Rating: 
Summary: Don't do it!
Review: This book spends entirely too much time explaining the "fundamentals". That's okay if that's all you're interested in learning. Almost each tutorial requires that you load an almost complete project from the included CD. I wanted to learn how to create even basic objects using this program, not have someone show me how to finish theirs! HINT: Buy the book and read a little for yourself, BUT do not remove the CD. If you do most bookstores will not let you return it. I wish I knew this book was not going to help me before I dove into the CD. Good luck elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: long winded with mistakes - but sorta ok if u got patience
Review: this is my first 3d book...it is a bit long winded and written in a dry manner. It does contain a lot of info for the beginner, but the tutorials are hard to understand. There are not enough photos of the interface, and 3dMax3 can be very confusing as there are heaps of commands. More photos would help with learning, and also, there were a few mistakes in the tutorials, very bad ones! If I didn't know how to use Adobe After Effects before this, it would have been hair pullingly difficult!! It would have been good if they got some people to check the tutorials before publishing the book! This book is for those with patience and a bit of time on their hands. I woulda have bought a better one, but publishers don't seem to publish enough....don't they want to make any money!?
Rating: 
Summary: 3d riddle
Review: Well this book just kept me solving riddles. But it took me unnecessarily long to solve them because of editing mistakes. (I found about 15 by now and I am at page 193). It would also be helpful if they would use pictures of the buttons they describe. And the exercises led to different (still nice and effective) results because of vague descriptions. A rather discouraging experience. If your are a visual type by learning THIS is NOT the book for you. All the commands are written out and not shown by symbol-this kept me searching where I should click next. I struggle on BUT... it could be sooo much easier.
Rating:
Summary: Reasons why you should NOT buy this book
Review: Well, if you are dealing with 3D Studio for a month already or have read another book on the theme this book would not suffice your expectations. What if you have not read a previous book or have not been working with 3D studio? The answer is the same no. Have in mind 3D Studio has an interface divided into 3 singular menus/tabs not including the menu Bar, if you can not go through one to another you will be lost and won't be able to accomplish any project and that is the main problem with Toddy's book, there are no pictures! He presents the tabs in the first chapter and that means that you will have to memorize all the buttons and where they are because he won't show a single picture of a button after that chapter. The book misses essential examples and places other that are completely irrelevant. The first project you will be challenged to do is to create your first animation. As I could not accomplish it after 3 hard working and dedicated nights, I decided to share the problem with other students of 3D animation here in Barcelona. They could not accomplish it either but took the book to an animation professor who rewrote the steps and added the missing writen information (the author forgot to assert points that were essential) besides drawing all the buttons that should be shown in the book. Kind of stupid to have it done in 2 hours after this editing. Of course, you can learn something with this book but it will take you a lot of time to accomplish simple things due to lack of graphical help (Steve Burke was suppposed to do it but he spent more time doing the nomad with plastic-like breast and rubber-like pants that appears in the cover) and examples and a considerable amount of technical errors. Concerning the CD-ROM it is good but the whole set (book and cd) is not worth your time and money, buy '3D Studio Max R3 in Depth' by Rob Palevoi instead, you won't regret.
Rating:
Summary: Help Files - Version 2
Review: While this book did cover 3D studio Max's Fundamentals, like the title says. It was unfortunately a pretty dry read. There were too many boring pages between actual tutorials, which were pretty good when they finally came along. They were, however, not explained very well in the book. The Lotus ScreenCams that came on the CD showing exactly how the author did something is the only thing that kept me from tossing this book in the trash during a frustrating tutorial. The biggest problem I had with this book is that too much of it read like a help file. The author walked through too many of the menu's and toolbars explaining what their function was. The help files will tell you the same thing. More tutorials "showing me how these menu's and toolbars are actually used in a 3DS project" would have made this a winner. Oh well. Maybe next edition.
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