3D Books

Low poly modeling is certainly a technique that warrants discussion. Unfortunately, this book glazes over many of the important steps that readers want/need to know in taking the process from start to finish. Some of the techniques shown prove valuable, but the overall coverage of the subject left me wanting for more. There was too much 'hey...how'd you do that?' and not enough 'here's how you do that'. Far too many steps left out. If money's tight...I'd probably keep looking.

I really wanted to like this book. Maybe my expectations were too high, but this book to me is far from the complete character design. It's more of a quick overview. The whole book seems to be written in a let's-get-it-over-with attitude. You can find much better character tutorials online (I did). On top of that, I find the character rather dull looking, especially since he was supposed to be the main character in a game and not just another NPC. The modelling part of the book may be hard to follow for a noob (but that may be true with any written tutorials on modelling. Modelling video tutorials are much easier to follow), the rigging and skinning part is rather confusing and poorly explained, laying UVs too (very little tweeking is done, which is essential in order to have textures without stratching), animation is limited to a few basic moves and the Photoshop part is rather basic (again, this supposed to be the main character, so the textures should reflect that). So all and all, this book is not worth buying, it brings nothing that was not explained in a much better way by someone else - be it an author of another book or an author of an online tutorial.

This book does what it says it does: It explains you how to model a character, how to texture it and how to animate it using the character studio plugin. I would have left the word "Complete" from the title. There are other aspects of character design for example the use of normal maps that aren't discussed in this book. You should take a look at the website of Ben Mathis to get more information about character design for computergames.

[...]

This book is bad. The character built wastes so many polygons that using their technique you will easily create a character with four time the amount of polygons of that of a regular game character and with a quarter of the detail. All this book can do is create bad habbits and you would be much better off not giving this a second thought. Every thing taught here can pretty much be found in any other 3Ds Max book and with much better and less confusing detail. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY OR TIME HERE

Just like all the other books from this publisher the tutorials are badly written with many holes in the descriptions. After much frustration I have started to use the tutorials in Help, which have proved much easier to understand.

This book is great! It heled me a bunch, I showeed some of my work to my boss and i got a promotion! But i really am a comp freak if you arent you should never even consider this book.

This author is not much of a writer or a teacher, this is not just my opinion, it is a fairly universal fact. Mr. Mortier has a strong reputation for his great quantity and consistency low quality/high price computer books. Please understand, this isn't your ordinary computer book - this one has been written by Shamms Mortier.

Shamms idea of teaching is to point out the onscreen buttons, and make the reader crank the parameters to their maximum settings to see what they do. Rarely does he explain the underlying concepts of the program or show the reader how to combine concepts to make something useful. Not to mention that his 'art' is of extremely poor taste and quality. This book is BAD. I have a couple working theories as how a book of this low quality was written. First of, Shamms Moritier must have left it to the last minute, the weekend before it was due. I also believe that his monitor must have broken down this weekend, or maybe he doesn't have a monitor, either way he sat down to write this book without the convience of a visual representation of the text. After typing up as much stuff that he could think of off the top of his head, he emailed this text off to the publisher.

This is the only explanation that covers all the facts, unless Shamms Mortier is a con-artist.

The book is not that bad. It isn't that good either. The problem I had/have is that the .mov movie files on the CD don't work with Windows 95/NT 4.0. I have sent numerous e-mails to Ventana and they refuse to fix the problem. My recommendation: Don't buy books from this publisher.

R. Shamms Mortier should reconsider his line of work. He has no business writing books that deal in computer graphics -a subject he obviously knows little to nothing about. His ideas are weak and his graphics are terrible. The average beginner can learn more from the Manuals included with RayDream Studio. I strongly reccomend the "Ray Dream Handbook" (available at amazon.com) it is far superior to any of the dribble that Mr. Mortier is spitting out.

There isn't a lot to this book. While Mortier warns the reader that the book is not for beginners, there isn't a lot for a mid-level RayDream user either. The examples are more art gallery pieces than step-by-step explanations, and the CD-ROM files don't add much content.

As with other Ventana (the publisher) books I own, there are irritating typos and incorrect cross-references that suggest sloppy proofreading and prepress checking. It's a shame, because it reflects badly on the author, who probably had little to do with the foul-ups. The technical content seems to be accurate -- I found no obvious errors.

Mortier seems to know his stuff, and his writing style is pleasant and easy to follow. It seems his publisher let him down. What this book needed was direction. A more specific topic and good editing would have made this book a good one.

Final recommendation: if you can get this book at a discount, consider it. Try to spend a few minutes looking the book over before you buy it.

Having read the previous reviews of this book I feel that they are a little unfair to say the least.

I bought this book with the understanding that the book (and code) are over 5 years old, and anyone with any knowledge of computers will know that operating systems have evolved a great deal, but the underlying worth will remain for the forseeable future.

Having read texts on OpenGL and done quite a bit of coding with OpenGL I wanted to learn about writing my own 3D library to gain a deeper understanding of what is going on. "Getting under the hood" as some people like to say!

