Got the dummies book for half life 2 mods
you know for a guy that doesnt know a thing about mapping
this book totally taught me the basics the get started , now I can understand some of these wonky tutorials out on the web :D

Thanks Foyleman!

Great thanks. I appreciate the kudos.

Hey Foyleman.

Got this book on release day after pre-ordering it on Amazon.

Well, what can I say? Well written, clear and concise examples, and enough to keep the titular 'dummy' going for quite a while.

I thought I was a complete newb to HL2 mapping, but after skimming through the book, I realised I had a decent enough handle on it. At first glance I was disappointed in the asset creation aspect, but as Foyleman has already pointed out, he was extremely limited by the amount of pages allocated to him. A shame really, as I really prefer to model than map. It would have been nice to see what you could have turned out without the limitations! The problem was more with Amazon carrying such a small synopsis for the book, I think the title HL2 Mapping for Dummies would have been more apt!

Still, the book explains a lot of things that seemed a little black magic to me, including the compile process and how vis works. It illuminates (if you pardon the pun) the use of lighting very well, and also introduces concepts of level design. Daft little things are helping me, like the ability to create a cube and make it hollow. First room I made, I was following a tutorial, and it was a case of creating four cubes and aligning them. The texture tools are very well covered as well.

The illustrations for the most part are very dark, but again, that would be down to the publishers. Gits! I would have gladly paid another ten or fifteen quid (around $18-28) for colour prints and a few more chapters, bringing it more inline with some of the Sybex type books.

All in all, good work, apart from the title

This has taken a prominent place on my bookshelf along with 2D Game Textures and Game Character Development with Maya, and at a price not to be sniffed at! Shame thats the end of it, I would have loved a book covering other aspects like creating custom assets (compiling models and textures correctly), and maybe some none specific things like texturing weapons and normal map theory. A kinda' Swiss army knife for HL2.

Sorry for the overly long post, but I'm just trying to emphasise that if you're new to HL2, buy it. Simple.

I just ended up here from the book as well. I wish it had a bit more about non-mapping topics, but all in all, I think it was a great deal. Good job -- I'd buy a more in-depth followup book in a second.

brain

Definitely!

Here's an idea, Foyleman, why not self publish? Write another instalment, and sell it through the site as a PDF? I'd buy it, hell, I'd pay the same price as I did the paperback, if it covered the subjects I mentioned!

Think about it dude, other than bandwidth, it would be sheer profit, no greedy publishers taking their cut for your hard work!

I had thought of doing something similar. I found that writing really wore me out. I spent a little more than a year writing two books and that meant no time for fun for that whole year. However, I think I might enjoy doing a DVD set of tutorials. Would that be of interest or do you prefer the written content better?

BTW: Thank you all for the great words.

DVDs would be very nice!! i personally learn better from videos

DVD's, DVD's always beat writing..

I'm torn! I buy and use both!

Books make good reference, and video makes for good learning. Plus, there would be the issue of price. Limited run DVD's can cost a bit to reproduce and distribute, whereas a PDF book costs very little in materials and distribution, plus, you get it as soon as you've paid!

I'll say I'm 50/50, either would be good!

Foyleman, you got mail.

I'll chime in on the PDF front as well. I think that a lot of the scripting and coding information that would make the project a success would be boring as hell on a DVD.