3D Books

Rebecca Davitch enables others to have parties. At times they respond grumpily. Not surprisingly she met her husband, Joe Davitich, at a party at the Davitch house. Joe died before he was forty. When Rebecca met Joe he already had three children, but his wife had absconded. Thus, Rebecca had three stepdaughters. Joe was the person who started the party business, calling it the Open Arms. Instead of having a guest house it was decided to have parties. Rebecca loved children, but sometimes found it tiring to speak in her 'grandmother' voice.

Zeb was Rebecca's kid brother-in-law although he was no longer a kid and didn't live in the same house anymore. He and Rebecca had come to behave like a couple. Rebecca had dropped out of college to marry Joe. (A history professor had wanted her to expand a paper into an honors project.)

It seems that Open Arms is always beset by disaster. The family had its own celebrations on Thursdays so that there would be no interference with paying guests. Unfortunately NoNo, a Davitch daughter, wanted to have an outdoor wedding during a heatwave and drought. Through careful planning something resembling a garden and a green lawn is devised.

When his first wife visited them, (she appears for the wedding in current time because she is the mother of the bride), Rebecca was driven to feel that beneath Joe's exuberance there had been desperation. On the occasion of Rebecca's going to the ER with Poppy, Joe's great uncle nearly one hundred years old, Rebecca has the thought that she would be able to rate Baltimore's emergency rooms. In the end Poppy's difficulty is just a case of indigestion. Rebecca is led to realize then that Joe would have become a fine old man.

The author deals with life's stages and ties in elevating and humorous fashion.

I bought it because it was on Stephen King's list of 10 best audio books. I'm glad I did!

"Grownups" is the second Anne Tyler novel I've read, and I enjoyed it greatly. I could relate to the protagonist, Rebecca, in a way that I rarely can with fictional characters--and Tyler's skill in developing Rebecca as a character is evident by the fact that my life situation is almost completely opposite hers, yet I felt that she was nearly my alter ego.

Some people love Anne Tyler because she writes about the normalcy of everyday life, and other excoriate her for the same reason. None of the characters have a history of violence, or abuse, or addictions--they struggle with same mundane things I struggle with day in and day out. In a less capable writer's hands this could be boring, but Tyler has the unrivaled ability to bring out the beauty and richness of the mundane.

"Grownups" is not a perfect novel, of course. My biggest peeve was the nicknames of the daughters. Min Foo? Biddy? NoNo? That was almost enough to make me stop reading after the first chapter. Too saccharine and precious. And Tyler doesn't even do readers the favor of explaining why they have these ridiculous nicknames! It also took me a little while to get into the book; I didn't start to love it or feel a kinship with Rebecca until she started searching for the life she'd left behind years ago. But I'm so glad I gave it time to grow on me. I will definitely be reading more of Tyler's novels.

What I really enjoy about Ann Tyler's books is the "relatability" factor. In my mid 20s, I am not going through a mid-life crisis,and yet I could relate to Rebecca Davitch. In this story, Tyler brings out some profound revelations through a rather uneventful life of Rebecca Davitch.

I just picked this book up at a yard sale this weekend, and I thouroughly enjoyed it. From start to finish, I felt as if I personally knew Rebecca and her family. I, myself am a 46 yr old woman, who's been married for 25 years...I know what it's like to wonder what would have happened....very insightful book...will recommend it to many.

I am ready to give up on this book. I have the second edition, and can't imagine how others are making it work. The code sample for the very first project doesn't work. I eliminated typing errors by using the code provided on the CD, and it still doesn't work.
There does not appear to be an errata website.
Many items seem glossed over without any explanation given as to what they do.

Given the price I paid ($65), and the name of the book, I would have expected more breadth, rather than a straight shot at building a FPS game. Running the final version of the end product, it is bad enough that I am now questioning the $150 that I spent on TGE. The physics of the vehicle are so poor, that it frequently gets into oscillation or total rollover on the smallest of obstacles, for example.

I can't imagine using this tome to attempt to learn TGE. I hope that TGE is better than what is portrayed in this book. At least I didn't blow the $300 for TGEA!

This book is actually a text book for my school. I saw a lot of complaints from other people on how much it talks about the Torque engine. Personally I think that is a good thing at 150 the Torque engine is something that most people who want to get into creating games could afford. The unreal engine costs thousands so it would be bad if it went into that or another engine like that, because most of us could not afford to get the engine and use what the book is teaching.

