Customer Reviews

3D Studio MAX R3 In Depth: Take Your MAX Skills to the Professional Level

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In response to the everpresent newbie question of "What is a good beginner's book for learning MAX?", I just had to put in a word for this book. AWESOME!

If you are a novice MAX user who has completed the tutorials in the MAX 3 documentation, then this book is the one you want. It complements the MAX 3 tutorials far better than ANY book I've ever seen, and in my opinion is an absolute necessity for ANY beginner. Unless you're coming from a previous version, Polevoi's book will give you a deeper understanding of the program than you ever thought was possible. You get a truly overhead view of Parametric Objects, the Modifier Stack, Transforms, Coordinate Systems, Pivot Points, Home & User Grids, Instancing & Referencing, Arrays.....all in the first 5 chapters. He also bluntly describes what MAX does better, worse or just different in comparison to other 3D programs.....an expert perspective that you'll never get from the DISCREET insiders who write the New Riders books.

I'm only 1/4 through the book, and I've never felt more "on top" of the program. The tutorials included in MAX 3 are a neccessary first step (and are far better than in previous versions), but the constant omissions never let you feel like you have a true grasp on the program. Polevoi's book puts everything you've done into an incredibly simple perspective.....you'll be silently saying to yourself "Wow!" and "Aha!" throughout the beginning of the book. No longer is the MAX interface a mystery that you hope will make sense later. This book gives you insight into MAX's underlying structure, and leaves you with a very encouraging context in which to view what you haven't learned yet. If your hopes of learning MAX are fading in frustration and depression, the book is better than Prozac. No kidding.

Put away your paintbrush. This is not a paint-by the-numbers book like so many other max books are. You know the ones -- you get done with a tutorial and ask yourself "what is it that I just did?" Mr. Polevoi not only gives you the lesson but also takes you behind the scences and into the mind of a skilled max practioner. He takes the time to EXPLAIN what it is your doing, and you come away with the feeling that you are truly learning something. Admittedly, I'm a light-weight Maxer, but this is by far the best book I have encountered. It's not colorful, nor is it highly stylized, but if you want good basic information that will set you atop a good foundation, I believe this book will do that. Be warned though: it is written in a straight-forward style but it does assume a certain intelligence and knowledge on the readers part. If you don't know the max interface well, start somehwere else--the Max Fundamentals or Max Applied book--but for the more-than-a-beginer Maxer, you can't beat it. No book is perfect, but this is a good one. Why didn't I give it five stars? I think I'm saving that for Mr. Polevoi's next book. I only hope that Mr. Polevoi revists the subject soon and takes us even deeper.

Prior to reading this book, my favorite MAX book was Jon Bell's 3D Studio Max 2.5 Design & f/x... While I picked up the R3 edition to look for any updates, I quickly found that this book had stolen away the position of favorite. It's easily the most clearly written, logically-explained 3d Studio MAX book I've ever come across. The author takes great pains to help you understand where MAX is coming from in his examples, which is extremely helpful, since MAX does some things quite differently from other competing products. While it could stand some more coverage on certain advanced topics, it's a fantastic overview of the fundamentals. If you're new to MAX, or haven't "gotten it" in the past, I highly recommend it.

Rob Polevoi's book is unique in that he takes the reader systematically through all the many aspects of working with Max and demonstrates in a logical way how they relate to each other.

As a professional educator Rob deals particularly well with introducing readers to unfamiliar material. Each topic is introduced with complete instruction and referred to subsequently with such sparing repetition that you have to think for yourself to recall what has gone before. In this way this book is written to teach, not as a list of programme functions.

Throughout the text Rob emphasises that his teaching approach focuses on 3d animation principles and he brings his knowledge of other programmes to his explanations of how and why to chose which animation methods from the options available.

This is the most complete book on learning Max that I have come across. The reference manuals contain all this information but are not written from a teaching viewpoint, which is the great uniqueness of this book.

Supplementary reading will still be required on nurbs modelling and character animation which each require a book in themselves.

I recommend this book for readers wanting a book which covers Max as a totality, by an author who surely knows this programme inside out.

This book covers a lot of material and takes you through most of the features of Max 3. After, reading the book you should really feel very comfortable with MAX and all thats left is to exercise your skills. There is only one important topic that this book doesn't cover in depth and is quite important: NURBS curves. These are the most powerful and flexible way of desigining models in max3, but they are also the most complex. Anyways since NURBS is an advanced subject, you should only consider learning them after mastering the basics. There is also one thing that you may not like about this book: Its only 700 pages, but it takes quite a while for you to read it. But I guess you can expect that, because of all the exercises the book tells you to do and all of the many many features of MAX 3 that it covers. In conculsion, this book is great for any Max3 newbie!

I have read a bunch of books for 3DS Max as well as other 3D packages, and I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by the layout and writing of this book. Polevoi goes into functionality as well as some philosophy behind what you're doing in Max. It is straight forward and easy to follow. It provides a number of tutorials that take you not only through the mechanics of the tools, but also attempt to explain why that particular method is used. I find most other books lacking this depth, this humanity that Polevoi weaves into 3D Studio Max R3 in Depth. I have yet to finish the book, but I'm already pleased to have bought it. If you are new to Max, and you're looking to do more than just pressing a few buttons in the order that some tutorial book tells you, get this book, read it, do some tutorials, branch out on your own projects, and use it as a reference. I am very pleased with this book and have made it the textbook in the collegiate level Max classes I teach.

It's great how the book reads almost like a novel, and also a great reference when you need one. Very good Nurbs-chapter. The book is called "In Depth" and you supposedly would want to get a little deeper into Max than what this book does though. For instance, when discussing "Fit Deformation" the author writes that it's too difficult for this book to cover. My advise is - carefully study the Index and make sure the things you want to know more about are listed before buying. The subjects that are covered are very good and you will get a very good understanding of Max from reading this book.

Clear, authoritative and direct -- Rob Polevoi has given the world a thoughtful and well-written book. His broad knowledge of the field of 3D animation gives this book a fresh perspective. Well done!

I have been interested in Max for about a year and always had trouble finding a good book teaching you the basic principles. After a few unsuccessful try, I got this book. I wish it had been available some time ago before I had read big books only to discover wasting my time. It really meets the need for a new beginner virtually requiring no Max knowledge at all. Have it even if you are rather professional and long-time Max user.

After reading many other books on the subject of 3dstudiomax,with much disappointment,I decided to take a chance on this one.Rob Polevoi does an excellent job of introducing you to the program. The other books contain tutorials which leave you with no understanding of why you did what you did. This book,on the otherhand,teaches you how to actually learn the program.In my opinion,a very inexpensive,highly valuable resource for anyone serious about learning how to use 3dmax3.Two thumbs up to Rob and I anxiously await any further books from him on this subject!