3D Books

Just perfect for the budding entomologist, lots of really interesting facts that the whole family has enjoyed. Highly Recommended.

I have an avid seven year old reader. With all the little captions and detailed drawing, etc- he has been reading and rereading this book and loving it.

Both my children, 5 and 2 love this book and all the others that we have purchased in this series. The pictures are fantastic and the text informative. Depending on which child I read to, I either just point at the picture and tell them what it is or read them some of the text. My older child is fascinated at even the most detailed information...not that many kids that age know how to say and describe metamorphosis (in fact I couldn't remember the word now and I ran to ask my son what it was!) but mine does. Later, when they can read, I know that they are going to love going to even more detail by reading the books themselves. And when my children ask me questions, then these books are great to look up answers you don't know. These books are excellent!

My son was covering "bugs" in preschool, so I picked up this book. Knowing it was going to be really for older kids, I wasnt sure he was going to like it. These books are so well designed however that for 2 weeks now, he requests the "bug" book every night before bed. The only problem is that the pictures are so detailed and zoomed in that some of the images gives my wife and I the heebeegeevees.

The other great thing, is that this book will be a great book from him to grow into.

We are picking up more!

I'm a teacher and I find the Eyewitness books highly educational. I like the way the concepts are presented in a form without backgrounds. This gives clear facts to the reader without over taxing the attention span. The books are highly informative, presenting difficult concepts in comprehendable chunks that stimulate interest. I have almost the whole collection for my own children and they LOVE them!

One of the big gripes I hear from people using tutorial books for software is that they are linear. (They make you start with the apple, then they let you model the tree, and somewhere way down they road you get to model Johnny Appleseed.) This is not the case with 3dMax 3 Magic. Each chapter introduces a new technique on a new tutorial model. In one chapter you are shown how to make realistic looking water surfaces, in another you are being shown how to make the best looking car paint I've ever seen. Like the title of this review states, this is a goodie bag. It is for the Intermediate to Advanced user who wants a "How To" on some of the things Max 3 has to offer. The Authors of the book assume that you atleast know your way around the application. I'm happy to have this book on my shelf, right next to my computer!

This book is excellent for anyone who already has a working knowledge of Max3. The 20 effects covered in the book are clearly explained with lots of pictures, all of which could easily be used to give your demo reel or project extra flair. The whole book is printed in color. My favorite lessons are the Moving Crowd, Glowing Trail, and Realistic Eyeball (best eyeball tutorial I've seen). Each lesson also contains techniques that could be applied elsewhere. Not a comprehensive manual, more like a bag of tricks. Very good!

This is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to enhance their abilities with 3D Studio MAX 3. It goes beyond the MAX tutorials to show you how to create effects that obviously took some of these professionals a long time to perfect. The car paint material chapter alone is worth the price of the book. My only complaint is that it's too short.

I'm thoroughly happy with this book as it is very easy to understand and follow. However, one or two of the tutorials are very dodgy indeed. Like for example the Tidal Wave effect on the CD is not very good, the wave looks extremely fake and out of place. But apart from that, the rest of this book is very well made and presented. A must buy for any intermediate users.

This books is based on tutorials, so it's easy to read and understand. In the end of each chapter there is a "variation" and "plugins" section which help you in using techniques featured in the chapter in other situations and ways and help you selecting plugins to use to make it even more realistic!(giving you a very detailed plugins list). Most of the tutorials are very useful both for advanced and basic users, but some tutorials look very unrealistic where the head title is "How to create a REALISTIC....". I've been using 3d studio and MAX for 7 years now, spending most of my freetime in MAX and still i found this book very useful and I would recommend it for all users except the very basic users. BUY IT

What ever happened to this Author? I wish he kept going on producing books. I was lucky and found this book on Ebay, knowing much about it I bought it because the cover looked very interesting. To my surprise I eneded up loving this book and I wish there were more like this and a continuation on this topic. So if your lucky to find this book used BUY IT

This book will help really break down texturing to get photo real looking 3D results!

BILL FLEMING IF YOUR OUT THERE, YOU REALLY NEED TO WRITE MORE BOOKS, YOU DO A GREAT JOB!