A COMPLAINT.

The book is a treasure of information about the subject matter. However, the included CD if faulty. It doesn't install. T tried to install it on two different machine in vain. I emailed Thomson Course Technology about this matter and I received no response.

THE PREDICAMENT OF OVERSEAS BUYERS.

Althaugh overseas buyers pay the full amount including postage, they are oftern ignored when it comes to faulty products.

AMAZON Authority should consider overseas buyers' helplessness in this situation.

I need the CD badly and I am willing to pay any amount for a sound one.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter.

Regards,

Fawzy Youssef.

My son really likes the book. He requested it on his xmas list, and was very pleased when he opened the package with the book inside. Thanks a million. P.B.

Pros:
Well written in an informal and easy to follow manner.

Provides a good overview of the game development process with a focus on indies.

Great intro. to the Torque game engine. Far superior to the online documentation from Torque.

Cons:
The title "3D Game Programming All in One" is terriblly inappropriate. This book is packed with 1000+ pages of good information but it should have been called something along the line of Introduction to Torque scripting, emphasis on the Intro part.

Many detailed pages are spent on agonizingly basic tasks while more difficult subjects get glossed over, with the reader left spending a few hours inventing a step B cause the author magically went from A to C.

More then once you'll be following one of his cookbook lessons and you are presented with an options menu with something like 50 options with unintuitive names and he tells you to just accept the defaults then moves on and never looks back. Maybe some tables explaining what those options do would be nice. This is "...All in One" right?

Many many hours will be spent coping code from the book and then executing it in the torque game engine. However, the author has left dozens and dozens of errors in the book code, some of which are grossly inexcusable. Did the author not try his code after he typed it? Come on guy, cut and paste, I know you didn't crank out this tome using a pen.

My biggest issue is that a lot of software, files and code comes with the book. But half the software does not match versions used in the book and many of the game files aren't what they are supposed to be. Code does not say what the book says it does, some image files are none existent and some of the animations are clearly works-in-progress just dumped onto the CD. The animation for an ogre dieing is actually an ogre being bounced across the screen and then dragged under the floor.

I gave the book 3 stars because despite its many flaws I learned a lot and was able to resolve most issues at the expense of a few hours frustration. This book needs editing and lots of it. Also, I'll most likely buy his advanced version.

an excelent book but i need it now .. becuese i dont have it now .. some of my freind's got it and do not return it to me ..

Good, but you'd better know C++ and the basis of trigonometry (it's 3D).You can learn 3D programming, but I think you'd better read another book first, like Lamothe's Black Art, if you are a beginner and don't know anything about 3D, before this one. Currently outdated, basically DOS , but interesting. Teach you how to make a 3D-Engine, not a game. I have port the source code to work in DJGPP, v.2.8. for the flat and gouraud demos (Up to chapter 9).

I bought this book in a fit of ambition. The first reading was slow going, and the theoretical explanations were a bit lacking. However, I bought it nearly a year ago, and I'm still finding it useful. Don't expect miracles from this book - it's an excellent companion when making your own 3d engine, but you're going to have to sweat for it. Excellent for DOS, but the Windows chapter is dire.

3D game programming is about concepts and applications rather than code and code. The modules that form part of the engine that half the book is dedicated to seem to come from nowhere, at least if you're reading about 3D game programming for the first time. No-one likes reading code that comes from some mysterious library. Therefore it is not an opening text on 3D game programming. But if you are an experienced programmer, reading lines and lines of code that WAS meant for beginners would seem redundant to me. Maybe computer science lecturers and game debuggers will find it helpful.

You need to be an avid programmer to appreciate the way the code is organized into C++ objects. This is an older book and all the examples are in DOS until the last example which is in Windows (fun little game). The 3D engine renders to a block of memory so it makes no real difference where the example renders. Unlike books about DirectX or OpenGL, this teaches you the "Under the hood" mechanics of 3D. Keep in mind, DirectX and OpenGL are interfaces and what you are learning is how to talk to DirectX or OpenGL. That doesn't mean you will understand the "Under the hood" mechanics of 3D because there are a lot of math algorithms being used. If you want to understand, or at least try to understand 3D on it's lowest level, you will need to read this book many times over. 3D is just that hard unless your a math wizard. The biggest plus to this book is that you have a full 3D, texture mapping, light shading, 4 point polygon rendering engine to play with. There are no libraries here, it's all in C++ for you to see. I have taken the engine and expanded on it and made a tool for applying textures to polygons and animating the polygon objects for my own projects. That's not to say I completely understand everything in the book because 3D math is that hard. You will gain the most knowledge by trying to use and expand the code for your own use. This is not something you will accomplish over a few week ends. Understand this book, then go to DirectX and/or OpenGL and you will have a far better understanding of 3D and what's really happening. ...