The combination of the text and the source code has allowed me to gain a good understanding and I am now starting to apply the lessons learned from it to my own programs.

Buying this book will depend on what you are looking to learn. If you just want to write little 3D demos go out and buy The Red Book or the OpenGL Superbible. If you want all aspects of computer graphics get Computer Graphics: Principals and Practice by Foley and Van Dam (which is over 10 years old!! oh no!). This book covers some aspects that these other texts touch on, but is more a guide on how to apply techniques to real applications using some simple (and not so simple) tricks.

I have not finished reading the book yet, but have learned a lot about applying 3D graphics, rather than the theory behind it (which I already had a firm grounding of). The theory covered is backed up with sample implementations in the source code which make understanding much easier.

This book is not for the hard of thinking! Converting code from 16-bit to 32-bit and compiling it properly is not too difficult, and would provide an interesting and educational challenge to anyone who has an interest in it.

There is no attempt made to demonstrate building a highly complex 3D library anything like OpenGL, but what is provided is an easily extended library that has some nice features.

I would like to thank the Author, Philip Taylor, for his help with source code, and his very prompt response to the questions I have asked him (which I'm sure seem trivial, but they have genuinely helped me out). Thank you.

If you are considering buying this book, first ask yourself what you are wanting to learn, then decide.

"3D Graphics Programming in Windows" just sucks. the code does not compile in any compiler! Also i must mention the all the 3d algorithems are old, and useless. I dont recommend anyone to buy this book.

When I first purchased the book I was extremely excited but after reading it and especially trying the listings out I was disappointed. The code does not compile cleanly and is full of mistakes. I would never recommend this to another programmer.

Programmers purchase a book such as this one to learn a topic and examine the code to get an intuitive understanding. The code is worthless, and the explanations are even poorer. Every attempt to ask the author to put out a cleaned up version is met with resentment and finger pointing. Get the OpenGL books if you want to understand 3D programming.

This book and CD roms are worthless for modeling. I found maybe 1 percent useful models. You will have better luck on 3d Cafe or some other free site!

A catalogue of nicely rendered images, yes. Fine for your coffee table, but no use whatso-ever for any 3D work.
All of the poly meshes supplied are (poorly) auto-reduced versions of the original geometry that the images in the book were rendered with. At best, the supplied meshes can only contain 5% of the orignal geometry. You will find highter resolution models on a games console than on this CD. There are one or two "high res" models included on the CDROM, but they're not worth bothering about.

As an example of how weak this is, take the aircraft model that has a 350k two tone tif texture (could have been 4k) which was actually bigger then the 300k .3DS file. Many of the textures themselves are pooly produced, badly sized or badly anti-aliased, so if you're thinking it's worth the money just for the textures, then think again.

If you like pretty pictures, then get it. If you want 3D models then simply don't bother with this.

Most of the models in this package are nice, maybe too nice. I was hoping there would be some low-poly models suitable for gaming, and could only use about 5 straight out of the box. The rest were high-poly count models, although I was able to optimize a few more models to use. The book is small, the dimensions of a CD only thicker. The texture are fairly nice, but a few are kind of dull looking, but what do you expect for less than ten cents per model?
I was looking for WWII era models myself, and there were quite a few actually, but there is a nice wide selection of models in this package. Everything from ancient warships to the Bismarck to a 1940 USA Harley Davidson. There are aircraft, animals, architecture, cars, civil and military ships, motorcycles, etc...
There is a little bit of everything, and almost every model is excellent. The Tiger tank was a thing of beauty when I imported it into my game engine.
It's definitely worth the asking price if you want some high quality .3ds format models.

The best that can be said for this garbage from Taschen is that it's "only" [$$]. There is about a 1% (that's right, one percent) chance you will find something you can use, in which case you will get your money's worth.

1. Of the 500 models, only 20 to 30 are any good -- 20 or 30 out of 500! The vast majority, as another reviewer has noted, are of VERY low resolution. A high-resolution model can be reduced for game development -- but the reverse cannot be done.

The images are very deceptive -- clearly made from hi-res models.

2. Whoever developed the CDs should be drawn and quartered. Many path names are wrong. So you will spend a lot of time browsing to reestablish the paths to image maps.

3. Worst of all, many of these are FREE on line. Check the back cover for the URL of the company that actually made the models (deespona.com). There, you will find many free models -- in original Max format (not 3ds, as on these CDs) and with path names intact, etc.

This book is so bad, I'm considering filing a consumer complaint (since once you've opened the CDs, you can no longer return the book).

Review of Taffix. Learning CDs: Being a newcomer to 3D Studio Max, I found that the tutorials on the CDs are really good, especially the basic tutorials. Most of the tutorials have fairly good instructions. What is not covered in some tutorials, has been covered under "Procedures", so one only has to go through these. Things like "Lofting" and "Scale Deform" were especially well explained and therefore easy to follow. The "Problem solver" tips were very helpful as an easy reference. The "How to for Materials", is good. It is simple to follow and I had no problems in using this. Some steps though, needed more explanations, for example, in instructions for Path Deform, step # 4, could use a little more instruction, I had to figure out that one as the option to change percentage values was not available, until I figured out why. However, I would recommend these CDs to anyone who is using this program for the first time, as it covers almost everything for a starter.

