Mastering the Art of Production with 3d Studio Max 4. (One-Off) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Dont let that fool you. The book is really a big 630 pages.

I have bought other max books and this one is one of the top books i would recommend.

My recipee so far to learn max.

Visual quickstart guide for max 4. This book will get you up and running.

Modeling a caracter in 3d studio max.Different modeling techniques from Paul Steed.

And this book.

I have other ones but they do not compare to these 3 books so far.

Ok enuff of the cheap pops.

Inside you will have tons of photos, maxscripts, and a nice companion cd to boot.

Also in this amazing book you will learn:

Business side of the 3d business, do's and don'ts.
An Overview of what you should do to save time and money and to make money.

Modeling: the set up (virtual studio) tutorial alone is worth the price of the book. This set up for reference and modeling is the easiest one i have seen yet and it does not take forever to do too.

You learn many modeling techniques...box modeling..splines etc..etc...etc..

You learn max scripts and how to apply them to your works.
If you ever wondered how to make wheel turns on a car in max or how to make tank tracks turns, there is a script in the book that makes it happen.

You learn to build interfaces to animate your caracters.

You learn texturing and mapping.

And there is a cool set up for lighting that makes your animation look like real stuff not like the usual plastic look that you see in the usual 3d images.

You learn how to use enveloppes and skining and how to bone your caracters for animations.

You learn rendering and post production to combustion wich is a great tutorial by the way.

In fact this books cover most of the stuff that took me 3 other books to get info on.

I am forgetting stuff but this book is top of the line and the authors should do more books on max that way.

The only thing missing was a chapter on caracter studio. That should have been in the book since most people use caracter studio to animate their work, but they still give you the basics to make your single caracter work.

Chapter by chapter here it is:

Chapter 1: the job
Chapter 2: modeling the remote control
Chapter 3: modeling the alien
Chapter 4: modeling the rover
Chapter 5: introduction to maxscripts
Chapter 6: technical set up for thr rover
Chapter 7: skeletal set up for the alien
Chapter 8: alien skinning and defromation
Chapter 9: alien ui control system
Chapter 10: camera tracking
Chapter 11: texturing and lighting
Chapter 12: animation and rendering
Chapter 13:postproduction with combustion

There it is all you need to make a cool animation.

My highest possible recommendation!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been having trouble learning just how these ships take shape, modeling has always been a daunting task, and seemed just too large to overcome.. But I have bought my share of books trying to understand it...

I have tried 5 different books just trying to understand modeling, I own 2 others but for their special effects chapters...

And all 5 of the books are extremely basic and just plain sorry when it comes down to detailed modeling.. They are all skimming the surface and nothing in depth...
Something along the lines of
'Ok, now we are going to build some supports for our bridge, create a circle spline and extrude it to a value of 10', since when has bridge struts been perfect cylinders? that is why modeling has always been such a difficult task, when I try one of my books, the chapters are sooo non informative that it is frustrating, I have done quite a bit of work out of each, and I have had very minimal luck.....

Light at the end of the tunnel:
But with this book.. The tutorials are precise... it is amazing how much this book has fit into it.. I have already learned very good methods of modeling, as well as how to go about setting up a project deal, I will keep that chapter in mind when I get there, I can't speak highly enough of this book, it is a wonderful wonderful book and I am just on page 45 (I have done a bit of skimming through later chapters, but I hate looking at what it will eventually look like, makes the project kind of difficult and I cause myself to get too anxious to sit through a lot of chapters... I really think that what killed the fun of learning modeling was the lack of new things I learned with the other books I own, I am sure they would teach me a lot of I worked through them completely, but... at the rate they taught, it would have taken forever..

But anyway, I can't recommend this book enough, it is a wonderfully detailed book, well written and with a fun project to it!

I would recommend this book to everyone!
This is a must buy for any max arsenal!