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Summary: just a test
Review: . Type your review in the space below:
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Summary: Bill Fleming Strikes Again
Review: Bill hits us once again with another fantastic 3D resource. Don't worry if you have the 3D Photorealistic Toolkit, this book follows on to show how to create natural environments and many other excellent tricks.Written in Bill's unique and friendly style this is more like reading a novel than a user manual. Personally, I like this - it remains light, yet totally informative. As a professional 3D guy, I am always amazed at how Bill manages to teach me something I didn't know. Very highly recommended.
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Summary: Good things & Bad things about this book
Review: GOOD THINGS: This is a useful set of tutorial projects. Mr. Fleming walks you through a number of projects, showcasing modeling techniques such as modeling tiling chunks of geometry for foliage that can be cloned through the scene, and also showing common image clean-up techniques to process photographs into useful texture maps. This book would be just great for a beginning to intermediate Truespace or Lightwave user who wanted to see ways to put together more complex scenes. BAD THINGS: The advertised "photorealism" isn't here - Mr. Fleming's renderings have a typical "3D Graphics" look: the shader development is weak (skipping basics such as making leaves translucent), the lighting ranges from bland to inadaquate, and the occasional characters (admitedly not the topic of the book) that Mr. Fleming adds to some of the scenes are stiff, lifeless, and amatuerish. If you were looking for truly seamless, production-quality photorealistic renderings, you'll have to look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Good things & Bad things about this book
Review: GOOD THINGS: This is a useful set of tutorial projects. Mr. Fleming walks you through a number of projects, showcasing modeling techniques such as modeling tiling chunks of geometry for foliage that can be cloned through the scene, and also showing common image clean-up techniques to process photographs into useful texture maps. This book would be just great for a beginning to intermediate Truespace or Lightwave user who wanted to see ways to put together more complex scenes. BAD THINGS: The advertised "photorealism" isn't here - Mr. Fleming's renderings have a typical "3D Graphics" look: the shader development is weak (skipping basics such as making leaves translucent), the lighting ranges from bland to inadaquate, and the occasional characters (admitedly not the topic of the book) that Mr. Fleming adds to some of the scenes are stiff, lifeless, and amatuerish. If you were looking for truly seamless, production-quality photorealistic renderings, you'll have to look elsewhere.
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Summary: Well worth the small investment
Review: Granted the term "photorealism" is perhaps a bit overused -- but characterizes well what Bill's artistic objectives are. This one of the books which I felt was most important in my moving solidly into the intermediate level of learning, and I still refer back to it from time to time. In my experience, there are actually very few books on the market which really concentrate on surfacing knowledge, srategies, and techniques. Bill obviously used LightWave at that time, but he tries hard to keep things general -- and for the most part succeeds. Although some very useful modeling approaches are presented, they are directed specifically at making primarily image-mapped surfacing easier or more effective. It is primarily a surfacing book. This book is, along with "Toolkit", a very useful addition to any serious 3D student's library and is my favorite among Bill's which I have read. I hope Bill reads this and is motivated to really dig into LightWave 6.x's excellent surfacing implementation and write a book on that, and there is really no good book out there at present on procedural surfacing -- probably because there you have to get program-specific. Per a previous writer's reference to Jeremy Birn's book -- yes, it is excellent -- a must have, but covers different ground than this book. Another example of a must have for relative beginners (though I wouldn't recommend it until you have reached some level of competency with a decent 3D program) that will if studied thoroughly and applied in practice take you well beyond beginner.
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Summary: Well worth the small investment
Review: Granted the term "photorealism" is perhaps a bit overused -- but characterizes well what Bill's artistic objectives are. This one of the books which I felt was most important in my moving solidly into the intermediate level of learning, and I still refer back to it from time to time. In my experience, there are actually very few books on the market which really concentrate on surfacing knowledge, srategies, and techniques. Bill obviously used LightWave at that time, but he tries hard to keep things general -- and for the most part succeeds. Although some very useful modeling approaches are presented, they are directed specifically at making primarily image-mapped surfacing easier or more effective. It is primarily a surfacing book. This book is, along with "Toolkit", a very useful addition to any serious 3D student's library and is my favorite among Bill's which I have read. I hope Bill reads this and is motivated to really dig into LightWave 6.x's excellent surfacing implementation and write a book on that, and there is really no good book out there at present on procedural surfacing -- probably because there you have to get program-specific. Per a previous writer's reference to Jeremy Birn's book -- yes, it is excellent -- a must have, but covers different ground than this book. Another example of a must have for relative beginners (though I wouldn't recommend it until you have reached some level of competency with a decent 3D program) that will if studied thoroughly and applied in practice take you well beyond beginner.
