Description:
For some artists, learning to use a 3-D application is like a vertical climb up the face of an ice cliff: painful, difficult, and slow. 3ds max 4 is like that ice cliff, but Peachpit Press's 3ds max 4 Visual QuickStart Guide is like the climbing guide that everyone hopes to hire. Concise, experienced, and never overwhelming, this handbook is designed to lead an artist new to 3ds max 4 up the face of the cliff and help him or her plant a flag on the summit. Fifteen chapters build a solid foundation for almost every aspect of 3ds max, starting with installation, interface navigation, and the basics of creating, selecting, and moving objects. Subsequent chapters include advanced modeling of objects, animation, working with lights and cameras, and using materials and maps. The final chapter, "Rendering," covers final output and how to add effects that are only visible in the final rendered frame, such as depth of field, motion blur, lens flares, glows, and so on. The most remarkable thing about the book is how thorough each section is, even though such a wide range of deep topics are covered in under 500 pages. It is impossible to find a favorite chapter--they are all important, and all equally well written and illustrated. Some topics are simply not covered, which is a fine approach; there is more than enough material here to keep the new Max artist busy for some time. This book is for beginners. There is virtually no information on the deeper tools like MAXScript or bones, or using inverse or forward kinematics, although a short section discusses using morph targets. However, it is ideal for someone brand-new to the program who needs to learn the basics as quickly as possible. Getting a handle on the basics of any application is often the most important step to learning to use it well, and this book--like others in the Visual QuickStart series--focuses on the basics. There is no companion CD-ROM, but a section containing color images offers inspiration. 3ds max 4 is a rich and mature application relied on by professionals all over the world, but understanding how it works and learning to use it can be daunting. 3ds max 4 Visual QuickStart Guide is designed to help any user new to Max climb the curve and conquer the application. --Mike Caputo
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