3D Studio MAX: Tutorials from the Masters (Paperback)

by Michele Bousquet (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In this book, Michele Bousquet presents more than 20 challenging and exciting tutorials written by some of the world's best MAX users. If you're interested in becoming a master in 3D Studio MAX, this is the book for you. Power users model with booleans and fit deformation, both of which are covered in detail. Scenes come alive with compound materials and intricate lighting setups. Since animation can be so much more than moving objects around on keyframes, animation controllers, a new MAX feature, are unraveled here. Keywords: 3D Studio MAX

About the Author
Michele Bousquet has been writing about 3D Studio MAX since its first release.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Delmar Cengage Learning; 1 edition (December 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0827383916
• ISBN-13: 978-0827383913
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #531,651 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I would hardly call these people masters, February 18, 1999

By A Customer

First let me say that I had previously written a more positive review of this book; however, I may have been a little over zealous.

I asked Amazon.com to remove my review as I no longer felt the way I did about the book. Many months later I see my review still on the board, so I have taken the time to write a more accurate review of this book.

Now to the review:

The book has a good section on the Fit Deformation command of the lofting component. The model that you make (a woman's high heeled shoe) is a good practical model for learning the Fit Deformation command and the other features that go along with the lofting component. A pretty good section on animating a hopping kangaroo, however...

In the tutorial that shows you how to model and animate a kangaroo, the author clearly states that the boolean function may not work when modeling the kangaroo. She's right! I never got it to work. Boolean functions are indeed tricky, but to put a tutorial that is clearly going to have a difficult time performing a boolean function shows extreme short sightedness. As a seasoned 3DSR4 user, I had the patience to try this boolean over a dozen times before I gave up. I cannot imagine new users truly understanding the usefulness of the boolean function if it doesn't work in a tutorial.

Half the book is made up of one tutorial in which half of that tutorial is composed of programming. Most 3D artists are artists, not programers. I don't mind learning some scripting but the tutorial they provide (which is pretty neat, by the way) is way too long and complicated.

In sum, they should get rid of the kangaroo tutorial and the space buggy tutorial.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I learned a little, but the book's out of date., October 29, 1998

By A Customer

This book, written ages ago for MAX 1.2, doesn't do the job now that MAX is up to v2.5. While I did learn a few interesting tricks, for the most part I was dissapointed. Several tutorials contained blatant errors or would not work as explained. Most of what you learn here, you learn by fixing the author's errors or figuring out the things he forgot to tell you. Add to that the fact that it's out of date, and it adds up to a definite last resort resource book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A Must Have for MAX Users", July 1, 1998

By A Customer

This book is essential for anyone who wants to get up and running quickly with MAX. I found the tutorials to be very intuitive(very important for new users), yet valuable in technique for the more experienced user.