Customer Reviews

3D Studio Max 3.0 Workshop

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From trying ot get your thoughts on paper to leanring eye catching tips for scene setup, you simpl cant go wrong. The author starts by emplaining basic concepts of scene setup and walks you thorugha very logical order of setting these up in max and explaining every little detail about what is happening and why it you are doing it. The ONLY gripe i have is, their seems to be a key scene that in the beginning the author needs you to load for camera setup, and it is missing from the cd. Other then that, this book walks you through an entire project of modelling, atmospheric setup, specials effects, compositing and sound integration. EXCELLENT JOB, but i want that TheEndCamera.max file! :))

This was the second book on Max that I bought. The first was the Visual Quickstart Guide which helped me learn the interface, but left me unsure of how to make a real animation or scene of any complexity. Workshop is exactly what I needed though. It takes you step by step through the creation of an entire scene and along the way explains why to use certain techniques and tools. The author also throws in several useful sections on general art and design principles.

After reading this book I feel confident in making some simple animations and scenes that don't require any real complex modelling or animation. I also feel prepared to read intermediate books dealing more in depth with modelling, animation, etc.

The only hangup I found was near the beginning of the book where a camera just appears in the scene without the author making any mention of how to create it. This was easy to fix though by importing the camera from one of the scene files on the CD-Rom.

I thought this book was absolutely perfect for me. I was just beginning to use MAX when I got this book, and it has taught me a lot. Some of the other reviews mention something about the missing camera file; it's true that it's missing, but it is very easy to replace. All you have to do is merge one of the .max files from the CD (example - "ExBGPyramid.max") and it will ask you what you want to merge into your scene, you simply select the camera and there it is. So to all the 3D Studio Max newbies out there, I urge you to purchase this book!

3D Studio MAX Workshop is very well written, and like a having a personal tutor guide you through max.

It may not be the book for someone who wants to jump in and do nothing but straight tutorials without reading. The author explains a lot of the theory in 3d design with appropriate timing throughout the tutorial, and I found it very enlightening and believe it has made me a much better artist overall.

Another positive is the book is based on a complete animation project, so workflow and managing layers are explained, controlling lighting (up to 17 lights at one point), volumetric lighting, alpha mapping, rendering to frames, modelling, and special effects (all of this is from the top of my head, believe it or not). You end up with a pretty impressive animation when you are finished, all built from scratch.

This book focuses on developing the skills of beginning and intermediate 3D Studio MAX 3.0 user. This book uses a single project, which involves the knowledge of interrelated tutorials to guide you through a complete project development process.

It also shines in the area of providing a good understanding of Computer Graphics Imagery in general. This book is a great investment to me as I have learnt much through it.

This book seems pretty well organize and explain deeply about every process. The only bad part is it have many files lost in it's cdrom.You can download from their site :

mcp.com

Just type in "3D Studio Max 3.0 Workshop" and go into the link and you will see the "download" link... just go ahead and download all the missing files.

This is an excellent example of what a 'Beginning to Intermediate' type book should be. If you are new to MAX, this well-written book is a top notch way to learn enough about MAX to begin your own exploration and creation. Not only does this book teach you the technical ("How-to") methods of MAX but also teaches you about 3d graphics and animation in general (i.e. color, light, scale, proportion, production process, etc, etc...) I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in breaking into the CGI world.

This book takes the beginning max user from start to finish. The part that I like most about this publication is the fact that it shows the development to production process from start to finish, as oppossed to glossing over techniques as they become more complex. There is the problem of the missing camera file, but the author provides samples of all the finished scenes so it was a simple matter to just take a finished scene and strip it down to nothing but the camera scene and then rename it. Well Done.

I've purchased several other beginner 3DMax book (QuickStart, TY, etc.). Other books go over the tools available in 3DMax, but fail to give you a real good idea of how those tools are used to produce professional looking results. This book devotes a great deal of description to how the tools are applied, how an CG animation project develops and progesses. After having worked through the first few chapters of this book I was able to generate much more complex and elaborate projects than I'd been able to prior. The only issue I have is the missing camera file that a previous reviewer mentioned. It's really esential since the project develops as building blocks and the book doesn't describe how to create and position the camera at the point in the book where you need it (which it does in good detail for every other element). There should be a publisher web site or something where you could download this sort of omission.

I was very impressed with this book. I expected a book full of tutorials, but instead I got a book that actually helps one to understand the idea behind the CGI. I was also impressed by how the start of the chapter explains the current stage of development and then shows you how this can be utilized to create the current stage of the mini movie that is being made during the course of the book. I have a little experince with CGI but after reading this book I realized how little I understood, I knew how to create a certain effect but never understood it since I got most of it from tutorials. I am very glad that I bought this book, and it is certainly the best start I could have asked for. I would really recommend this to anyone not only starting out with CGI, but to anyone who would like to know the production sequence and the different stages a CGI scene has to go though to become what it is meant to be.