This is a fantastic book for getting you started with realistic skin texturing. Over the years, I've collected numerous books on the fine art of skin texturing. This is one of the finest and complete book around. Though I do combine this with some other techniques, this book brought a lot to the table. It also has a great section on eyes! The book is easy to follow with tons of big pictures with short paragraphs. My biggest let down was the fact that they were going to come out with a book on clothing painting. Unfourtunatally, it was cancelled.

With a million and one books on 3D model creation its good to finally see one that covers the other half of the equation -textures!

Bill takes you step by step through the process of texturing his Freaky Frank model, unravelling the mystery of organic texture creation with ease.

All required files are included (unlike the first print release)
although I found it a little strange that the cover photo was created in Deep Paint, while the tutorials use Photoshop and the CD includes a demo copy of BodyPaint. Not that it matters I suppose as any paint program can be used with the book provided you have a basic understanding of your software.

Its a great read and offers lots of hints and tips for realistic textures. I look forward to volume two of this unique series.

Where was this book, when I needed it for my thesis. lol

The whole book is a do-it-yourself class on its own. The steps are laid out very clearly, how you use photoshop for doing textures. I really like the how the book included the character files in obj, dxf, c3d, lwo and 3ds. So that anyone could view the model in any program they use. The book covers the face, the eyes, the gums, the tongue and the teeth in excellent detail. I went throught the book twice with every page being extremely helpful.

What did this book do for me as a Maya user, it broke me away from methods I had learned at RIT and suggested more simpler ones without making bumpmaps in the hypershade. Now you can do it all in one texture, and it looks amazing.

This book has been a great edition to my 3D collection. I look forward to more of his work in the future. Whats volume 2 going to be about?

What a waste of money. It's barely worth the paper it is written on.

There are better and more comprehensive tutorials on the web for free than the nonsense printed here.

Fair warning, save your money, don't be "Fleminged".

3D , unlike 2D 'photo' applications, reqire that you know a fair deal about the nature of the 3D world and the multitude of features and modeling techniques before you can do anything!
If like me, you don't know your arc from your omni then this book will get you up and running.
Written in a simple language, you'll find that pidgen descriptions eg. 'a row of buttons will appear under the title box. Click the third button from the left, adjust the value to -20.5, then click on the check box to apply this value' - are a godsend when you're sat in front of your monitor and you don't really know what you're doing yet; things are happening onscreen and you feel that you're making progress. Guiding you through the motions helps give you a feel for the program and you can move into the following chapters with a bit more understanding.
Following the tutorials to build and modify a robot forms the main teaching element (as you only really learn by doing). But I would have liked to see more stand-alone examples of the seperate modeling methods, as you can only read so much about splines, sub-objects or modifiers before it all starts to blur.
Overall though, this book seems as good as any for a complete beginner. Though it's value as a reference book once you've worked through it (due to the absence of stand-alone tutorials) could be limited.
If you want to learn 3D but don't know where to start, try here.

One aspect of the book is that it is easy to read. Samples, examples explanations. Definately worth reading.

I have read many a 3DS MAX book. -- Well I have tried to read many that is. -- Believe me I have tried off and on for a year or so now. --- This book *truly* is a beginners book that will start you off on the ground level and have you doing things very quickly that are fun. -- I learned more with 3 hours and this book in front of MAX than I had in 3 weeks prior just because this book has a good focus.

Everyone gives everything 5 stars... and I try not to... but then again... I usually only feel inclined to rate things I trully feel derserve high praise. -- This is one of those things.

This book makes it so easy to learn 3ds max! The writing style is so easy to read and follow. You can learn quickly and painlessly just by doing the examples. I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn 3ds max 4.

If you are a newbie to 3ds max then this would be a good book for you. I am on chapter 7 of this book and am finding a small fraction of difficulty. This book doesn't get into as much detail as I would have preferred it to. One thing I didn't like was making this robot model. All it really is, is spheres and cylinders. But I guess it's just a newbie book. So let me just say that its not the best book in the world for max 4. Seriously my friends, if you want to start 3ds max 4, there are better books out there than this one. Overall, this book is an alright book to get a novice modeler up and going.

