Customer Reviews

3D Studio MAX® R3 Bible

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is excellent at describing all of the functions and abilities of Max R3 and providing numerous tutorials on how to use them. It also provides scenerios/descriptions of how and where in your animation these various abilities might be used.

I have at least a dozen Max books (releases 1-3) that each have their strong points, but overall I am most pleased with 3d Studio Max R3 Bible, because it has something for beginners, intermediate and advanced users. Many books will tell you in detail about the features or functions in Max, but may not give you any real scenerio of how you can use them in your work, But because of the numerous tutorials, this book sparks ideas of "hey, I can use that to do......" A definite bargain.

This book appropriately gears itself toward beginners and intermediates and includes "reference" style information for advanced users. Lots of tutorials hit the spot.

However there are two collections of plug-ins on the accompanying CD-ROM that look awesome except for one thing, virtually all of them pull up conflict messages during 3DSM start-up. Page 1023 confesses that the plug-ins were designed for Release 2 and had not been updated to work in Release 3. I tried several approaches to installing the plug-ins including isolating them to an "aftermarket" folder (yes, I updated Path Configuration). As they say in the Navy - no joy.

I scoured the IDG Books web site in search of an errata or updated plug-ins without any luck.

On the up-side the CD also includes boatloads of models for use with the tutorials.

If like me you have come to expect a lot from the "Bible" series of books from IDG you might be disappointed too. Expecting any book of 1100+ pages to be 100% comprehensive (as the cover states) is a bit optimistic, particularly in the case of this one. Believe me, Mr. Murdock is no Deke McClelland; so don't expect any clever writing to break the monotony here. The tutorials are sketchy and wimpy. You'll learn more with a ...copy of Matossian's Visual Quickstart and various on-line tutorials.

I recently got this book and it's been great. The beginning, though, I had to skip through because it was putting me asleep. I also skipped the beginning partyly because I was overwhelmed by the 1000+ pages that I had in my hands. I finally got to the part with the tutorials. It was great since I was a beginner and all. The tutorials were easy, sometimes too easy, but they showed very good examples of how to use different parts of Max. I got on the cd-rom that was included and I saw tons of 3d models that I can use for Max. Then, I got to the plug-ins and installed them. I was so excited to see what all of them do and I started up Max and I'm hit with all these errors. I pressed OK on all of them and Max finally started up. I found a couple that actually work including Balls & Sticks. I think that it is wrong to include Max R2 plug-ins with a R3 book. The great thing about this book is that they have the whole thing on the CD complete with color pictures instead of the black and white that are in the book. Further, they have chapter example files that are the actual scenes that you are looking at in the pictures and you can compare scenes and see what you might have done wrong. This book taught me enough to do a lot of stuff on my own in just a few chapters. This book is good for beginners, intermediate, and advanced users alike. This book flows along nicely for beginners especially, making the scenes gradually more complex. However, I don't think that this should be the only book you read on 3d Studio Max.

Think of this book as a big reference manual, not a learning tool. Yes, you can learn from this book, but it doesn't come with a lot of detailed tutorials which I was expecting. For being a reference tool, it is extremely detailed. Any question you might have about the various features of MAX is answered here. If you use MAX R3 I recommend buying this book, it will really help you out.

This book as mentioned was good as a reference, but as a beginner to the software, it was hard to follow and use. I did get a little out of it, and the book may be more of use to me in the future after i find a book that will really show me how to use the product. If you are new, dont waste your money on this book.

A nice reference material for Max, if you have a general knowledge of it, and also the patience to thumb through the rather large volume. DO NOT buy this book if you are interested in tutorials, as the ones included are less than complete. A good example would be the tutorial for blowing up a planet... You can get the effect, but it neglects mentioning that you need a visibility key or alternate way to get certain objects to vanish at the appropriate time.

A nice effort, and it has it's uses, but I would not recommend this as a learning volume.

while the book is a good referance. i wanted to know everything as i learned instead of reading 200 pages before i got to turn the computer on. the info is good but the structure is bad i found it fact filled not fun and easy flowing not the first book i should have bought on the subject far to much time spent on the layout and what things do weeks before i was ready to use them so i had to re-read the same pages again

I'm brand spanking new to modeling and especialy new to Max. Although the terminology used frequently in this book is with those who have learned basic 3D concepts in mind, the book is a great reference as a walk through giving brief explanation of what almost all of the buttons and options do giving a beginner and understanding of how to get around in Max. After making it 60% of the way through the book, I have now successfully constructed and texured my own model however it lacks detail as the book doesn't go very far into modeling technique, but as you might've seen the size of the book, you can see that this information is best left to another guide. The only disappointment I had was that with some of the tutorials the author tends to leave out information with assumption that the reader has been up and modeling for some time. Otherwise, this is an excellent, must have especialy if you don't have the software manuals.

I think this book is first rate. I have two other books on same and they are basically firewood. Although there is some merit to the other reviews with respect to the tutorials in "Bible", the key is having a rudimentary knowledge of max prior to reading this book, or having another reference on hand.

Let's face it, this is a complex program and the fact that "bible" runs the gamut on topics is extraordinarily helpful.