Mastering 3ds max 4 [Paperback]

Jason Wiener (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0782129382 | ISBN-13: 978-0782129380 | Publication Date: July 25, 2001

Make the Most of Today's Leading Animation Package

With release 4, max further establishes itself as today's dominant modeling, animation, and rendering package. And with its fully revised and updated coverage, Mastering 3ds max 4 further establishes itself as the definitive max resource--just the book you need to master all the techniques supported by this powerful product. Inside, you'll learn all about sculpting and texturing your characters, setting them in motion, lighting the scene, and producing the final animation--for movies, games, television, and the Web. You also get in-depth instruction in MAXScript, including detailed explanations of all that's new to this release. Coverage includes:
* Understanding basic 3D concepts
* Modeling in polygons, patches, and NURBS
* Creating detailed models
* Optimizing models for low-poly environments
* Applying textures for real-time and pre-rendered output
* Animating using parametric animation, forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, and character studio
* Fine-tuning animation by editing keys and transitions
* Creating drama with lighting
* Applying post-process effects
* Cutting and cross-fading between shots
* Compositing in Video Post and combustion
* Exporting to Web 3D with Pulse
* Getting started with MAXScript
* Using scripting for scene manipulation
* Using scripting for animation
* Customizing the user interface
* Defining autostart scripts
* Creating your own plug-ins using MAXScript

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Make the Most of Today’s Leading Animation Package

With release 4, max further establishes itself as today’s dominant modeling, animation, and rendering package. And with its fully revised and updated coverage, Mastering 3ds max 4 further establishes itself as the definitive max resource--just the book you need to master all the techniques supported by this powerful product. Inside, you’ll learn all about sculpting and texturing your characters, setting them in motion, lighting the scene, and producing the final animation--for movies, games, television, and the Web. You also get in-depth instruction in MAXScript, including detailed explanations of all that’s new to this release. Coverage includes:

• Understanding basic 3D concepts
• Modeling in polygons, patches, and NURBS
• Creating detailed models
• Optimizing models for low-poly environments
• Applying textures for real-time and pre-rendered output
• Animating using parametric animation, forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, and character studio
• Fine-tuning animation by editing keys and transitions
• Creating drama with lighting
• Applying post-process effects
• Cutting and cross-fading between shots
• Compositing in Video Post and combustion
• Exporting to Web 3D with Pulse
• Getting started with MAXScript
• Using scripting for scene manipulation
• Using scripting for animation
• Customizing the user interface
• Defining autostart scripts
• Creating your own plug-ins using MAXScript

About the Author

Cat Woods is a writer whose work ranges from computer graphics to philosophy to politics. She works for Pulse Entertainment, a Web 3D software company. She studied 3D Arts in the Multimedia Studies Program of San Francisco State University, has taught 3ds max, and works on 3D projects with dvGarage.

Alexander Bicalho is a Software Quality Engineer at discreet. He has been working with 3D Studio since its first DOS version, working with training, 3D projects, and MAXScript. Both are authors of Mastering 3D Studio MAX R3, also from Sybex.

Product Details

• Paperback: 953 pages
• Publisher: Sybex (July 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782129382
• ISBN-13: 978-0782129380
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,260,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teacher's Highest Recommendation, August 12, 2002

By 

Jason Wiener "Darmatage" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mastering 3ds max 4 (Paperback)

As a college instructor of MAX modeling, texturing, and animation, I both recommend this book to my students and use it myself as a resource. I had the pleasure of contributing to this work in a few sections, and so had the opportunity to examine this work closely as it was written. In addition to providing comprehensive instruction on all areas of MAX, Cat Woods discusses the principles of 3D space and the creation of 3D art with greater elegance and clarity than any book I have encountered on the subject. Those struggling with the tools will find help here. A must-have for beginners, and a strong resource for experienced users.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Challenging for Beginners, but Great Overall, August 10, 2002

By 

"s_bax" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mastering 3ds max 4 (Paperback)

Unlike a lot of people using MAX, I was close to a beginner, and was trying to learn it along with a graduate course in animation and design. A friend recommended this book to me, after I had trouble with another...book which was our course text. I can't say whether "Mastering 3ds max 4" is the best MAX book on the market, but it's light years ahead of what our instructor chose.

If you were to open the book, you might get the impression -- the wrong impression -- that it was 'dumbed down', because there are so many illustrations. In fact, I almost didn't buy it for that reason. Only later it hit me that this is a book *about* graphics, so of course it would be graphical, and not like some book teaching you about, say, databases. Once I got used to the way the material was presented, I found the book really easy to follow, and was able to create real animations, from scratch, on my own. I think almost anyone can learn to do it from this book, if they stick with it.

The writing is (for a book like this) almost entirely free of jargon and always clear, even if sometimes, due to my lack of experience, I had to go over things a few times to get the knack of them. I can't say whether this would be the optimal guide for a professional animator, but it seems ideal for people with a good general background in using graphics software, and for 'advanced beginners' like me (and a bunch of other people in the class who borrowed it from me... and didn't want to give it back).

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The One Max Book to Own, July 24, 2002

By 

"jonawil" (Milpitas, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mastering 3ds max 4 (Paperback)

I'm only an intermediate user of 3ds Max, but I found this book to be EXACTLY what I was looking for. Even though it might be a bit much for someone using the program for the first time, so long as you have a good background, this book makes it amazingly simple to do some pretty complex things. The writing and illustrations are EXCELLENT, and some of the explanations are the clearest I've seen in any software manual. Although there were some problems with the CD in the earlier version (v3) of the book, those have been cleared up, and all patches are downloadable in any case.

The book is also really nicely laid out, and you can hop around from chapter to chapter and focus on just what you're looking for. The first part of the book, maybe 2/3 of it, teaches you all the 'basics' (many of which aren't basic at all!) of the program -- the interface, meshes, patches, nurbs, mapping, through to animation -- and the last part goes surprisingly deeply into scripting. I didn't get too far into scripting, as I didn't need to learn that, but the first part of the book taught me enough to really use the program.

If you're looking for something which goes WAY beyond the cryptic materials which accompany the program, this book is about as good as you'll come across.