Rating: 
Summary: In case earlier reviews have marred your opinion...
Review: ...I've only had this book for a week, and it's well on it'sway to becoming the most referenced book on my shelf. Excellent readand, if you're prepared to do a little work, outstanding tutorials.The facial animation section alone has given me several 'eureka'moments, which is what books like this are supposed toelicit. Simply wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: In case earlier reviews have marred your opinion...
Review: ... I've only had this book for a week, and it's well on it'sway to becoming the most referenced book on my shelf. Excellent readand, if you're prepared to do a little work, outstanding tutorials.The facial animation section alone has given me several 'eureka'moments, which is what books like this are supposed toelicit. Simply wonderful.
Rating: 
Summary: The Ultimate MAX Book for Animators
Review: 3D Studio MAX 3 Professional Animation is the only book written for intermediate-thru-expert users, taking them completely through the MAX 3 animation process. The book uses project-based tutorials to show the techniques professional animators use to create everything from simple animated particle effects to complex character animation for Web sites, video, film, and other multimedia formats. 12 chapters of serious MAX animation fun, in 634 pages. Written by a group of top-flight 3D animation professionals, this book features the real deal: applications of craft, taught through real-world tutorials. The CD-ROM contains all exercise files, so users can follow directly with the author as the author shows the princples at work. Any MAX user who is truly serious about being the best animator they can be owes it to themself to study this book and pull from it everything they can. Lead author Angie Jones, with co-author Sean Bonney and contributing authors Brandon Davis, Sean Miller, and Shane Olsen, have crafted a lucid, thorough, concise series of tutorials, while maintaining the perfect balance of professional tone and sense of fun. This is by no means a book for beginners, but it's designed to give even veteran MAX users a chance to develop tricks and skills they didn't have prior to using this book. And users still ramping up on MAX's animation capabilities can enhance their employability by learning from the theoretical AND practical lessons. (Again: while not falling asleep reading dry text... this book was written by real people who use MAX and have FUN with it for a living... no professional technical writers who merely catalog a program's feature set in this book, thanks.)
Rating: 
Summary: Errors here, errors there, error EVERYWHERE!
Review: After reading positive reviews of this book from Amazon.com, I bought it with high hopes... This book could be worth reading if there would not be so many errors everywhere! I can't believe how many typos & missing steps & steps told in wrong order there is in this book! Buy some other more professional book.
Rating:
Summary: Finally something I really needed
Review: I bought other CG books before and usually got something out of it. But this is my first one that instantly helped me with my problems. Within the first 2 hours of reading I got more hints to traps and good advices than I got from reading whole books and doing dozens of tutorials before. I really recommend this book for all who want to improve their animation skills with 3D Studio MAX.
Rating:
Summary: A must have for 3D Animators
Review: I hear people complaining about a few typos here and there but the truth is that isn't the focus of the book. The focus of the book is to teach you how to take the best advantage out of MAX's tools so you can achieve realistic animations. It's always up to you to add imagination & creativity to your work. Someone once said that NOONE nor ANY BOOK can teach you how to do anything. They can only guide you until you develop your skill. The hands on exercises in this book makes this the perfect guide to become a professional animator. The first part of the book shows you how to animate a simple character with modifiers. The animation stays light YET FLEXIBLE. This is very important to ANIMATORS. From stable skeleton rigs to tips & tricks on how to create incredibly realistic lipsync are discussed in part two. Part III goes into actually animating evironmental effects to give your animations the touch of life. For those of you that are fortunate enough to have character studio, the book even goes in detail on how to use this wonderful addition to MAX. In conclusion, I recommend this book if you are serious about 3D animation with 3D STUDIO MAX R3.
Rating:
Summary: A must have for 3D Animators
Review: I hear people complaining about a few typos here and there but the truth is that isn't the focus of the book. The focus of the book is to teach you how to take the best advantage out of MAX's tools so you can achieve realistic animations. It's always up to you to add imagination & creativity to your work. Someone once said that NOONE nor ANY BOOK can teach you how to do anything. They can only guide you until you develop your skill. The hands on exercises in this book makes this the perfect guide to become a professional animator. The first part of the book shows you how to animate a simple character with modifiers. The animation stays light YET FLEXIBLE. This is very important to ANIMATORS. From stable skeleton rigs to tips & tricks on how to create incredibly realistic lipsync are discussed in part two. Part III goes into actually animating evironmental effects to give your animations the touch of life. For those of you that are fortunate enough to have character studio, the book even goes in detail on how to use this wonderful addition to MAX. In conclusion, I recommend this book if you are serious about 3D animation with 3D STUDIO MAX R3.
Rating:
Summary: Worthy Goal, dismal execution
Review: I must say that I was really excited when I got this book since learning MAX character animation has been a goal for a long time. Imagine my frustration when I started doing the exercises and I could make nothing in the first two chapters behave as described when following the instructions to the letter. There are so many glaring mistakes in the first two chapters I dont even have the patience to hammer through it. While New Riders books have been satsifying in the past, this one is a failure and I wish to express my extreme dissatisfaction to the authors and New Riders for not even bothering to issue an errata list to help people out who are having problems following the examples. This is not a cheap book, and the extreme technicality of the subject requires accuracy in writing and proofing. I am sure that nobody in the proofing team ever tried these exercises since as written they are impossible to execute.
Rating:
Summary: Finally a book that doesn't insult our intelligence...
Review: I want to express my gratitude toward the authors of 3dStudio Max Professional Animation. This is the first book I have found that truly enhanced my skills and knowledge--not only of 3d Studio Max, but of 3d animation in general. As a teacher of 3d animation, I am always looking for information that gives me the skills to answer any questions my students can throw at me. While I haven't really noticed any errors or typos in particular, I find that because the book is not simply a list of steps to follow, and because it explains in detail WHY the steps are to be taken, this helps to clear up any misunderstanding of the steps themselves. These lengthy explanations are packed with helpful information and are essential for understanding the material. This is not a book for those who like to blindly follow tutorials. Finally, I must say that I trust the information in the book. This is not only because of the authors' qualifications and experience, but because my own work has improved significantly. Once again, this book is an invaluable addition to any professional animator's library.
Rating:
Summary: Finally a book that doesn't insult our intelligence...
Review: I want to express my gratitude toward the authors of 3dStudio Max Professional Animation. This is the first book I have found that truly enhanced my skills and knowledge--not only of 3d Studio Max, but of 3d animation in general. As a teacher of 3d animation, I am always looking for information that gives me the skills to answer any questions my students can throw at me. While I haven't really noticed any errors or typos in particular, I find that because the book is not simply a list of steps to follow, and because it explains in detail WHY the steps are to be taken, this helps to clear up any misunderstanding of the steps themselves. These lengthy explanations are packed with helpful information and are essential for understanding the material. This is not a book for those who like to blindly follow tutorials. Finally, I must say that I trust the information in the book. This is not only because of the authors' qualifications and experience, but because my own work has improved significantly. Once again, this book is an invaluable addition to any professional animator's library.
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