I have been using blender for a while now and enjoyed his other book about character animation, but I was unable to get any of the 5 tutorials that I tried in this book to work at all. Must be for Advance users only I guess.

I just bought the book and will start learning it immediately. The book is amazing in its illustrations and quality. I had a complaint about another book by Tony Mullen. He responded to my complain in a matter of hours. I will let more experienced reviewers evaluate the book, but I will highly recommend any author who cares so much for his customers.

I must say, I'm biased... I started liking this book the first time I read the title! The book is very impressive, it is full-color, lots of images, and the chapters are nice and modular so you can jump to the section the topic you're interested in. Tony Mullen did a great job in making the complex straightforward. The tasks in the chapters are clearly written in step-by-step style. He gets right to the point of the chapter and has you work through the material. Another nice touch is seeing pics and blurbs on various Blender artists/developers.

I purchased this hoping to learn to use Blender, and open-source program available from blender.org. The book is very well written, very informative, and an excellent reference, but definitely NOT for beginners; the author even says so. If you, like me, are a beginner, either buy this AFTER getting "Character Animation With Blender" or "The Essential Blender," buy it WITH one of those, but if you are serious about learning 3D imaging, animated or not, this is a definitive must for your library.

I ordered this book without much hesitation, once I discovered Tony was writing it. Having read his past book "Introducing Character Animation with Blender", I ordered this one without thinking twice. Now that this book is in my hands, I can't regret for my choice. The overall quality of the publication is impressive. Not only for the contents but also for the technical production: fine paper with color quality images. It's not common these days. The book is composed of 400 pages (7 chapters) plus an appendix and they are:

Chapter 1 - Re-creating the World: An overview
This chapter describes those tools and techniques that are not well explained elsewhere by the Blender literature. It covers topics like material creation with nodes, transparency, subsurface scattering, sky maps (sphere maps and angular maps) and those tools that can be used to fake physics, when accurate simulations are not necessary at all but you still need a "quick and dirty" method to achieve an effect efficiently and with sufficient speed (an example: water simulation with surface tension displacement or cloth simulation using a displacement modifier). Obviously, these techniques are useful for everyone involved using Blender. No doubt. Much appreciated.

Chapter 2 - The Nitty-Gritty on particles.
The first thing I thought after reading this chapter was:"WOW". *ALL* the latest development on Blender particles is covered here: emitters, reactors, positioning particles on a grid, chained physics systems, various types of visualizations, force fields (harmonic, magnetic, vortex, spherical, wind, etc.)
You will be guided through the creation of a convincing fire material using clouds and stencils textures! All is explained gradually and with great style. Highly informative.

Chapter 3 - Getting flexible with Soft Bodies and Cloth.
As you can expect, all that has been developed is covered here: baking, how to animate a spring, force fields and collision, using curves with softbodies (it will teach you how to animate a chain using an empty), stress maps, how to produce a fantastic cube of gelatin using lattices, simulating clothes. It will even explain how to use the demolition plugin to produce a window breaking in a spiderweb pattern!

Chapter 4 - Hair Essentials: The Long and Short of Strand Particles.
How to produce hair, fur and grass. After covering the basics, this chapter will guide you through the creation of an hairstyle on top of a practice head. One of my preferred chapters.

Chapter 5 - Making a Splash with Fluids.
One of the most interesting part of Blender: the fluid simulator. All is covered here: domains, resolution, inflow, outflow, fluid object intersection, kinematic viscosity, obstacles (considering animation, of course).

Chapter 6 - Bullet Physics and the Blender Game Engine.
One of the less undestood parts of Blender is certainly the game engine. So I was favourably impressed when I have seen an entire chapter dedicated to it. This chapter describes all the tools needed to produce hard bodies simulations, using the game engine and the powerfullness of the Bullet Physics Library. Actors, actuators, IPO curves, rigid body simulations with IPO curves, joints, ragdolls ... This is material that will be probably new to most Blender users.

Chapter 7 - Imitation of Life: Simulating Trees and Plants.
This chapter explores a few tools that can be used for creating trees and vegetation in general, like the L-System, ngPlant and Ivy Generator.

