Inside LightWave v9 (Paperback)

by Dan Ablan (Author)
Key Phrases: curve bin, curve window, camera properties, Graph Editor, Render Globals, Auto Key (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
You hold in your hands the best-selling guide to NewTek's LightWave 3D animation software, completely updated for LightWave v9 by award-winning animator and trainer Dan Ablan. Rather than rehash the documentation like other books, this down-to-earth, easy-to-follow guide offers an invaluable set of project tutorials that teach you the ins and outs of LightWave and show you the techniques you need to master this powerful 3D software. Inside LightWave v9's accompanying DVD features hours of high- quality video training tutorials that will help you take the projects in the book to new heights. No other book has taught more LightWave 3D users than Inside LightWave.

Featured tutorials cover:

• Insights into the new LightWave v9 workflow
• Powerful new surfacing with the Node Editor
• Character modeling
• Bones and rigging for character animation
• Particle animation
• Hard body and soft body dynamics
• Rendering concepts with the new Global Render options
• Advanced camera tools

Accompanying DVD-ROM offers hours of unique training videos created just for this book, exclusively from 3DGarage.com (requires QuickTime); a demo of LightWave v9 for Mac OS and Windows; all of the projects from the book; royalty-free textures and reference images; and full-color screenshots from the book!


About the Author
Dan Ablan has been animating with LightWave 3D since 1989, and in 1994 he established his own business, AGA Digital Studios, which creates 3D animations for major corporations. Over the years he has written articles and tutorials for seminal 3D publications such as LightWave Pro, Video Toaster User, and 3D Design, and in1995 authored New Riders’ LightWave Power Guide. In 2003, Dan founded an educational division of AGA Digital dedicated to 3D tutorial courses, 3DGarage.com. For more information, visit www.danablan.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 744 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 1 Pap/DVD edition (June 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321426843
• ISBN-13: 978-0321426840
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #122,513 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The DVD is critical, August 10, 2007

By	Amy Hughes (United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My biggest complaint: you can't always tell what's "selected" from the images in the book. It's difficult to tell the difference between selected and unselected edges in the wireframe views. Also, some of the pages aren't fully inked, and the images on those pages aren't at all helpful. However, the DVD contains hi-rez, full-color versions. Either I never knew that or I forgot by the time I got to chapter ten, because I couldn't follow the penguin tutorial with the book images. Having discovered the DVD images, I'll re-read that chapter.

Also of value on the DVD, the videos extend the tutorials in the book. They aren't just a recap of the book tutorials; they're additional content, and they're quite good. There's so much video content, in fact, he couldn't fit it all on the DVD. There's additional free material on the author's website, though. As of August 2007 there are no videos available for chapters 15 and 16, though the chapter 14 video seems to indicate that there are. Also, there are objects and scenes missing from the DVD that are supposed to be used in the chapters 15 and 16 tutorials.

For many of the chapters I felt the book tutorials didn't go far enough, like they had ended too soon. The videos are necessary to continue the tutorial. While I gave credit for this additional material above, this is also a drawback to this book. I bought a book because I like that format. The videos are nice, but I prefer printed tutorials. As the book is already a hefty 700 pages, I'll just have to conclude that LightWave tutorials of this depth just don't fit in one book.

Also of note, this is very much a learn-by-example book. It is comprised almost entirely of tutorials. Remember that you have LightWave's manual as a reference, and Mr. Ablan reminds you of that throughout this book.

LightWave is a very deep program and this book doesn't cover every option available. It does cover a great deal of material, though. You'll get more than just a taste of what the program can do. The tutorials are easy to follow, and perhaps credit to the LightWave program itself, when Mr. Ablan tells you to do something you've done before, without explaining it again, you'll usually not cry out, "I don't remember how to do that!" Things that need to be explained are explained.

The Node Editor is a huge new addition to LightWave. Mr. Ablan does a fine job explaining how to use it, but in just one book he can only scratch the surface in explaining how to achieve specific effects. I hope the lighting and texturing books I've ordered cover this in more detail. If Mr. Ablan wrote a whole book about the Node Editor I'd surely get a copy.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most comprehensive book written for LightWave 3D, April 17, 2007

By	Diane Cipollo (Editor at BellaOnline.com) - See all my reviews

The Inside LightWave books have constantly been the most comprehensive books written on LightWave 3D by NewTek, Inc. This reincarnation of Inside LightWave covers the new release of version 9 and the author Dan Ablan has done a great job again. As with previous editions, each chapter is more or less self-contained allowing the reader to study a chapter out of order as needed. In this latest edition, he does more than just dedicate one chapter to discussing the new tools and enhancements for version 9. Throughout the book, he offers several tutorials that incorporate these new features, thus giving the reader hands-on practice. The Getting Started chapter found in previous editions has been transformed into a video tutorial on the book's DVD which saves space in the book.

My favorite part of working in 3D graphics is modeling 3D objects and Ablan has always covered this area thoroughly. In this edition, he does the same with some new modeling tutorials. However, he takes a more artistic approach and emphasizes using LightWave as an artistic tool. He begins modeling still life objects. First you use box modeling to create a banana and then he introduces the Multishift and Magnet tools while modeling an orange. The Clone and Magic Bevel tools come into play with a bunch of grapes. Finally, you use the Spline Draw and Lathe tools to create the fruit bowl. The intermediate modeling tutorials emphasize modeling intricate details. As you would expect, advanced modeling techniques are covered in character modeling as you model a cute penguin character to which you will eventually add weight maps and rigging for animation.

Next, Ablan discusses the new Node-based texturing and improved particle animation techniques. LightWave comes with some new cameras and a new rendering engine and the author covers these new options for setting up your scenes. He also covers single and multi-computer rendering and the new ScreamerNet network rendering engine.

One of the most difficult tasks when working in 3D is blending a 3D object into an existing project. Ablan discusses how to add a 3D object to a still background image. But a still background is only half the challenge. He also covers how to track the LightWave cameras to match prerecorded footage.

The DVD contains project files, full color graphics of the figures from the book, free textures and several tutorials from the author's 3D Garage.com website. Dan Ablan has been a pioneer in 3D animation since 1989 and has his own business, AGA Digital Studios. He has authored many books and magazine articles.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true teacher, April 20, 2007

By	C. Pescatore (Pleasanton, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is my third Inside LightWave 3D book by Dan that I have purchased (started with Inside LW 7). He continues to re-invent his teaching style which makes these books invaluable for any LW user. This lengthy book (over 700 pages) also contains almost 6 hours of instructional videos on the DVD to continue where the tutorials in the book left off. A brilliant move that keeps this book thinner than previous editions but yet provides more "meat". I also purchased Dan's LightWave v9 Signature courseware (over 17 hours) which greatly enhances the LW learning experience. Thank god for people like Dan who can teach 3D in a very unintimidating and friendly fashion. He makes you feel like you can create anything you want with LW.