A girl brought up in New York in the 1940s and 1950s by liberal, educated parents comes of age during the dawn of youth culture and the rock and roll era. She matriculates from Mount Holyoke College, finds work in magazine publishing and soon makes a lateral move into the film industry. As half of a husband-and-wife production team, she co-produces "The Sting," "Taxi Driver" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and later becomes a studio exec. Never secure in her unique male-dominated business/creative Hollywood environment, she divorces her co-producer, spends heavily, and spirals into drug addiction with a series of financially dependent live-in boyfriends.

There are a number of things to like here. Julia Phillips was bright, witty and articulate. We learn something about how business is done in Hollywood, how egos are flexed and about the junior high social games and power plays, such as deliberately showing up late for scheduled meetings: for all the mirror gazing done by people in the industry, there is little seeing of oneself, she explains. Glimpses of Redford, Coppola, DeNiro, Beatty, Madonna, Penn, Scorsese, Spielberg, Geffen and Erica Jong (and, bizarrely, G. Gordon Liddy and Timothy Leary) are compelling. When this book was published in 1991, this book was overhyped as an expose'. Nothing here rises to the level of shock (except that she hid her cocaine freebasing, and the substance abuse of her live-in boyfriends, from her ex-husband for years as she retained custody of their young daughter). Ms. Phillips bluntly criticizes some well-known, powerful people in her book, but never without an explanation, and without sparing herself.

While apparently a talented manager and hard worker, Ms. Phillips had the arrogance of a New Yorker and a directness that alienated some of her business associates. Her directness unfortunately does not translate to her narrative. The style overwhelms the story, to the point of obscuring what exactly is going on, and unclear prose keeps this biography safely out of the "can't put down" category. For example, she drops far too many first names of unknown casual friends and business associates, without ever developing or illustrating their importance to her story, if any, until she enlightens us later...sometimes. Certain passages ranging in length are set apart and told in a detached third person. Still other, shorter portions are formatted like a movie script. Much better writers can use these kinds of narrative shifts only with difficulty. At least this story is mostly chronological. The hardback edition (573 pages) should be at least 150 pages shorter. Ms. Phillips' story, while probably a good story, is not particularly well-told.

Superior reading may be found in Robert Evans' "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and in Joe Eszterhas' "Hollywood Animal." (2.5 stars)

Julia Phillips wallows in being part angel, part devil, and that makes for a terrific story. This is the best insider's look at the Hollywood of today that one could wish for. Just goes to show why so much Hollywood output is dreck, and it's a miracle that a worthwhile film is ever made and often in spite of the creators. If you've ever had a dream of walking the red carpet, READ THIS!

Poor Ms. Phillips. The voice of this memoir comes across as brutally honest - perhaps too honest. The book is too long. I found the author's meteoric rise to fame fascinating and it proves the belief that the road to fame and fortune is often quirky to say the least. How many magazine editors reach the top of the heap in Hollywood? - not many I would guess. She was a fast learner but she must have also possessed charm. I kept thinking, these people don't even go to lunch unless they're stoned. I must lead a sheltered life as I had no idea the drugs were that rampant. But they destroyed her in the end. Anyway, the lesson to be learned is that the movie business is not for the faint of heart. The fact that it's full of phoney, disloyal, back-stabbing people is nothing new so there is a banal feeling throughout the book. After all, they aren't inventing a cure for cancer - they are just grossly overpaid people who create stories to be watched on a screen so that the masses can escape their dreary lives. She does go on and on about her friendship with Steven Spielberg - she obviously idolized him. It's too bad she was an addict because it certainly derailed her career prematurely.

How does one evaluate something like this, which is rather unprecedented?

A blurbed review cited on the cover refers to this as "the Hollywood Chainsaw Massacre," and the description fits. Julia Phillips - R.I.P. - is clearly not a writer, and the clunky prose does drag in places, but I didn't go into this looking for Proust. The dirt she dishes is truly spectacular - moreso for her chutzpah in revealing it all than for any of the actual content.

