3D Creature Workshop, Second Edition

Rating:
Summary: Great book, but not perfect.
Review: This book goes far beyond the scope of "awesome". The examples and tutorials in this book are amazing to say the least. I am a 3D Studio MAX user and fairly beginner as well. After reading the book several times through, I set out to try the tutorials. The first 3DSMAX tutorial was boggling to me, if you are not familiar with b-splines and patches, consider working with them before you get this book. After about 3 hours, I was handling patches quite well. I had learned to make a virtual studio, lay out patches, and form them to match my outline. The book shows you how to do the work, and the rest is just experimentation. After using the 3DSMAX tutorials, I went on and tried the A:M and LW tutorials. I'm happy to say that with a few extra plugins, easily found on the 'net, one can easily do in MAX what others can do in the other tutorials. How exciting. Still, the book has some of it's own faults, and can be confusing at times, if you are a true beginner.

Rating:
Summary: Great book, but not perfect.
Review: This book goes far beyond the scope of "awesome". The examples and tutorials in this book are amazing to say the least. I am a 3D Studio MAX user and fairly beginner as well. After reading the book several times through, I set out to try the tutorials. The first 3DSMAX tutorial was boggling to me, if you are not familiar with b-splines and patches, consider working with them before you get this book. After about 3 hours, I was handling patches quite well. I had learned to make a virtual studio, lay out patches, and form them to match my outline. The book shows you how to do the work, and the rest is just experimentation. After using the 3DSMAX tutorials, I went on and tried the A:M and LW tutorials. I'm happy to say that with a few extra plugins, easily found on the 'net, one can easily do in MAX what others can do in the other tutorials. How exciting. Still, the book has some of it's own faults, and can be confusing at times, if you are a true beginner.

Rating:
Summary: 1 Word SWEET!
Review: This book is amazing. After Reading the entire book (even though I only have 1 of the 3d rendering programs that is covered) you'll be able to take a hand drawn picture set up a "Mini Studio" and model it in 3d with out any problem. The book itself covers Patches, Metaform, etc. The book could how ever been improved if it also had a chapter or two on animating your newly created creature. If you want to create 3d models of cartoons, animals, fictional creatures, people, and so on this book is the best I have seen.

Rating:
Summary: very very disappointing
Review: This book is very much a rehash of the last book printed in 1998. It includes the same tutorials used in that book. The patch modeling tutorial in this book even states that it is for max 2 (though the book cover says "updated for new versions of max" which now is version 4. He has added a few token tutorials for other programs such as Amapi and Darktree Textures...but it is not worth getting if you have the old book. I am disappointed that Mr. Flemming could not take the time to write a few new tutorials and truly update this book like the cover says. This book should be categorized as a reprint. If you are looking for uptodate tutorials, I suggest you search on the internet.