Each chapter is independent, so you don't need to read the book from the first page, with the exception of chapter 4, who strongly depends by the two previous chapters. This book is of course not intended for beginners. This book is completely updated with the latest Blender development and it covers the actual stable release. This is the documentation Blender needs. I highly recommend this book. It is well written, well presented, well structured and, most importantly, it's definitely fun!

Great idea, but the production could have been much better. Photos are reproduced in a coarse line screen (300 d.p.i.) instead of the more commonly used 400 d.p.i. (think regular TV image versus HD). Cover should have been hardboard for the price. Paper stock is of poor quality. I would rather have had a higher quality production with less pages/photos.

If you want to see a high quality 3D book, check out Mark Blum's nature series: "Galapagos", "Bugs", Beneath the Sea."

This is a cool book with some incredibly nice photographs done in an amazing technology that should have been perfected by now and utilized in every medium instead of having been almost abandoned. Many of the photographs are nicely erotic and well done.

However, I was disappointed that almost every truly erotic photo, especially those depicting erect penises or sex acts, had no companion photo and therefore no 3-D effect. I was also disappointed that the publisher didn't have the good sense to make the wire binding large enough to accomodate the number of pages in the book so you could easily turn the pages without damaging them.

All in all, a nice addition to my library, but don't expect hot porn. Most of the photos are very 'soft' but nicely staged.

Over the years there have been some true pioneers in the art of male erotica and Denny Denfield rates highly amongst them! As the result of a bequest of numerous Athletic Model Guild publications and photos, see The Complete Reprint of Physique Pictorial: 1951-1990 (Photo & Sexy Books) in the early 1990s, I became interested in the origins of male erotica.

That, combined with my interest in photographic effects, such as 3D, inspired me to purchase this book. Thanks to David Chapman and the 3D-impaired Thomas Waugh for collating such an O-U-T-standing volume.

I only hope that some of the current generation of gay males - most of whom have no knowledge of significant events like Stonewall (1969) or the first Sydney Gay Mardi Gras (1978) - will chance upon this presentation of even earlier (1950s & 60s) gay male forays into the expression of sexuality.

Although more explicit than most of the tame (by current standards) Physique Pictorial and Athletic Model Guild (Bob Mizer: Athletic Model Guild publications (AMG): American Photography of the Male Nude 1940-1970, Vol. 7 (American Photography of the Male Nude 1940-1970)) this is an excellent collection of some of the earliest representations of the male nude as a sexual identity!

Although aimed at a specific audience, combined with the added excitement of 3D, I highly recommend this book for both the more mature and Playstation Generation X and Y gay males!!!

...it is, however; nostalgic, titillating, risque, kitsch, 50's and early 60's style physique photo worship fun with some (almost) soft porn (think what you'd see in a playguy or blue) content. it's great parlor table party fun and a perfect gift for those gays and single women (and perhaps a few married ones as well) that you're having difficulty finding the right gift for. if you love hard-core mapplethorpe you will be bored to tears. i found it charming. it is very saddening when you think of all the photos by mr. denfield that were destroyed over time. how fortunate to have the likes of david chapman and thomas waugh out there preserving this photographic past for the future. hopefully others will join in this preservation of gay art.

Retro homoerotic physique pics in 3-D! Who comes up with this stuff!?! It's hot and funny at the same time. Comes with viewing glasses. The only problem is getting the soft cover book flat enough to see the goods.

I purchased this book because of its title and its many good reviews. If you are very new to 3D cad or Solidworks, this is a pretty good book. However, if you are looking for a concise command reference, this book is not for you.

I've been combining my retraining in 3D modeling and learning SolidWorks specifics with the help of two SolidWorks books; Engineering Design with SolidWorks and A Commands Guide for SolidWorks. Both books deploy a step-by-step illustrated instruction approach.

I'm rather new to 3D. I found the two books to be extremely useful and easy to follow. In a previous life, I was an AutoCad VAR, although that is going back quite a few years. Part of my learning process has been unlearning some of my AutoCad approaches. This takes time, but is well worth it. SolidWorks is a great software package.