Her description of her drug decline is grueling and lurid, but I suppose the reality was considerably worse, so her communication on this front is vivid and effective. Her descriptions of the behind-the-scenes politics of Hollywood could scare half of today's film students into rethinking their career aspirations. And it's worth it all for the inside details into the making of 'Taxi Driver' and 'Close Encounters.'

-David Alston

A truly great read. Its stories have prepared me to deal with all of the Hollywood b.s. that an independent filmmaker like myself has to endure. This book gave me the confidence to complete three feature-length movies, the most recent being THE INDIE PENDANT. And, it has helped me in starting my own radio show, The Indie Film Hour, on World Talk Radio. Thank you Julia, and R.I.P.

Edward Dentzel
www.vdefilms.com

Inside lightwave 3d is a must for anyone using lightwave. It is a superb well rounded book covering many aspect of the software that you just will not find any where else. Dan ablan book will help you if your new to lightwave or a seasoned professional.

well worth the money

If you need/want to learn Lightwave quickly, this book may not be the best. The sections that cover planning and profesional issues are excellent. The explanations of software functions are OK, but don't expect to much detail into what each action you perform is doing. The tutorials vary in quality. The first few seem out of place. Most of them are lacking in description, and there are quite a few typographical errors and some missing files on the CD. I spend a lot of time reading manuals and doing tutorials for a number of software packages, and this book has some of the most poorly written and constructed I have ever seen. If you don't mind spending LOTS of extra time trying to work through where the authors (there are actually six of them) and editors totally screwed up, take the plunge. But I don't think this book will be worth the money unless it gets re-edited.

I've used Lightwave for a couple of small projects and learnt it a couple of years ago with a good teacher in a Multimedia course.

Since then, I've become a little rusty. This book isn't for you if you want to quickly pick up a few points that you've forgotten. For instance, something as easy as a keyboards shortcuts listing is missing (and with Lightwave being such a "foreign" GUI when compare to Adobe products, you need them!)

This book may be fine for those who have the hang of ii...

The book fails to fully explain some minor steps that a beginner might wish to understand in more detail. Information such as "feel free to look at this image closer by pulling it off this Book's CD-ROM" does not help if you don't know the name of the image, nor in which folder it may be. Also some of the captions don't correspond with the images (e.g. page 68). If you have a lot of time on your hands you may well be able to guess the missing links, but you will probably find yourself doing the lessons over in the belief that you missed an important step, only to discover that it is missing from the book.

The only reason I gave this book one star is because I couldn't give it less. The book is touted as a entry-level and intermediate manual, but right away it starts off in one of the more advanced aspects of the program (morph gizmo). If I had not been well-versed in 3D Studio Max & had previous 3d experiance, I would have been completly lost. The tutorials are fractured, B&W images in the book are misplaced, and phantom scenes the book refers to on the CD don't exist. I ended up frustrated, angry and uneccesarily $47 poorer. One should check NewTek's site to see what 3rd party instruction they recommend if they want to learn LW. However, if you DON'T want to learn Lightwave you should buy Alban's book.

This is exactly what I needed to learn Blender - well written with lots of illustrations.

I have not actually read through the book entirely yet, so I'm not going to address the content at all. What I did want to clarify is that there seem to be a lot of comments about poor picture quality. Okay - they're not stellar full-color prints with 3D popouts. But they're hardly as bad as I've seen them repeatedly described. I was a bit nervous about ordering this book, but the pictures easily compare to the quality of "Introducing Character Animation with Blender" by Tony Mullen (which, btw, are black and white as well), a book we probably all know and love (and I'm very glad I own). So, to those interested in buying, don't let a bunch of negativity about image quality get in your way. I'm very much looking forward to using this book.

I am not done reading the whole book, but so far I feel much more knowledgeable about Blender. There are a few problems with the book though. A lot of the pictures are small and hard to make out, also they are not in color so showing off how Blender uses color for different modes is impossible. Overall it seems to be a very good book for beginners, it does skip a lot of more advanced features for other books to cover.

I think it is well written but the illustrations are rather poor. A book like this that teaches a subject dealing with imagery etc. should be well illustrated.

