3ds Max 8 Fundamentals (Paperback)

by Ted Boardman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
What's new in 3ds Max 8? Should I upgrade? How can 3ds Max 8 help me become more productive? Author and master trainer Ted Boardman answers all those questions and many more in the latest edition of his expert guide, 3ds Max 8 Fundamentals. You’ll not only learn the process of modeling and animating objects in 3ds Max 8, but also gain an appreciation for its underlying rationale. As you complete the exercises and tutorials in this book, you’ll discover features new in max 8 that make it an even more powerful program than before. Whether you are new to Max 8 or an old pro looking to increase your productivity, you’ll benefit from the detailed explanations of such topics as:

•    Sharing, controlling, and managing your work-in-progress assets using Asset Tracker, 3ds max 8’s new source control solution

•    Selecting, viewing, manipulating, and working with curves more easily with the improved Track View

•    Developing photorealistic characters with 3ds’s improved character development features, cloth and hair simulation tools, award-winning Reactor® physics system, and particle flow

•    Using the fast, unique Edit Poly approach to create everything from simple to complex models

•    How to best light your scenes and use materials for maximum compatibility with other applications such as Discreet Combustion in collaborative work environments



About the Author
Ted Boardman is a well-known 3ds Max trainer, writer, and columnist, and is one of a dozen Authorized Discreet (now Autodesk) Training Specialists for Multimedia. Ted is an award-winning speaker at the annual Autodesk University symposium covering CAD and visualization topics and is the founder of the Boston 3D Studio User Group. He is also the author of the previous editions of this book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 398 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press (May 13, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321412532
• ISBN-13: 978-0321412539
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #745,708 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introduction, August 31, 2008

By	game lover (Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews

As a novice user of 3ds Max, I have been very frustrated by a lot of books which claim to be for beginners, but have tutorials that are difficult to impossible for the beginning user to follow. This book, however, seems to go the extra mile when it comes to guiding the reader through the tutorials, which incidentally relate to some quite interesting compositions, such as a waterfront scene of a pier with some buildings, which hold the reader's interest because of their artistic beauty.

I am not sure whether an edition of this book for Version 9 is available yet, but from what I have seen so far, the differences are minimal and so this book is still an excellent beginner's reference even if you are using Version 9.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not that great..., July 21, 2007

By	Bogus Exception (Norwich, Connecticut United States) - See all my reviews

Cover all basics, but in tutorial rather than reference form. Not all tutorials work due to ttypos and poor editing. Oh, and it is all Max 8.