10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good book, June 13, 2006
This review is from: Carrara 5 Pro Handbook (Graphics) (Paperback)
This book covers a lot of modelling concepts for the beginner, and walks a person through the steps needed to model in a variety of ways (spline and vertex), and even has a chapter on modelling with Hexagon. Furthermore, the book briefly mentions the pro's and con's of UV, procedural, and projection mapping. Its tutorials are good for getting your feet wet, and a pretty thorough introduction to Carrara.
It may be missing some new Pro 5 features, so it might not be ideal for the seasoned Carrara veteran, however for beginners and intermediate people, its a fantastic resource.
I initially let some of the negative reviews persuade me from not buying the book, however with so few printed resources, I decided to get it. It was well worth the money spent, and I'm very glad I did buy it.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This book delivers on it's promises..., March 8, 2006
This review is from: Carrara 5 Pro Handbook (Graphics) (Paperback)
People have apparently had unrealistic expectations for this book. This book's back cover categorization is "Beginner / Intermediate". So, if you're already an advanced Carrara user, you may be disappointed with this title.
This is likely only the first edition. Since, you'd probably need another book of at least this size just to cover the "advanced" features alone, it might not be fair to ask for it all now and in a single book (regardless of any existing precedents).
This detailed description below will hopefully help you make up your mind about this book...
Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are an introduction to 3D concepts. These
chapters help to explain the basic concepts and terminology in
modeling, texturing and animation.
Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8 help the reader get to know Carrara and its new interface and feature preliminary tutorials in texturing and animation.
Chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 feature no less than 5 in-depth, modeling tutorials. Chapter 9 has the reader model a complete NASA Delta rocket in the Carrara Spline Modeler. Chapter 10 guides the reader through box modeling and entire character from head to toe. Chapter 11 focuses on the Vertex Modeler's new surfacing tools to model acomplete Piper Cherokee airplane.
Chapter 11 and 12 focus on Hexagon 1 (A separate modeller also made by Eovia). Chapter 11 written by Jack Whitney has the reader use a combination of line and box modeling techniques to model a character head. And Chapter 12 written by Patrick Tuten, covers line and surfacing modeling in Hexagon to complete a detailed and very cool concept car.
The modeling tutorials in this chapters 9 through 12 are unique,
complete, in-depth, step-by-step guides to modeling with the new
features of the Vertex Modeler and many of the features of Hexagon. Outside of this book there is no other source that covers the modeling tools so completely.
Chapters 12 and 13 cover the texturing tools in Carrara. Chapter 12 features three tutorials on working with shaders, shading domains and the UV Editor. Chapter 13 deals with Subsurface Scattering and Displacement Mapping.
Chapter 14 and 15 tackle the complex world of animation. In chapter 14 you will learn to create morph targets to make a character speak. Chapter 14 not only covers the tools you will use to make a character speak but also the lip-synching concepts. In chapter 15 Peter MacDougall painstakingly walks the reader (no pun intended) through rigging a character for walking. Peter's walk cycle tutorial is one of the best and most thorough I have ever seen. And you get to learn how to do it in Carrara no less.
Chapter 16 features 5 complete tutorials on rendering with Carrara. The topics covered are: Global Illumination, HDRI, Caustics, Motion Blur, and NPR. Again each tutorial is a step-by-step tutorial with nothing left out and no guessing required.
Chapter 17 has two very good tutorials that cover working with VectorStyle 2. You will learn to output to Flash and get tips on what works when outputting a 3D scene to Illustrator.
Chapter 18, written by Andrea Newton, is almost a Poser "how-to" manual by itself. Andrea's tutorial on integrating Poser content into Carrara is very thorough and fun to boot.
Chapter 19 written by experts David Bell and Lisa Yimm features an exciting tutorial on compositing Carrara renders in After Effects. Now you will know what to do with those renders after you are done working in Carrara.
Finally, chapter 20 covers the very useful and fun plug-ins from
Digital Carvers Guild. Written by Eric Winemiller (the developer of Digital Cavers Guild plug-ins) chapter 20 features three thorough tutorials on Anything Grows, Anything Goos, and Cognito.
The book's CD-ROM is stuffed with hundreds of incremental and
supports files that will help you get through even the most complex tutorial. An inspirational gallery full of Carrara animations and illustrations are also in the CD-ROM.
This book is a PROJECT BASED book which takes a different approach to instruction than your standard software book. This book guides you through each unique tutorial in step-by-step increments.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A solid book that is packed with useful tutorials, March 9, 2006
This review is from: Carrara 5 Pro Handbook (Graphics) (Paperback)
This a great book that really fills a void in the Carrara community. While there are many online resources for helping users learn this app, this is the only comprehensive project-based book available (other than the "Carrara 3 Handbook" by the same author). It is aimed primarily at the intermediate user; however, it contains some 3D basics available in the first few chapters to help beginners get up to speed, and some advanced tutorials in the last few chapters that advanced users can benefit from as well.
I could go into detail about the content of each chapter, but one of the reviewers above already does a great job at covering them.
The only reason I didn't give this book a full 5 stars (would have just gone with 4 and 1/2, if Amazon let me..) is because there are some cool new features of Carrara 5 that didn't make the book in time for its release. I will say that the upside to this is that we still have a huge book that was released within *just over a month* of the software's release.
Learning any 3D app is not easy. This book significantly cuts down on the learning curve with its project-based, easy-to-understand content. If you're looking for a glorified manual, then look elsewhere. If you want an informative, hands-on content-rich book that makes learning Carrara really fun and practical, then pick up this book. At around $30, you're absolutely getting your money's worth.
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