This book is composed by 372 (black and white) pages featuring 15 chapters, describing Blender 2.43 and later bug fix revisions in its essential features needed to start working with this wonderful piece of always evolving software. The book try to "hit" the biggest audience possible and it is tailored to three kind of people: those who are completely new to 3D and Blender, those who are new to Blender but have reasonable 3D experience (and maybe want to read the book for software evaluation)and those who already know Blender but need a refresh in their knowledge to fill the gap with latest Blender development.
This book has been written by well renowed Blender artists and chapters are packed and extended in a wonderful book by editor and lead author Roland Hess. Each chapter speaks its own voice, so you can read the book in a non particular order and they're divided in two parts: a tutorial part (in which you explore main tools and techniques with a "learn by doing" approach) and a discussion part in which more detailed concepts are explained, completing the topic with further advices and tips.
Chapters are grouped by topic (basics, modelling, animation and rendering) and they are:

Chapter 0: How to Get Blender and Install it.
Maybe this chapter is completely unuseful. If you're interested in this software, probably you already own Blender, you know where to get it and you know how to unzip/untar an archive or double click on an executable to install it (depending on your operating system). Fortunately, it's only 3 pages long and include a reference on where to get help when you need it.

Chapter 1: An Introduction to 3D Art (Roland Hess)
This 11 pages long chapter gives you a gently introduction to 3D art, how it is accomplished and what working with a 3D app means. It's short but still worth reading, especially for those who are completely new to the 3D world. It describes the main differences between triangles and quads (and their relationship), the necessity of materials to achieve realism, the importance of modeling tools and an accurate lighting description and the (very basic) principles of animation, keyframing and rigging. Read this chapter if you're new to 3D, you will surely be interested.

Chapter 2: The Blender Interface (Roland Hess)
As the title imply, this chapter gives you an overview of the Blender interface. Many new users gets frustrated with the Blender interface at first. This is no longer the case, as the chapter gives you nice informations on how to master the basic concepts to work proficently. After reading this chapter, you will finally appreciate this interface and you will be able to exploit the real potential of the efficient workflow it produces. Headers, the toolbox, the buttons window, orthographic/perspective modes, layout adjustments, all is covered here.

Chapter 3: Object Manipulation (Roland Hess)
No exageration, this is the most important chapter of the book. The material covered here will be used all over the book and it's a description of the basic knowledge to use the program and its main tools. Many important principles described here are the basis of most of the Blender tools. This chapter is structered in a way you will work through a simple Blender project, complete with a keyframe animation.
Main hotkeys and functionality are covered and it will touch concepts like undo/redo, the meaning and use of the 3D cursor, adding objects to a scene, moving/rotating/scaling principles, transform manipulators and their activation/use, mouse gestures, object duplication, what empties objects are and how to use them, object parenting, the snapping menu (very important), layer management, object constraints and the basic of keyframing animation. If you are new to Blender and 3D in general, this chapter will teach you the basics of working with a 3D modelling package. A very well written and informative chapter. You will be surprised on how many topics can be well covered in just 37 pages.

Chapter 4: Mesh Modeling (contribution by Kevin Braun)
How to produce complex objects with Blender using its modeling tools. I really enjoyed this chapter. You will build a complete bridge with wonderfully decorated pillars. You will discover various kind of selection tools fo verticies, edges or faces, how to effectively use the mirror modifier, how to subdivide objects, the art of the knife tool, object extrusion, a good introduction of the proportional editing tool, the loopcut tool, edge slide, edge loop/ring selections, the use of the array modifier and much, much more... Even experienced users may learn something new from this chapter. Personally speaking, I liked the technique described to pull vertices into inline. This is used everywhere in modeling but it wasn't described in any book I bought in the past.

Chapter 5: Multiresolution Sculpting (Tom Musgrove)
Multiresolution sculpting is an approach to mesh modeling that allows you to shape and add detail to a mesh by pushing and pulling polygons with specific sculpting tools (brushes), instead of direct manipulating vertices/edges/faces. Not much to say about this chapter, you will produce a nice detailed monster using the draw/layer/grab/inflate/pinch brushes. It will teach you all the tools needed for sculpt modeling, including informations on how to use a regular texture and transforming it in a brush. Mesh hiding to improve performance is also explained in detail. Advices and tips complete this nicely structured chapter.