There is no organization to these tutorials at all and they run very poorly. From the looks of the packinging (a jewel case with a crappy ink jet printed picture for an inside cover) I wouldn't doubt that this set was made by a complete amature. There are many other books and references out there that are much much better.

Mr. Clayton obviously knows what he's talking about; the user will not. IF the CD is organized at all, it should really be accompanied by a companion CD of tutorials that will explain the methodology of that organization. The tutorials are abstruse and require more time to decipher than the program should to learn. I bought Mr. Clayton's CD by accident (I meant to buy a different one), but even if I had intended to buy his, doing so would have been a mistake. (One star by duress)

This book is a great picture book for children who can be amazed simply by three deminsion pictures if you have the special glasses you need. The story is about about a kid who just switched schools and is having a rough time being the new kid at his new school. He is looking forward to his favorite time of the school day. This time happens to be lunch, but the new school's lunch isn't exactly what he has expected. The lunch is disgusting and to add to his troubles he slips on some of the slime on the floor walking to his lunch table. After he is done in the cafeteria he is so disgusted by his surroundings he hurls it all out. He claims to have learned a valuable lesson by the end of the book... bring a lunch from home.
-Derek Kelly
Mrs. Nelsen
English 9A

This disturbing, misinformed book paints a frightening picture to students and adults about the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs. The moral of this book is that school food is disgusting and the cafeteria is only a source of fear.

These are indeed harmful, disturbing messages in a country where 60% of enrolled students choose to participate in the USDA National School Lunch Program. The president of ASFSA, Martha Hill, notes in her letter sent to the CEO of Golden Books (Richard Snyder) that school food service professionals are friendly, caring people who are truly concerned about children. In our Tucson District, managers not only serve nutritious, tasty food, but also are charged with Nutrition Education of all the students. This program is not only extremely important, but also very popular with students, teachers, and administrators. School meals are healthier than ever, and healthy, nourished children, we all know, learn better.

At first look the first impression about the book is the cover :JUST PLAIN. And this cover show a real preview about the book :PLAIN!.

When you talk about MODELING then aestheticism is a important matter but this book talk about MATHS. Just theory, nothing practice. You had 3dstudio, Maya, Lightwave or the cheap blender and want to start modeling?, then this book is not for you.

In my time in the university, all books are about equations, differentials and such, later i discovered that the real world is all but maths, usually you don't see a third degreed differential at work and when you saw one, then you can use a program to calculate it. It's the same about this book, you don't need the rotation matrix expressed in a equation, the program (even the old ones or the free ones) made all the job for you.

Modeling?... no way.
Animation?... just a few theory and not really focused in pro or semi-pro programs.
Human Body?.. too much about the face and some about the hand but feets and torso and the rest?.

I purchased this book 2 weeks ago which happened to be the same time that AutoDesk released it's free 3ds max 7.5 update to current subscribers. This update includes hair and fur as well as a newer version of Mental Ray. This is where the problem with this books tutorial dvd comes in. Almost everyone of the files I opened from the cd gave me several .dll errors or mental ray version mismatch error rendering the dvd useless. So without any of the files that the lessons in the book refer to it's very difficult to learn any of the material that this book was intended for. If you are using 3ds max 7 and not 7.5 then this would probaly be a good book for you. But free hair and fur and a new cloth engine is your trade off.

Having gone through this book with a fine-toothed comb I noted a very high incidence of errors...specifically with the exercises! The CD which came with the book did NOT correspond to what was written in the book! It seems that Online Press was very sloppy with their editing of this book. My recommendation would be to get "MicroStation 3D by Example" Author is Noel Addison. Excellent.

Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery
Compared with a other Blender books in this price range the book performs rather poorly: the images are only BW and it has NO CODE associated with it (though the announcement on Amazon says so)- neither .blend nor .py files and the book's download page offers only a .zip files with a color version of the images for which you have to hand out your E-mail address ....
The level of expertise is for beginners; it gives a short introduction to Blender's interface which is too short for newbies and unnecessary for the more exprienced user.
Then it details the steps to model a simple multi-floor building as well as some "modern" furniture with UV mapping and radiosity. The animation part gives hints for the video sequence editor and logic bricks to produce a walkthrough as well as using the Gimp for postproduction.
The book seems to be written for an older Blender version,as there's still mention of the old UV/Face Select mode, though it could have been updated as the publisher seems to "print it on demand".
As this is the ONLY book about doing architectural modeling in Blender it receives two stars - one for its uniqueness and one for the instructional part.

I would consider buying the book again only at less than HALF the price considering the quality of print and the missing code mentioned already.