The Commands Guide for SolidWorks is excellent when it comes to short, quick, and informative tutorials, to quickly learn a subject topic or to understand a feature or tool. The CD is very helpful with both the initial and final models. The layout of the book provides a logically flow to learn. I took the time to write this review and will write a review for the Engineering Design with SolidWorks book, because I strongly believe that these books can help a new user and are the best books on the market today. I contacted the author for a question, which was trivial, but he responded to me in less than a day. WOW!

These authors know their stuff. It is easy to read and follow. As a new user, I can really appreciate a well written reference book. The book has a getting started section and then brakes into logical feature and sketch tool sections. The short tutorials lets you apply the tools to ensure that you understand their functionality. There are over 200 short tutorials with final models to help you learn 95% of what SolidWorks has to offer. There are full screen shots of most propertymanagers and dialog boxes which is a big help when trying to understand the various options.

It provides extensive coverage of the document properties and system options section with system defaults. This is helpful when sharing a system. This is the most borrowed book in my department. Thank you ..

These authors are great. I've used them in college and now I use them in industry. This is a great reference book with over 200 models on an incorporated book CD.

I cracked open the book, inserted the CD and as I worked through the problems, I become more and more impressed with it. SolidWorks 2008 has a very different look from 2007. There are many neat tools and features; namely - Pop-up Context toolbars, DimXpert, MotionStudy, Instant3D and TolAnalysis to name a few.

There are some weaknesses in this book, but ones that you can work around. To have all of the answers, they would need to write a 3000 page book. The index, in particular, I found to be pretty expansive - I used it to find answers to more than one problem where I was fairly clueless. Tons of illustrations and clearly written. Keep up the good work.

For the past two years, I've been using SolidWorks either in college or at work. SolidWorks is a fantastic, uncomplicated 3D CAD package with a familiar Windows user interface. At work, we just updated from 2006 to 2008; and 2008 provides a lot of new features, menus, and toolbars. In other words; there are a lot of new cool tools.

This is a great book which provides a core overview of the new 2008 SolidWorks User Interface with over 200 embedded short model tutorials on the enclosed CD. Use the models to learn and apply many of the existing and new features; both for 2D and 3D sketches, and 3D features. The book provides a strong insight and overview of drawings, and assemblies; both top-down and bottom-up. For each feature, the full PropertyManager is displayed to identify the available options. I like the way the PropertyManager is illustrated as the options are discussed. This makes if very easy for the user to relate the words/options to the actual illustrated PropertyManager. I used the book today, to help me create and calculate the flow area for a vent in a sheet metal box.

I also like the way the authors provide the initial and final models. I've used numerous models; "Edit Feature tool in the FeatureManager" to help me apply the feature tools to my everyday functions.

This is not the first book which I purchased from these authors, and it will surely not be the last. Keep up the good work.

As an instructor who teaches Excel 97 in a classroom environment I find this book to be an excellent textbook for my students. The book describes how to use Excel 97 in an easy to understand manner using simple explanations and great graphics. I highly recommend this book.

I have read lots of computer books but this book serve me the best simply because it is easy to understand, straight to the point concepts, easy clear concise language, very colourful and attractive graphics that made reading a pleasure than a bore. I enjoy any book by Maran graphic that I bought 15 books of 'Teach yourself' and 'Simplified' series. Took me less time to understand a concept than other publication for a beginner like me. Carry on the good work and keep on your r & d on how to keep your reader understand a subject on shortest possible time using clear concise english & graphics - well done Maran Graphics - You are simply the best among your peers! but keep on improving.

My students found the book very useful. The way the book is sectioned with easy to read labels made it very easy to follow. I would recommend this book for anyone beginning in excel. The only negative feedback I did receive was that they wanted more excersizes for each section. Perhaps in the next edition? All in all I found the book enjoyable to read and to teach and am looking forward to using it again. Thanks, Steven Vos (MS Excel Trainer)

Excellent visual guide to this software! The graphics are outstanding and the instructions are thorough and easy to understand. Because of the comfortable pace of the book, I was able to learn the software in a short time. I highly recommend it.

