Book on Torque: "3D Game Programming All in One" by Ken Finney

3D Game Programming All in One, a book on game development using Torque, written by Ken Finney, and a part of the La Mothe game dev. series, is now available (GG Resource, @Yahoo (Ken get's a commission :), @Amazon, @Powell's, @BN, @GG directly soon).

I read this book for quite a while tonight. It is a phenomenal resource for beginning and intermediate Torque developers.

Whether you are a designer, programmer, or artist (and especially if you are all three), you will save yourself dozens of hours of study time and become productive more quickly with this book. If you value your time at more than 50 cents an hour, get this thing; it will save you much, much more than it costs.

Examples of subjects covered in detail: programming with TorqueScript, creating and exporting DTS shapes with Milkshape, creating and exporting DIF interiors with Quark, and editing missions, terrains and GUIs in Torque. References are provided covering TorqueScript functions, objects, and datablocks. Ken actually creates a game, step-by-step, in the book. The companion CD contains all source materials and relevant programs, as well as demos of ThinkTanks, Orbz, Chain Reaction, and MarbleBlast (which is basically free marketing for those teams... rock on, Ken).

The writing style is excellent: concise, complete, clear and entertaining. The book contains plenty of source and reference materials but is never dominated by them. I have thoroughly enjoyed going through it.

Ken also takes time to thank many, many members of the community here, including: Desmond Fletcher, Melv May, Harold Brown, Anthony Rosenbaum, Phil Carlisle, Dave Wyand, Matthew Fairfax, Pat Wilson, Ryan Parker, Simon Windmill, Kevin Ryan, Joe Maruschak, Joel Baxter, Justin Mette and 21-6, and Frank Bignone. That is awesome, you are all famous now. ;) We should all go return the favor and review Ken's book with honest opinions once we've perused it. I have no doubt everyone will be as impressed as I am.

Even if you aren't interested in Torque, this book is a great guide to modern 3D game development.

Congrats and thank you to Ken Finney (and Andre La Mothe and co.) for producing such an excellent resource.

Note: I started a new thread because the old one is quite long, and doesn't talk about this book until about 25 posts in (and doesn't mention that it's actually available now until even later). The book deserves direct attention.