Rating: 
Summary: An invaluable, indispensable guide and reference.
Review: Nick Robalik's TrueSpace F/X Creations is a complete introduction to all aspects of using the computer to create "Hollywood Quality" special effects, animation, and imaging. Robalik shows how to create freezing effects, drifting smoke, dust storms, car exhaust, rising steam, cold breath mist, galactic wormholes, explosions, alien footsteps, and whatever else your mind can visualize or imagine. TrueSpace F/X Creations covers the various plug-ins available including Primal Particles, Wave Generator, CoolPowers4, and Dynawave. Of special note is the chapter on Python Scripting. Color sections illustrate the impact special effect images can have. A variety of scripts are included on the companion CD. Anyone seeking to enhance their computer generated project with special effects should begin with a thorough reading of Nick Robalik's TrueSpace F/X Creations!
Rating: 
Summary: This book offers little more than plugin demos.
Review: Of all the trueSpace books on the market, trueSpace F/X Creations is one of the least useful and most disappointing. What should have been a serious look into high-end effects and visual techniques manages to be nothing more than a poorly written walk-through of some of the more popular plugins. And while Mr. Robalik gives parameter settings suggestions for achieving certain effects, these same settings could easily be arrived at through simple experimentation by even a novice user. Mr. Robalik's instructional writing ability, and indeed his knowledge of his subject, come into question throughout this book. He takes the *relaxed* writing style to such an extreme that some sections read like the contents of an Internet chat session. And while some of the blame for the abundant grammatical and punctuation errors must be passed to the editors at Charles River Media, it is obvious that technical writing is not one of Mr. Robalik's strengths. As for his abilities in the area of visual effects, one has only to look at some of the finished examples in the book to see that his talents are mediocre at best and do not produce anything even close to professional results. If a person wishes to create visual effects in trueSpace, I suggest saving the money that would have been spent on this book and spending it instead on one of the many fantastic plugins available for trueSpace. The documentation that comes with plugin will offer the same information as Mr. Robalik's book - without the worthless commentary.
Rating:
Summary: This book offers little more than plugin demos.
Review: Of all the trueSpace books on the market, trueSpace F/X Creations is one of the least useful and most disappointing. What should have been a serious look into high-end effects and visual techniques manages to be nothing more than a poorly written walk-through of some of the more popular plugins. And while Mr. Robalik gives parameter settings suggestions for achieving certain effects, these same settings could easily be arrived at through simple experimentation by even a novice user. Mr. Robalik's instructional writing ability, and indeed his knowledge of his subject, come into question throughout this book. He takes the *relaxed* writing style to such an extreme that some sections read like the contents of an Internet chat session. And while some of the blame for the abundant grammatical and punctuation errors must be passed to the editors at Charles River Media, it is obvious that technical writing is not one of Mr. Robalik's strengths. As for his abilities in the area of visual effects, one has only to look at some of the finished examples in the book to see that his talents are mediocre at best and do not produce anything even close to professional results. If a person wishes to create visual effects in trueSpace, I suggest saving the money that would have been spent on this book and spending it instead on one of the many fantastic plugins available for trueSpace. The documentation that comes with plugin will offer the same information as Mr. Robalik's book - without the worthless commentary.
Rating: 
Summary: Wrong title?
Review: Overall, a pretty good book. But based on the contents the title should probably be "trueSpace Plugins". The techniques described for using plugins are very good, however, some of the plugins in the CD are demos (crippled functionality). This was somewhat confusing since it does not agree with the steps indicated in the book. For example, chapter 6 discusses how to use a particular plugin, however, the plugin on the CD is a demo copy. Therefore, the steps outlined in the book do not agree with the contents of the CD. Other than this, the information was helpful in determining what plugins are useful for what effects.
Rating:
Summary: Wrong title?
Review: Overall, a pretty good book. But based on the contents the title should probably be "trueSpace Plugins". The techniques described for using plugins are very good, however, some of the plugins in the CD are demos (crippled functionality). This was somewhat confusing since it does not agree with the steps indicated in the book. For example, chapter 6 discusses how to use a particular plugin, however, the plugin on the CD is a demo copy. Therefore, the steps outlined in the book do not agree with the contents of the CD. Other than this, the information was helpful in determining what plugins are useful for what effects.
Rating: 
Summary: Truespace Knowledge ?
Review: This quote from the authors web site says it all. "...no longer supports any product that may be affiliated, in any way, with Caligari's trueSpace product, or any of their other products."
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