Chapter 6: Character Animation (contribution by Ryan Dale)
Character animation is a huge field and not much can be covered in 23 pages. But this chapter make a tremendous good job in concentrating much of the key concepts of character animation in a good practical tutorial. You will produce a complete walkcycle and you will be introduced to various stages of the walkcycle poses. The Timeline Window, the Action editor and the NLA editor are the main actors for character animation production and they're well covered in this chapter. Inverse Kinematic (IK) and Forward Kinematic (FK)are also introduced. Good the choice of presenting character animation before introducing rigging/skinning concepts (which are concepts explained in the next chapter).

Chapter 7: Rigging and Skinning (contribution by Ryan Dale)
The natural extension to the previous chapter. All the basic knowledge you need to create a solid rig and hook it to a mesh is here. You will be introduced to bone creation/manipulation, bone naming and its importance, bone layers, parent/child relationship with bones, IK (inverse kinematic) chains, constraints usage and explanations like Locked Track, Copy Location/Rotation, Track To, Floor, Stretch To and the IK solver. The skinning part (hooking the final rig to a mesh) covers the main concepts like the Armature Modifier, envelopes, vertex groups and has a nice tutorial on weight painting too for a fine control of mesh deformation. Rigging/skinning is the essence of character animation and naturally not everything can be covered here. The only complain I do with this chapter is that it doesn't cover many useful constraints.

Chapter 8: Shape Keys (by Andy Dolphin)
Shape keys are the Blender implementation of what other packages call "morph targets" and it's a new implementation of what Blender called RVK (Relative Vertex Keys) and AVK (Absolute Vertex Keys) in the past. Very useful in facial animation, shape keys are the way Blender implements mesh deformation in a time aware manner (animatable). This tutorial teach you how to create/edit multiple shape keys and how to use them in conjunction with the action editor to produce mesh deformations by editing vertex keys in the action editor. And it does a good job in this. After you read this chapter, you will have full control of these concepts.

Chapter 9: Materials and Textures (contribution by Colin Lister)
The chapter I liked less. It stresses a lot on real materials observation (and this is right) but it gives little informations on the settings meaning. You will produce a "wood like" material and you will enrich it with a coffee stain. It left out many interesting concepts on material creation and this is a real pity. It does not even mention the difference of having two texture channels with the same texture and two separate channels with the same texture. Fortunately, the discussion part of the chapter try to fill the gap but it's still insufficient. I was expecting more from a chapter that's 30 pages long, to be honest. There is nothing about shader editing with nodes. What a pity!

Chapter 10: UV Mapping (contribution by Modron)
Suzanne unwrapping! Modron will guide you through the art of mesh unwrapping, a refined method for texturing complex objects. As an exercise, you will going to unwrap the Suzanne mesh (Blender's mascotte) using the automatic unwrapper (the easy method ...) exploring texture painting in the UV editor and in 3D view using texture painting mode. You will have fun with the live unwrap transform. Easy, informative and direct to the point.

Remaining chapters are a gentle introduction to the topics and are not advanced at all, but they give you the understanding you need to read more advanced material on these subjects.

So, from what I said so far, you have already understood we are speaking about a very good book to begin with, with many topics covered, useful to read more advanced documentation. A very good book, but still far to be perfect and these are the reasons why I give it 4 stars:

1) It doesn't cover scene management (link/append features) also known as "the blender database" and the obData system. This is very basic knowledge (and unintuitive, I would say, expecially the obData system) so it really should have been covered in this book.
2) Figures are (sometimes) really too dark to be useful. Fortunately they can be downloaded from the support site (*).
3) It has many errors. Not bad errors but still it has many of them (again, look the support site).
4) It does not cover many new features since the 2.3 guide, so its use for updating your knowledge is limited.

(*): The book has a support site that contains an errata, all images used in the book and some additional files to play with.
You can reach this site at http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Books/Essential_Blender

Conclusion: if you are a new Blender user (new to Blender and 3D) you should buy this book without thinking twice. If you're new to Blender but you already know 3D, you should buy this book as well. If you know Blender and you have already read the 2.3 guide, you may want to skip this book and buy something more advanced and illuminating, like "Introducing Character Animation With Blender" by Tony Mullen, for example, if you're interested in animation or "Bounce, Tumble and Splash!" by the same author, if you're interested in physical simulations. New features can always be learned from the user manual on the Blender wiki, assuming you already have the basics.

