Rating: 
Summary: Read the tutorials and save yourself some money
Review: After having some wonderful experiences with other visual quickstart guides like Elizabeth Castro's invaluable HTML reference, a book which should be in every webmasters bookshelf, I was expecting the same high quality, no fluff, all meat information in this volume.Much to my dismay, it only 'teaches' you things you could figure out on your own. "Here's how to make a sphere", "Here's how to make a cube"... Ok, this is stuff I figured out already, I really want a quick reference to the nurbs tools and maybe some tutorials on patches... Unfortunately, nurbs and any kind of useful modelling information is BEYOND THE SCOPE OF THE BOOK! People, save yourselves some money and use discreets manuals, and/or online tutorials. They are written by some of the best modellers out there today and you *WILL* learn a trick or two to start out. A much better book would be the Inside 3d studio series and the 3ds max bible, which help hammer the concepts in, but more importantly, and I cannot emphasise this enough... RTFM! This book unfortunately does not add anything you wouldn't find in the first few tutorials.
Rating: 
Summary: A Solid book for Beginners or the curious!!!!
Review: Here is my review folks. Pros: Tons of pictures...lots of details...you can jump from place to place so when you get bored with on thing you can easily go practice on another aspect of the program without being confused. The book is like mini excerises after mini exercises. graphics are clean , crisp ,sharp. The writing style is not boring and concise and to the point. A good book to learn what max is and what it can do for you. If you wanna have info on max to see how it works and don't know where to go, this is the book and it does not cost a fortune to boot. Cons: Missing a lot of details. The chapters are skimpy and leaves to a lot of guessing afterwords.You have the feeling" ok now i know how to do this but where do i go from that point!" Nothing on basic modeling or nurbs...you just learn to move vertex and other parts od 3d meshes but nothing on modeling here... There should follow ups to this book with exploration more in depth. Michelle is great but she should sit there and make sequels of the book and explains the other features she did not put in the first book and modelling....modelling..modelling... please!!!!!!!!!!!. You are left on empty after a while with this book.. you wanna learn more but you are stuck..so you have to buy other books. Nevertheless the book wich seems not so impressive is really the opposite...its just too short as most visual quickstart guides are and i don't think that only one book would do 3ds max justice because its too complex of a program to cover in 1 quickstart guide. Please Michelle do other books that follow this one... A very satisfied dude! But could learn more from your wisdom.
Rating:
Summary: save your money
Review: I have learned more in five minutes with the on line tutorials that come with the program than I have learned in 3 hours with this book.
Rating:
Summary: save your money
Review: I have learned more in five minutes with the on line tutorials that come with the program than I have learned in 3 hours with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good 3D beginner book
Review: I looked all over for a beginner 3DS Max book, and as far as I know this is the only one that begins with the assumption that you don't know the program or 3D in general. Topics range from navigation, modelling, and texturing; each topic is introduced and taken to an intermediate understanding. There's lots of shortcut tips, and changing preferences tips. The concepts never go much beyond combining several shapes, or never into building a real world project, but that is for other books. This book gives you the concepts and fundamentals that are required before you can do something really cool. This 3D Max book helps you understand those other 3D Max books.
Rating: 
Summary: A good starting point for learning Max
Review: I think it's not fair to give this book lesser than 4 stars. As the title "Visual QuickStart Guide" has made it clear, this is just a guide for getting quick start. It's not tutorial-oriented. You should not expect it to teach you everything about 3ds Max. What it dose is giving you the basic concept and teaching you how to use the tools, so you can get familiar with the Max user interface and the functions of most of the tools. I use it as a warm-up & reference book for relatively more advanced ones like "Mastering the Art of production with 3ds max" or "Modeling a Character in 3ds Max". I consider this book very informative.
So, just go get it and take advantage of it.
Rating:
Summary: A good starting point for learning Max
Review: I think it's not fair to give this book lesser than 4 stars. As the title "Visual QuickStart Guide" has made it clear, this is just a guide for getting quick start. It's not tutorial-oriented. You should not expect it to teach you everything about 3ds Max. What it dose is giving you the basic concept and teaching you how to use the tools, so you can get familiar with the Max user interface and the functions of most of the tools. I use it as a warm-up & reference book for relatively more advanced ones like "Mastering the Art of production with 3ds max" or "Modeling a Character in 3ds Max". I consider this book very informative.
So, just go get it and take advantage of it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Source of Reference Material
Review: If you're just starting out with Max and can't remember commands and procedures off the top of your head, Michele's book is a great desktop companion to keep around while your working! Michelle explains Max in plain english, with screenshots of the interface itself. What's so beautiful about this book is that Michelle takes the time to explain to you what your doing instead of giving you a 1,2,3 step by step set of instructions. It's the extra care Michelle took while writing that helps you understand what you're doing, and that alone makes this book well worth the cover price. I've spent three times as much on advanced Max books where they don't convey the WHY as much as Michelle. I wish Michelle would write MORE max books! I create content for videogames, and found this book to be an invaluable reference guide as I'm creating monsters and goblins. If you've been scouring Amazon looking for a great Max reference guide, your search is over. This is your book!
Rating:
Summary: Perfect
Review: People are wanting a book that tells them how to do everything. People don't want to learn, have fun, or think. People are interested in showing off and making money. I've had about 4 Visual Quickstart Guides, and they've all told me how to run the program I was asking it to do. Do yourself a favor, pick this word up.
Rating:
Summary: It's a Reference, not a tutorial
Review: The book is a handy and easy to use reference when starting off with 3ds max 4. It is not intended to teach you the concepts underlying 3D modelling, but rather it a step-by-step guide for performing the various functions in 3ds max. (Which has a cryptic interface to say the least!)
I use the book as a sort of second manual in addition to Discreet's documentation.
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