Customer Reviews

3D Modeling and Surfacing (Exploring 3d Graphics)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Difficult to get to grips with modelling at first; this book may prove to be a challenge, but if you stick with it, it can be quite rewarding. There are no real "tutorials" as such, rather you are given less detailed "walk-throughs" where you can just examine what techniques are used. I think any non-lightwave user will find this more of a struggle as, like with most of Bill's works, most of the walk-throughs are Lightwave based. It would have been nice if there were more detailed tutorials however and I would advise would-be readers to not just try and re-create the models in the book, but also try from an early stage to create their own, maybe more basic models.

I bought this book as an avid 3D Designer. I use Lightwave, SoftImage, 3D Studio Max, and I have a degree in IDI. I found this book to be totally confusing, in the first few chapers they speak of walk throughs, but it never tells you when you're approaching tutorials so you become lost. I do not recommend this book to beginners or intermediate

I found the book to be very useful for determining how to approach the aspect of modeling and surfacing objects. It covers most technologies found in 3D packages and shows when and where to apply certain techniques. There are no tutorials, but by the same token it is not geared to be a tutorial book. It is more of a project planning and reference book. The walkthroughs are there to reinforce the topics discussed, not to teach step by step modeling. Would recommend for anyone needing to know why something is modeled in a particular fashion.

This is a great book but I believe it is geared more toward Lightwave. I use 3D Studio Max I like just got and I'm beginning this book gives you great ideas on what to use Polygons, nurbs, metaballs etc for but when you get into the walkthroughs it is in Lightwave terminology. Not everyone would know what to tool to use (because it has a different name in lightwave) especially since this book goes towards beginners. If you got Lightwave beginner go get it if you have Max you can get it but you won't understand all of the tools. If you do get it for Max and you need help with the tools mentioned in the book go to the 3dsource.com messageboard they should be able to help.

Best, Braden

I bought this book six years ago and was appalled to see a copy with a new cover in a bookshop around here containing the same materials I saw six years ago.

And yes all those crappy plasticky textures which are the hallmark of a Bill Fleming 3D image is still there. After almost a decade not a single pixel changed.

Pity the would-be digital artist who will be so naive as to fall into this trap of Fleming constantly reheating yesteryear's leftovers.

This is the Digital Age. Use your search engine. There are newer, younger, more talented and savvy artists appearing on print every month.

A very large let down as it consisted of more rehashed material like Bill's previous books. Very little here that has not been already printed in various magazine articles, and more of Bill's trademarked
derivitives of others works.

Save your money.

This guys books are bad. You always have to guess at what he's trying to tell you. Thumbs Down!!! Just look at that cover!

I am not a 3D artists, but I like to keep up on technologies. I found this to be a very good book for casual readers. The author did a good job introducing terms and techniques used in 3D rendering. I would recommend it highly to people who are wanting to learn a little bit about the art. I enjoyed the fact that the book was not simply a tutorial for one particular graphics product.

If you are a casual reader who is interested in learning how they make 3D worlds...this would be a good book to read.

(BTW, the very first sentence of the book is wrong. Three 3D graphics field did not start in 1985...but in ancient times. Euclid wrote about optics, and others were interested in the field before him.)

Once again Bill gives us a bunch of pages of his creepy versions of copyrighted characters.

A do not have words in this moment. I am sorry, and my english write is very bad.