This was my first book that I purchased for learning 3d studio max.. I also bought the fundamental book too.. I've only flip through couples of pages then I put it away to collect dust. The exercise are hard to follow, they gave complete instruction for teaching you a certain command. But you wouldn't find motivation to delve in to the 3d world by building something that's meaningless. The book is only good for advance user as it'll teaches you how to press certain short cut keys and stuff..

I found this book hard to comprehend.. even if I'm a immediate user, I wouldn't picked this book, as this is so boring.. It teaches you how to do certain things, but don't tell you much why you are doing it, or why is it necessary to take the steps..

there are few other good ones out there if you are a intermediate user...

This book is not bad, just lack of good modeling example, this book is really for beginner, Anyway, the mapping tutorials are good.

100

Boy, not only is this thing boring and monotonous, it tries to cover everything really fast. So what you get is a paragraph describing a really important function. And the book is filled with these tiny paragraphs. The first quarter of the book involves real boring things that people on this planet grow up knowing. Like organizing things and what not. If you are reaally hard core and want to totally devote your life to 3dsmax, do not get this book. Cause half your life is going to be spent trying to decipher what the heck the author is trying to say.

This book upgraded my skill 10 fold. After reading this book my work was shockingly better and I also go back and use it as reference all the time. If you can name a function or tool in 3dsmax you will find a section on it in this book. I mean we are talking a book with 6 pages just for bevel. The organization of the chapters and tools is genius. This book will not tell you how to model, it will tell you how to use the tools and functions of 3d Studio Max. I would buy this book even if they charged 10 times it's price, you can make your money back in seconds with the skill you gain from this book.

This book was very good by showing all ways to model each item. It helped solidify what was the best way to create certain objects. I would recommend this for a beginner to intermediate modeler that needs to learn quick and simple ways to model.

Excellent projects even though its now 3 versions old. An absolute must for beginners and intermediate users alike.

For those experimenting with Maya, this is a very helpful book to have. It is not entirely self contained and you should make use of Maya's documentation that works with the software.

This is a neat little book (182 page). It's a short little tutorial book. It's not deep in-depth, but it has some useful tricks in it. For example, I couldn't figure out the best way to make my orange roll off the counter in my Ant cartoon. I used what I learned in the ball rolling tutorial to figure it out.
The printing quality, graphical layout, and organization in this book is the best I've ever seen.

After seeing some of the negative reviews posted, I felt compelled to add my own experience with the book. This is easily one of the best 3d Books of any kind I've ever purchased. Those unhappy with the book are missing the whole point. The author is not trying to present tutorials that are an end in themselves. Those are a dime a dozen on the web. Instead he focuses on theory and the hows and why's so one can take that knowlege and create on their own. I enjoyed this approach and I will be looking foward to the author's next work.

I was learning Softimage in school and this book was my bible. I ended up with a great demo reel and I've got Mr. Rossano to thank. I shudder to think how my animation would have turned out if I didn't have this amazing book.

I would not recommend this book to any artist that is serious about learning the program in any useful way. This writer is not an artist, and doesn't understand the fundamentals of good design. It is poorly organized and in a few instances simply inaccurate. I would recommend 3D Character Animation instead.

This book is very amazing. I would classify this book for the "Novice-beginners". By that, I mean the people who have somewhat of an understanding of the tools already, but wish to increase their knowledge on them. That was the place that I was in when I bought the book, and I can say now that I know so much more! Buy the book, man. Oh, by the way, I also recommend Secrets Of Softimage by Jeremy Birn, and I just purchased "Character Kit" by Cineframe (havn't recieved it yet though)

I have searched all over the internet for books on SoftImage. This is the best one for someone who is just starting to learn from zero with no background in the field. Because SoftImage itself is such a complex software no book that's less than 800 pages can explain every detail in it and every technique step by step. So, I found myself needing much more than what this book could offer me very fast. Some of its modeling tutorials are not extensive enough. (Like how to model a face or a body). Nor does it offer any insight on how to model a tree. Also the particle system is not sufficiently talked about here. He swiftly drifts through the mental ray section in a few pages. In brief, this book will teach you the basics of SoftImage but it will not give you much beyond that.

I recently finished a 11 week hard-as-hell curriculem TAUGHT by Anthony Rossano. The book has an amazing amount of information. But, what he knows personally about this software is incredible! There is NO other book that has half the info that this book does. It's perfect for user's who understand the software and want to go to the next step!

