Customer Reviews

Modeling in LightWave (With CD-ROM) (Graphics Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I'd waste time telling you all the reasons not to get this book, but apparently that would be redundant. Suffice it to say that this 'seasoned graphics professional' should SERIOUSLY consider throwing in the towel given the examples displayed- which have to represent the most god-awful modelling and renders I have seen to date. Sadly, this is not even close to an exaggeration. As with many other titles this author has written on Bryce, Poser, etc., it's impossible to take his writing seriously when his examples and sample art are so painfully and blatantly bad. Seasoned professional? Hah! Judging by what I see in this book, Mr. Mortier would do himself (not to mention anyone hoodwinked into buying ANY of his books) service by putting down the pen and actually learning his craft *as a professional* before referring to himself as such. I cannot believe he's ever been employed as a creative professional in this field outside of writing on topics he clearly has no mastery of whatsoever. Even a moderately experienced hobbyist could provide more insight and creative examples than are displayed in this 412 pages of nonsense that mostly echo the Lightwave manual and tool descriptions.

The 'tutorials' (if you can call them that) largely consist of editing existing models (questionably at that) with single-function tools with no real-world application whatsoever, and the best 'intro' work I could find in this book covered Amapi, not Lightwave Modeler. If your goal is randomly tweaking points and deforming the Lightwave example cow or models downloaded off Avalon or TurboSquid, you don't have a copy of the Lightwave manual, and you don't have to worry about clients actually paying you for creative results, you might find value in these pages outside of pressing flowers. If you expect to use this book to become a real professional at your craft and expand your mastery of the truly deep and powerful tool that is Lighwave Modeler, just move on now with a clear conscience. There's nothing for you here.

If you're truly insterested in learning Lightwave however, check out Dan Ablan's 'Inside Lightwave' book instead. You'll be incredibly glad you did, and not just for the excellent organic modelling chapter (courtesy of Lightwave god Stuart Aitken), but the incredibly deep and thick coverage of rendering, IK, animation, expressions, et al. It's everything this book is not.

Unfortunately Shamms Mortier's waste-of-paper 'Modeling in Lightwave' is a painful reminder of that often maligned quote: 'those who can't do- teach'. The publishers of this book should be ashamed at themselves for allowing this piece of trash to be published at all.

Not only is this book the worst ever written on Lightwave, but is one of the worst computer books I've ever seen. There are a total of only 264 pages of 'tutorials' (and I use this term generously) that consist of loading models into lightwave, then doing bizarre things to them using Modeler's modifiers - useful things like make a woolly, furry triceratops or a warped, corroded Beethoven bust.

Most of the remaining pages are devoted to selling other programs, such as Amorphium and Poser.

It appears, when looking through this horrible book, that Shamms Mortier has spent a few moments playing around with the controls in Lightwave, then writting a quick knock-up manual telling what he discovered during those few moments of play.

To buy this book would be a horrific waste of money, and an insult to one's intelligence.

Actually, the best and most useful part of this book is the last 10 pages - they are completely blank.

Sadly, this book doesn't really give any help at all in modeling in Lightwave. Instead, it reads like a book written by a guy who simply opened the program and sat with the manual in his lap, writing down what he discovered. Nothing about modeling your own creations using the many tools available in the program.

The idea the Mortier doesn't actually know much about Lightwave is given credence by the amount of space given to programs that aren't Lightwave but that Mortier does know. Talking about Amapi and Poser doesn't give any information about Modeling in Lightwave, but it does fill space. We'll have to wait for a really good book specifically about Lightwave modeling. As for this one: AVOID!

This is an odd book and not at all what the title might suggest. For learning Modeler there are some excellent free tutorials online (but unfortunately I discovered this only after buying this book). I did find the Amapi chapter and the overall concept of how Lightwave might integrate with other apps interesting (which is why I rated this book two stars instead of one).

I enjoyed Mr. Mortier's book on Ray Dream 5 but this book should never have been published (judging from some of the comments in the book I don't even think Mr. Mortier likes Lightwave and that alone should have prevented this book from seeing the light of day). This book also has some of the most frightening-looking artwork I've ever seen in any 3D book. Hopefully no one who learns on this book will ever get hired to do anything I'll have to see!

There are many other vastly superior books on Lightwave and some of the best stuff is freely available online.

Shamms Mortier appears to be an expert in a whole host of packages, since he's written tutorial books for Lightwave, Poser, Bryce, Max, Pixels 3D and Amorphium.

I've not yet had a chance to read this particular book, but based on his Poser and Bryce books, I will never buy another one by him again. Although the perception of "good art" is subjective, I think his work is extremely poor, and if you're looking for anything even vaguely photo-real, forget it.

For Lightwave, stick with the books by Beck, Jerrard and Ablan.

For Bryce, go with Susan Kitchens' Real World Bryce 4 - tons of really useful material.

This book is terrible! Do not waste your money. The book tells you much less then the manuals that come with Lightwave. The artwork in the book look horrible, I was producing better models in the 4 first hours of using lightwave 4 years ago. This book is an insult to Lightwave users, dont waste your money the writer of this book obviously don't have a clue on using lw-modeler

This book is nothing but an overview and the examples are so stupendous any modeler of any 3D program would not do as the author has as examples. The author has fallen far short of what the title and description purports. Just when his descriptions and content end in a boorish manner and perhaps to indulge further, the chapter ends! I would use more "colorful metaphors" to describe this book but heed my advice even if you are new to Lightwave--Don't buy this book!!!! That's right "Newbie to LW"--you may be itching to get this book but it will burn a hole in your wallet and resoundingly disappoint you.

This book is the only book in history that virtually guarantees that you will be a worse 3d artist after you read it.

If distorting the Lightwave Cow for several hundred pages is your idea of modeling, then this book is for you.

This book feels like it was written by a first time Lightwave user that loaded the Lightwave Cow model into a scene and started playing with each and every modeling control with no idea what they were doing.

I actually think the cow could write a book on how she was abused in the making of this book and it would be more insightful to 3d modelers.

Save your money.

This book doesn't teach you nothing about modeling techniques, only tells you how to load models and hot to apply distortions to them.

To the trash!!

This book is excellent for aspiring authors as it proves anybody can get a book published, even if you can't write and you have nothing of value to say. This is just about the only useful thing about this book.

This book is just as awful as every other title written by Mr. Mortier.

The really bad part is that someone at Charles River Media seems to think Mr. Mortier's books are worth publishing. Because of the pitiful nature of every one of this author's titles I've seen to date I am now very reluctant to purchase any Charles River published book. It's sad that a company with so many excellent titles would continue to publish such poor quality books by the same author.

If you're expecting anything along the lines of something that would be written by Tim Albee, Patrik Beck, or Dan Ablan you will be sadly disappointed. If you were looking for in-depth coverage of modeling in Lightwave keep looking, it's not in here.