Essential LightWave v9: The Fastest and Easiest Way to Master LightWave 3D (Paperback)

by Steve Warner (Author), Kevin Phillips (Author), Timothy Albee (Author)
Key Phrases: intermediate skills, camera properties, image editor, Advanced Skills, Basic Skills, Graph Editor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Includes companion DVD with trial versions of LightWave v9.2! Essential LightWave v9 offers an unparalleled guide to LightWave 3D. Written to help users quickly take control of the software, this book is filled with easy-to-understand explanations, time-saving tips and tricks, and detailed tutorials on nearly every aspect of the software, including the new features in LightWave v9.2! Key features: Learn to model, light, surface animate, and render within the first seven chapters! Master the LightWave v9 Node Editor for advanced surfacing, texturing, and deformations. Learn to model with polygons, Catmull-Clark/Subpatch SubDs, and splines. Uncover the secrets of distortion-free UV mapping and high-quality texturing. Learn to seamlessly composite 3D objects with real-world images. Create professional-quality character animation using FK, IK, and IK Booster. Enhance your animations with expressions, particle effects, and dynamics. Set up a render farm to rip through complex rendering tasks.

Product Details

• Paperback: 992 pages
• Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers; 1 edition (June 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598220241
• ISBN-13: 978-1598220247
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #148,712 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for different experience levels..., July 22, 2007

By	JeffrySG (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Well, I'll keep this pretty short. I can't really recommend this book enough. I'm fairly new to LW and this book has been a tremendous help. Even on areas where I though I was up to speed I keep on learning new things. The book starts off with a general introduction to 3d, and then has main chapters covering topics such as modeling, lighting, animating, texturing, rendering, etc. Then it moves onto more intermediate and advanced chapters and projects.

What I like best is that each mini-area is followed by a simple illustrated example that makes it very easy to understand and see it in use. Also, the way the book is broken up into sections, if you don't really want to read up on animation right that second you can just move on to the next area without feeling too lost (and hopefully go back to that section later).

I will also point out that the book comes with hours and hours (about 14 I think) of tutorial videos that cover a broad range of topics including new 9.2 features. These videos alone are worth the price of the book. (Just as a note, if there are any videos that don't work on your DVD, go to publishers website for info on how to get them) As this book covers so many areas, especially many 9.2 new features, it really is good for all different levels.

Have fun riding the Wave...

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Essential Reading, November 20, 2007

By	Steamwerx - See all my reviews

This is book contains some of the clearest explanations of Lightwave tools I have ever read. What makes this work as more than a reference (which it certainly will be for a good while) is that the tools or features are explained along with some genuine use cases for when you'd want to use such a capability. The example usages are well written and easily to visualize thanks to generous illustrations. Yes, they are small, but are well labeled.

I much prefer the Essential series (also own Essential Lightwave 8) for its concise descriptions and get-to-the-point examples. The information density here is excellent. Little if any fluff. Unlike the previous version, this one is divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced sections which might help guide your reading. I found the section on projection mapping to be worth the purchase of the book alone. I've read the Lightwave PDFs, the Wordware Lightwave Texturing book as well as numerous help forums, and web sites and I've not once had UV mapping explained so well. The tutorial on how to build a UV map for a fighter jet goes through not only the unwrapping process but the types of maps you might want to try to make better textures. This type of pragmatic advice above and beyond the goals of the tutorial are some of the great hidden benefits to this book. Often tutorials will just go far enough to explain how to do something without much hinting as to why.

Take the discussion on sub-patching as another example in the Advanced Modeling section. I've worked with sub-patch modeling for years and was always curious as to how pros decided when to use it or not. As it turns out my way of thinking was pretty close to the contents, but it always helps to read someone else's impressions. Basically this book made me go back to read some of the tools that I thought I already knew just to make sure I'm not missing something.

One thing that I had issues with is that some of the tutorials depend on plug-ins. At least in one case, the plug-in used was not included on the DVD and the link to it in the appendices was not working. I managed to find it using search engines after a while, but I'm not sure why all the used plug-ins weren't included on the DVD. This problem was in reference to one of the video tutorials on the DVD (surfacing with weightmaps).

If you own the previous version there is repeated content, but not so much as to invalidate buying this version. Its a good 33% thicker and there's much more to learn including a new section on stylized characters, character rigging, node editor, the aforementioned projections section, discussions of the new 9.x cameras, etc. I haven't made it through the whole book yet but it looks like some of the old tutorials and examples have been expanded as well.

Finally, I like the fact that you can easily come back to a section describing some functionality and re-learn without having to read a whole chapter. Often I'm in the middle of a project and want to just remember how to use a tool. I can find that section and easily refresh my skills with this book.

Bottom line: If you're anywhere near starting in on learning Lightwave you owe it to yourself to read this book. Do the examples. Watch the videos. Intermediate users can probably still benefit especially those coming back to Lightwave from an older version. I rank myself as an Advanced-Beginner (2 years Lightwave hobbiest).

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars awesome book!!!!! Essential to learning Lightwave, August 8, 2007

By	GoldNER (FL. USA) - See all my reviews

This is a very awesome LightWave book. The video tutorials that come on the DVD are priceless themselves. Either beginner or intermediate, this book is a gem to your 3D training.

The video tutorials, Steve Warner goes slow and in depth, not like some of these DVD training videos that click on the mouse like maniacs with no explainations of what they are doing . The video tutorials are clear to see, no blurry or fuzzy pictures

The one thing I wish this book and other lightwave book had was glossy/colored images. Even though these images are on the DVD I still think it is essential to have them printed in color or at least have the images colored.Sometimes when I am reading these books, I am not at my computer (I love to read in resturaunts for some reason)so I don't always have the ability to reference from the DVD, coloed images would be awesome.
I know that would make the book cost more, but I would pay the extra for sure.
Black and White images just don't cut it in an art style book.
Just my 2cents!

But overall the information in this book deserves 10 Stars
A++++

way to go Steve, thanks for your hard work in putting this together-