This is the best multimedia book I have ever read. I am a multimedia/web graphics programmer, and I have read at least 5 books on Director and a few good Flash books, but this one has taken me further than any other single book I own.
You will need a good foundation in Lingo to really benefit from this book, and if you have that, this book will pay for itself several times over. Paul Catanese's style is very easy to follow, and it is peppered with a lot of other general knowledge regarding aesthetics, mathematics, and the general world of multimedia. I spent 20 hours of my vacation time reading this book last week and I feel comfortable with things in Director 3D that only a month ago seemed so far away in terms of my programming abilities.
Paul's chapters on download and file optimization are excellent, and he teaches not only how to work in 3D, but how to be mindful of how well your projects will work on various client machines, which is no small issue. In fact, Paul touches on so many other relevant issues such as building custom schedulers to create timeout objects that run independent of the main time line, bones animation, advancing texturing techniques, using alpha channels to create very nice texture effects, collision detection without using Havok, and many other important topics in the context of Director 3D.
Paul has also put together several "labs" on the CD to help you understand various utilities: particle systems, fog, bones animation, etc.
He really sets himself apart from so many other authors (we won't mention names) who put out quick books about Director 3D to make a quick buck that really don't do justice to the subject matter.
Paul takes the time to teach you Director 3d they way you would want to learn it in a college or university setting. It makes sense; according to the book, when it was published, he was teaching Digital Imaging at a University in Chicago.
Get the book.