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Summary: horrible writing
Review: hello, i found some of the techniques to be useful for small scenes, but not at all useful for big 'architectural renderings' where clutter and chaos do not mesh well with architectural presentations. the organic modeling techniques were generally good for beginners. however, i found the writing to be terrible, bill fleming spent half the pages describing these 'imaginary' creatures that were extremely painful to read through. i thought the book would be much better if bill had focused on the techniques rather than wasting page after page on the imaginary narrative of these little creatures. i was interested in bill's other book on photorealism, but after reading this book, i am not so sure. although bill fleming spent alot time and effort in creating this book, the illustrations were in my opinion was fantasy-realistic, the imaginationary creatures used for the illustration were so 'un-believable' that perhaps the title might be changed to 'fantasy creatures toolkit' sorry about the harsh criticism, but in my opinion, a poorly written book.
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Summary: Photorealism? Check the cover please and come again
Review: I bought this book and was very dissapointed. The things Mr. Fleming calls photorealistic look like they all are made from the same type of plastic. I cannot call this photorealistic
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Summary: Photorealism? Check the cover please and come again
Review: I bought this book and was very dissapointed. The things Mr. Fleming calls photorealistic look like they all are made from the same type of plastic. I cannot call this photorealistic
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Summary: Table of Contents
Review: Introduction
Book and Technology Overview 2
How This Book is Organized 3
Part I: The Principles of Photorealism 3
Part II: Modeling Technique 3
Part III: Surfacing Complex Objects 4
Part IV: Creating Industrial Environments 4
Part V: Creating Natural Environments 5
Part VI: Creating a Fantasy World 5
Appendixes 5
Who Should Read this Book 6
Tools You Will Need 7
What's on the Companion CD-ROM 7
Getting Started 8
Part I
The Principles of Photorealism 1
Chapter 1 2
An Introduction Photorealism 2
Clutter and Chaos 3
Personality and Expectations 4
Expectation 5
Work with the ViewerÃs Expectations 6
Believability 6
Surface Texture 7
Specularity 8
Dirt, Dust, and Rot 9
Flaws, Tears, and Cracks 10
Rounded Edges 11
Object Material Depth 12
Radiosity 13
Wrap Up 14
Part 2
Modeling Techniques 1
Chapter 2 2
Image Map Modeling 2
The Image Map Modeling Process 2
Editing a Source Image Map 4
Modeling the Window 7
Modeling the Glass 9
Modeling the Security Bars 10
Surfacing the Window 11
Image Map Modeling with Depth 13
Organic Image Map Modeling 16
Surfacing the Leaf 20
Wrap Up 22
Chapter 3 1
Adding Depth with Seamless, Tileable Models 1
Creating Seamless Tileable Models 1
Custom Shapes from Seamless, Tileable Models 7
Creating Complex Tileable Models 10
Wrap Up 13
Chapter 4 1
Creating Tileable Ground Covers 1
Creating a Field of Clover 2
Creating the Clover Patch 5
Staging Natural Tileable Models 7
Placing Objects in Ground Covers 8
Wrap Up 12
Chapter 5 1
Displacement Map Effects 1
Adding Chaos to Ground Covers 1
Using Displacement Maps to Create Chaos 4
Custom Contours with Image Map Displacement 6
Displacement Map Animation 8
Wrap Up 10
Part 3 1
Surfacing Complex Objects 1
Chapter 6 2
Creating Detailed Image Maps 2
Creating Rust, Oxidation, and Corrosion 2
Creating Specific Areas of Rust 8
Creating Botany Image Maps 10
Wrap Up 18
Chapter 7 1
Morph Target Surfacing 1
Using Morph Target Surfacing 2
Using Morph Target Surfacing on Simple Objects 7
Saving Resources with Morph Target Surfacing 9
Wrap Up 13
Part 4
Creating Industrial Environments
Chapter 8 Designing City Streets
The design
The development
Creating industrial elements
Surfacing industrial elements
Part 5
Creating Natural Environments
Chapter 9 Designing a Natural Scene
The design
The development
Creating the natural elements
Surfacing natural organics
Chapter 10 Exploring ponds and puddles
Creating water depth
Creating surface chaos
Creating underwater chaos
Part 6
Creating a Fantasy World
Chapter 11 Designing Fantasy Worlds
The design
Ornate
Innate
The development
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
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