After reading the all the reviews for this book I decided to take the chance and see how wonderful or bad this cookbook could be. To be honest, I had mixed results although I'd make three of the recipes again with modifications.

The recipes I tried include:

Spiced Bran Muffins
Vegetable Barley Stew with Lentils
Penne with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Chicken
Chocolate Tofu Cake

Some of the reviewers commented on the amount of ginger in the Bran Muffins. I have to agree, ¼ to ½ of a teaspoon would be preferable. I tried them with the full amount and thought they were a bit spicy. The texture was good and they are very low in fat so they would work on a low-fat-high-fiber diet. I'll definitely make them again.

The Vegetable Stew was interesting but I'd advise you to leave out the lentils because they take so long to cook. There is a lot of barley in the recipe and tons of delicious vegetables. It is very healthy but you might need to use an entire bottle of V8 juice and an additional 3 cups of water because there are so many vegetables it needs more liquid. I added two teaspoons of garlic salt for flavor.

The Penne with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Chicken was my favorite recipe but I adapted it so the sauce was a little richer in flavor. To adapt the recipe just use 2 tablespoons butter in place of the cooking spray and use an additional tablespoon flour. I also added 1 teaspoon of garlic salt for flavor and used whole milk in place of the evaporated milk. I didn't use the pepper flakes because I didn't want it to be too spicy. My husband also liked this recipe the most and it freezes well (I'm cooking for two not four so I freeze leftovers).

The Chocolate Tofu Cake is more like a cheesecake and was my least favorite recipe. The cake only turns out to be about ¼ of an inch thick. So if you are on a diet this might be a good option if you like tofu. I'd recommend serving it with a rich chocolate sauce to add a little more chocolate flavor.

I'm of the opinion that if you find one recipe in a cookbook it is worth the price. I found three and I'm sure I'll try more in the coming months. I wouldn't recommend this to new cooks as some of the recipes do take quite some time to put together (also, lots of dishes to wash) unless you adapt them - like the Vegetable Soup "without" the lentils would be much quicker to make.

~The Rebecca Review

My family and I used this cookbook last year after we got it for Christmas. I have to say, we began with trepidation, wanting to do everything "right" but pretty soon we were laughing and having a good time. The results were yummy. The food was tasty and we had a bunch of fun making it. After that first experiment, I served some stuff to my book club, announcing "Here are Oprah's Favorites." The only thing missing was Oprah.

Especially like the salad and pasta dishes. Well worth the money. I don't understand the "bland" remarks other reviewers have made.

While I overall liked this book, as a 'non-cook,' I sometimes found it hard to follow. If my cooking skills were at a much higher level, I think I would have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rosie Daley is probably as well known for serving as "Oprah's Chef" as for her own work. In an Introduction, Oprah Winfrey notes (page xi): "I once believed that eating healthy meant eating food that was missing something--TASTE." Then, at a spa where she went, she experienced the meals of Rosie Daley. Of that experience, Winfrey said (page xi): "This new way of eating very low fat, low sugar, low salt. . .has made such a difference in my life."

This short work includes recipes for soups, salads, pasta, entrees, vegetables, and desserts. One of the things that I really like seeing is no salt among the ingredients and low fat ingredients as part of recipes. For instance, on page 69, she provides her recipe for pizza sauce. No salt, no sugar. Just tomato paste, tomato puree, and, for some zest, red paper flakes, oregano, basil, and thyme. On pages 86-87, there is an interesting recipe for Peppered Tuna Nicoise. Lots of ingredients--including wasabi and ginger for some kick. However, instructions are pretty straightforward.

Finally, an interesting potato dish--Roasted Mustard Potatoes. As with the items already mentioned, a little spiciness is included, with chili powder and cayenne pepper. Pretty easy to make and a potato dish with a bit of pizzazz.

The main problem for me is that there are so few recipes. However, what is included has some interesting and fairly easy to make items.

The recipes I tried were the unfried french fries, unfried crabcakes, and unfried chicken. All were rather bland and needed modifications. The yogurt idea with the unfried chicken was good but it turned out a bit dry and somewhat bland. Maybe less oven time and more spices. The french fries were good but needed a bit more seasoning. The crab cakes needed more egg in order to hold together and were quite dry and tasteless. I like the healthy ideas behind the recipes but they just need more flavor. I probably won't try many more of the recipes given how the first three I tried turned out.