What would you pay for a book on leveldesign?

    id prefer to buy a book that explains the fundamentals of level design. with other books in the series that tailor towards a specific engine.

    The Mastering Unreal was great for a quick reference, but it lacked any good level design documentation, since it was geared towards learning the engine, not creating great maps.

    I think the problem with these things is that by the time they're out, they're usually out of date, and the real guys who know this stuff don't have time to write it down!

    The best place for this type of current info tends to be forums like these, and articles on Modding sites (or Mod author's personal sites).

    I know a bit of "this" stuff

    Ofcourse there are always certain things that one day will be oudated. For example lighting demanding a different approach (simple game lighting vs complete and fully working radiosity/GI lighting) but the majority of things will always be the same. You dont make a cubic building now and you are not going to make one in 10 years. Itll always look bad.

    The only problem I might face are outdated pictures.

    The book wont be aimed at a specific engine so the last few people should be happy:)

    A cd would be nice but also demands a lot of extra work + its hard if your book is not aimed at a specific engine. For what engine should I make the example content?...

    And printing and distributing a cd = 5/6 dollar. So thats 48+6=54 dollar already.

    The thing about the free info on the internet - it's scattered and is usually of low quality and results will vary (plus after a few months, any pictures will probably end up being broken when for whatever reason the site hosting the tutorial has the user who sumbmitted the tutorial host the images off-site... i still don't understand that). If the book was detailed, complete, and well written (quality), it could be worth the buy -- if you haven't already learned most of what's in it.

    The outdated info can also be placed on internet resources - just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it'll always be kept up to date.

    You could try to just come up with a good curriculum for game developer schools, they might license it from you. This way you arent' waiting on books to sell, you are just getting in contact with people at schools and finding out whether or not they like it sooner (right?). Of course if that doesn't work, go with the book idea

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login