Customer Reviews

Exploring 3D Modeling with Cinema 4D R9 (Design Exploration)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best book to not only give you the basics of C4D but of 3-D in general.

It does not give you the really advanced techniques but gives you a great basic understanding of what makes the program tick. The book's explore and trial and

error technique to learning seems a much better approach than some other books

and tutorials. They just give you the steps in doing somthing but don't explain what they do so you are left with little understanding of what you did. Tony shows the

concepts and then gives you ways to experiment with the concepts and solidify

your understanding. I am a 2-D designer learning 3-D and the book makes the program exceptionally understandable.

Being a newbie to 3D with absolutely no experience I thought it would be best to buy a book to help familiarise myself with the program. Of the few available for Cinema 4D, Anne Powers book was the best rated. However, it was pre Cinema 4D R9 which is the software version I have. This book by Tony Alley had just come out at the time and there were no reviews to assist in the purchase decision. Added to that there was no preview to see inside the book's contents which is always helpful.

After long deliberation I decided to take a chance and buy this book and hope for the best. Well, I was not disappointed. This book is absolutely amazing and already I am becoming familiar and comfortable with the program. Mr Alley's writing style is clear, easy to understand and follow. He deserves a full 5 stars and furthermore if this is an indication of the quality of his books I will next be purchasing his "Exploring 3D Animation" book also.

I would recommend to the publishers though to subscribe to the "See inside the book" so that when potential customers are looking at the product on the Amazon page they could click on the book's thumbnail icon to get a preview of the book's contents as this is very helpful.

Aimed at the beginner through intermediate user, this book uses a series of tutorials to lead you through the design and implementation of several projects using Maxon's Cinema 4D. Through these projects, most of the features of the program are illustrated and the reader quickly understands what the program is all about.

To be sure, Cinema 4D has so many features and capabilities that they cannot all be covered in a book even twice this size. Instead the book attempts to teach the core, fundamental capablilities of the program and leave the reader to experiment with the other features by himself.

The CD of the book is more complete than usual. It has a Demo version of the program for both Mac and PC - Version 9.1. It has all the images used in the book, and the files you'll need to complete the tutorials in the book. It also includes the Cinema 4D Reference Manual, Quick Start Manual and the files used in the Quick Start tutorial. While you can get these off of the Maxon web site, it's a lot faster to get them off the CD. Finally, the CD also has three issues of 3D Attack, the Cinema 4D Magazine.

I really like the writing style that the author uses, for me it comes across as clean, easy and yet conveys the information I wanted. I also like the fact that some of the color illustrations in the book were done by the author. Often I get the feeling that the writers just write and don't actually use the software they are describing.

I just finished reading and working through the exercises. This book is outstanding! Dr. Alley has put together a great educational experience when you add the book and CD together. His years of experience teaching 3D clearly comes through. I have read a number of books on 3D and even took a community college course. This book blows all of them away. It blows the Cinema 4D training manual and training CD's away as well. I can't wait for his animation book.

I have been modeling for years but with different software and decided to download the demo of CD4 to see what it was like. To get a jump start I purchased Mr Alley's book and got to work. I learned a lot in short amount of time, especially how to navigate the software and learn to use the various tools. I found the book easy to follow, accurate and I enjoyed the tutorials and sample files on the CD very much. As a result I am going to buy the software. Recommended.

I have been working through this book. I at first was going to get one of the flashy books, but now I am glad I started here (okay I did read some of the flashy books as well but this one has been much more helpful)

If you are very new to Cinema 4D and do not like the Maxon pdf manuals, then this book might work for you. It covers the basic interface, tools, lights, and very briefly Hypernurbs and polygon modeling. I would have been happier with more modeling, less basics. The CD included is very nice and has some nice freebies (3 issues of the 3Dattack magazine - a must have for Cinema 4D users!).

It is a great beginners book no doubt but for the price I would expect it to go a little deeper to at least some "intermediate" techniques. I guess I was expecting to learn more from this book and was disappointed at how bare basic the material covered was.

I found the exercises to be consistently step by step and easy to follow.

This book is geared to beginning students. It follows a format common in secondary school and military textbooks that each chapter begins with a bulleted set of objectives that are clearly stated. Unlike most computer books, the author accomplishes these objectives with clear, concise, and detailed instructions - including highlighted paragraphs on avoiding traps (such as inability to click on spline points under the move arrows). Compared with "The Cinema 4D 9/9.1 Handbook" and "C4D 9.5 3d Animation Production", this book is much better written and has far fewer errors.

Particularly strong are the sections on materials and lighting. These are so good that they could be used as a textbook for Maya, 3Ds Max, or other high end 3D programs. The illustrations are excellent.

The chapters on modeling are very good. Nurbs are particularly well explained. Curiously polygon modeling leaves out details on the knife settings, the close polygon hole, how to save selections (for use with animations and setting materials to defined regions), and most importantly - omits any mention of converting nurbs or booles to polygons. (A paragraph saying "push the C key to convert nurbs to polygons" would have helped).

The section on rendering was also very good, but geared toward still images. The still image examples were excellent, but it would have helped to have some paragraph on using Quick time rather than AVI for rendering out movies for rgb + alpha.

What is missing is any discussion of animation. There is nothing on bones, weighting, claude bonet, poses, etc. The author has left that for a future book to be published in Dec 2007.

Overall this is the best book on C4D. Although it is geared towards beginners, it accomplishes its mission better than other books that I've seen.

This is for the beginners. This book is good for using the large figures; and showing the clear chapter goals, common pitfalls, and easy explanations. Do not expect tips for modeling character designs, such as humman faces or bodies.