objective to make UDK more technically accessible so that users can transcend technique and focus on their creative design process. The book has well prepared recipes for level designers and artists of all levels. It covers core design tools and processes in the editor, particularly setting up characters, UI approaches, configuration, and scripting gameplay. It is a technical guide that allows game artists to go beyond just creating assets, based upon creative, extensive demonstrations.