Review by Dan Triplett

The DVD starts out with a basic piece of architecture; an old pillar, like that of an old parking garage, and shows you the basic steps starting in 3Ds Max> Mudbox> back to Max>Photoshop> then Unreal3. The tutorial uses only one major plugin; Poly Cruncher, which detracts from the overall application of the workflow, but is small in the grand scheme of the tutorials effectiveness. The rest of the techniques shown in the tutorial are fairly universal between 3D packages (minus the pelt tools used in Max). The Photoshop work flow is extremely informative as is the Unreal 3. He explains how to bring out many subtleties in the normal maps within Photoshop, as well as how to combine normal maps. In Unreal, he goes over how to get your item in the editor, as well as making a material. The material he makes is set up to use tileable maps as a character gets closer to the object, keeping up a high level of detail. It would seem that any novice user of Unreal, would benefit from learning these core techniques.

Review by Dan Triplett - Midway Studios Chicago