This book is an excellent guide to help beginners learn Excel 97. This book was used in my Excel Class. It shows you (with tons of pictures) step by step how to use all the basic features of Excel, and some of the advanced features as well.

Another reviewer had it right. Another few exercises and I would have been totally satisifed.

I bought this book having done some writing and voice acting for machinima productions in the past. What I hadn't personally done was the actual production, sound, and video editing to make films of my own. I was excited to see this book plugged on many sites I frequent for machinima discussion so I bought it as soon as it was released. Reading through the book, many of the very, very basic topics were covered, but none of them were covered in great detail. There were as many pages covering the topic of where to host your film and how to spread the word about it as there was on how to actually produce a product.

In the end, the title of the book really does accurately reflect the type of person that would get anything out of it. If you even know what machinima is, you're already far too advanced for this book to be of any use to you.

This is just a excellent overrview of Machinima - way above the norm for Dummies books. The depth and breath is very impressive.

I'm pretty much a beginner to this topic, and I've found this is precisely the book you need to get if you want to learn how to make movies on your PC... I've found answers to every question I've ever had without all the jargon (and understandable definitions of jargon I've heard). It even gives advice on getting organized and how to go about creating a story... and with the included DVD (which has a little machinima program called "Moviestorm"), you can get started right away, and for free. Time for creative fun!

Highly recommended!

This book is the perfect guide for anyone interested in making films. Not only does it reveal the world of machinima, but the authors have provided a very informative and useful guide to the world of filmmaking. This could very easily be the classroom for students who want to explore film production as well as open up the new possibilities of film to the seasoned pro.

Machinima for Dummies is simple to understand, entertaining and if you only want to get one book on Machinima - this is the one.

Finally! A book discussing the many aspects of Machinima for a "dummy" like me! ;) I've been looking all over the corners of the web for advice and tips for filming, editing, and creating Machinima, but now I can just look at this book for easy reference. The book kept me pretty interested throughout, and I felt that the writers really worked hard. (I read their blog..) :)

The book details the aspects of Machinima in a variety of games; some I never even heard of before! There are enough tips, hints, and advice in this book to allow any person, beginner or novice, to feel confident enough to enter the world of Machinima. Oh, and the attached DVD was an incredible bonus! I never even heard of "Moviestorm", but it came free (yes, FREE) with the book. This is one book that any "Machinimaker" needs, no matter your skill level! :)

The images in this book help present 3 dimensionally, parts of the brain described in neuroanatomy textbooks. I am glad I chose this book.

you know brain is very complicate but this atlas will give you the 3dimensional view over it .I suggest every medical student should buy it.

Most atlas books leave much to the imagination. The pleasure of this book is that 3D is the natural language of Anatomy and the right tool for study of complex objects.

The CD-ROM with this book is worth the double the price alone. The book is a useful companion with a naming atlas opposing each printed 3D image.

A useful and productive tool for study and revision. When used in conjunction with research papers can lead to a faster and more advanced understanding of neural pathways.

Would recommend purchasing spare glasses if you plan to share this book or have extended usage. There are several sources of anaglyph glasses on the internet.

At last something not being a model or real brain gives you the chance to understand and appreciate neuroanatomy, especially the profound structures.
For the first time it is actually possible to get an idea of the fornix and ventricular system from a book.

I bought this book with great expectations. The idea of turning an twisting 3D neuroanatomic pictures around on the computer to gain a better spatial understanding of the structures was the reason I bought it.

1) The names of the 3D structures you're actually looking at, either on the computer or in the book, are not written. Therefore you'll have to glance on the opposite page in the book all the time. It would have helped if the name of the structure fx appeared when you scrolled the mouse cursor over it.

2) The pictures are nice, but I miss pictures of functional pathways. Not just anatomical structures. Fx pain-pathways. This would, I guess it would make the book much more expensive.

3) Theres is no pictures of the spinal cord. I know it's just a small thing but then it wouldn't have taken much effort to include it. I guess. There not many pictures of the brainstem either.

BUT BUT BUT....The book is worth the money, and helped me understand many spatial details fx around the hypothalamus. I'm looking for a second edition....with the small improvements that makes this the perfect book for students to gain a good spatial overview of the CNS.