Game Development Tool Essentials

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Game Development Tool Essentials provides must-have tips and tricks from industry professionals for strengthening and streamlining your game tools pipeline. Everyone knows the game tools pipeline is important, but in the current environment of shrinking budgets and increased time pressure, developers often have to settle for inefficient, ad hoc, messy pipelines. This unique book will break you out of that cycle. The practical, expert insights contained within will enable you to work faster and more efficiently, so you can spend more time making cool things. Game Development Tool Essentials pools the knowledge and experience of working developers over four critical aspects of the game tools pipeline: asset and data management, geometry and models, Web tools, and programming. Within those sections, you will learn cutting-edge techniques on essential subjects such as COLLADA rendering, exporting and workflow; asset management and compiler architecture; and moving tools to the cloud. If you’re a game developer, you need Game Development Tool Essentials. Covers readily available tools and tools developers can build themselves. Presents 96 code samples, 81 illustrations, and end-of-chapter references. Special chapter on moving tools to the cloud. What you’ll learn Set up and code a plug-in-based asset compiler that can help convert a variety of asset types. Create a complex polygon pattern using MAXScript. Learn how to use the Khronos COLLADA CTS to build a rock solid 3D content pipeline. Discover powerful tricks for using OS X Scene Kit to render COLLADA assets. Build full-featured online game development tools easily with Django. Move companion tools out of the game engine and into Web applications. Who this book is for Game Development Tool Essentials is for working and prospective game developers. It will help software engineers, systems programmers, graphics architects, technical artists, 3D artists, software architects, and 3D modelers involved with the game development pipeline.