About This Book
Let me paint a picture of the writing process. It starts with years of experience, which is followed by months of painstaking research. There were system crashes and personal catastrophes and the always-present, ever-looming deadlines. I wrote into the early hours of the morning and during the late hours of the night — burning the candle at both ends and in the middle all at the same time. It was grueling and difficult, and spending all this time staring at the Max interface made me feel like . . . well . . . like an animator.
Sound familiar? This process actually isn’t much different from what 3D artists, modelers, and animators do on a daily basis, and, like you, I find satisfaction in the finished product.
Tutorials aplenty
I’ve always been a very visual learner — the easiest way for me to gain knowledge is by doing things for myself while exploring at the same time. Other people learn by reading and comprehending ideas. In this book, I’ve tried to present information in a number of ways to make the information usable for all types of learners. That is why you see detailed discussions of the various features along with tutorials that show these concepts in action.
The tutorials appear throughout the book and are clearly marked with the “Tutorial” label in front of the title. They always include a series of logical steps, typically ending with a figure for you to study and compare. These tutorial examples are provided on the book’s CD-ROM to give you a firsthand look and a chance to get some hands-on experience.
I’ve attempted to “laser focus” all the tutorials down to one or two key concepts. This means that you probably will not want to place the results in your portfolio. For example, many of the early tutorials don’t have any materials applied because I felt that using materials before they’ve been explained would only confuse you.
I’ve attempted to think of and use examples that are diverse, unique, and interesting, while striving to make them simple, light, and easy to follow. I’m happy to report that every example in the book is included on the CD-ROM along with the models and textures required to complete the tutorial.
The tutorials often don’t start from scratch, but instead give you a starting point. This approach lets me “laser focus” the tutorials even more; and with fewer, more relevant steps, you can learn and experience the concepts without the complexity. On the book’s CD-ROM, you will find the Max files that are referenced in Step 1 of most tutorials.
I’ve put lots of effort into this book, and I hope it helps you in your efforts. I present this book as a starting point. In each tutorial, I’ve purposely left most of the creative spice out, leaving room for you to put it in — you’re the one with the vision.
Fourth time around
This book is now in its fourth edition and, like aged cheddar cheese, is getting better with time. This edition posed an interesting dilemma. The edition for Max 4 clocked in at 1,246 pages, which was the largest number of pages that can be bound into a paperback book. So, for Max 5, I needed to rework and tighten the content to make room for pages where the new features could be covered, which was an tough task, but I was happy to say I succeeded by cramming in an additional 400 pages worth of content into the 3ds max 5 Bible. However, when the book came back from the printer, it weighed in at only 1,106 pages, making the reader think that the book was put on a diet. It turned out that the editors who laid out the book decided to use a tighter layout, thereby saving 140 pages while providing the additional content.
Now that I’m working on a version covering Max 6, I’m delighted to have that extra 140 pages to cram full of information, and the editors are already looking at an even tighter format. At this rate, the next couple of editions will be shipping with a magnifying glass.
There have been several other changes to this edition. In an effort to add some new life to many of the older tutorials (several of which desired a chance to retire), I have secured a new set of Viewpoint models that I’ve used to replace many of the old tutorials. I’ve also included a new Quick Start that lets you play with a monster truck.
How this book is organized
Many different aspects of 3D graphics exist, and in some larger production houses, you might be focused on only one specific area. However, for smaller organizations or the general hobbyist, you end up wearing all the hats — from modeler and lighting director to animator and post-production compositor. This book is organized to cover all the various aspects of 3D graphics, regardless of the hat on your head.
The book is divided into the following parts:
♦ Quick Start — This single chapter (which is actually a chapter in Part I) is an entire animation project presented in several focused tutorials. It is designed to whet your appetite and get you up to speed and producing animations immediately.
♦ Part I: Learning the Max Interface — Whether it’s understanding the interface, working with the viewports, dealing with files, or customizing the interface, the chapters in this part get you comfortable with the interface so you won’t get lost moving about this mammoth package.
♦ Part II: Working with Objects — Max objects can include meshes, cameras, lights, Space Warps, and anything that can be viewed in a viewport. This part includes chapters on how to reference, select, clone, group, link, transform, and modify these various objects.
♦ Part III: Modeling — Max includes several different ways to model objects. This part includes chapters on working with spline shapes, meshes, polys, patches, NURBS, compound objects like Lofts and Morphs, and particle systems.
♦ Part IV: Materials and Maps — With all the various materials, maps, and parameters, understanding how to create just what you want can be difficult. These chapters explain all the various types and how to use them.
♦ Part V: Cameras — This part describes how to control cameras and use the Camera Matching and Tracking utilities and the Multi-Pass Camera effects.
♦ Part VI: Lighting — This part describes how to create and control the standard lights, as well as coverage on advanced lighting, radiosity, and global illumination.
♦ Part VII: Animation — To animate your scenes, you’ll want to learn about keyframing, the Track Views, constraints, and controllers. This part includes a chapter specifically on expressions.
♦ Part VIII: Character Animation — I cover creating and working with characters, bone systems, skinning, rigging, and character modeling in this part. I also provide complete coverage of the various inverse kinematics methods.
♦ Part IX: Dynamics — This part includes coverage of Space Warps, the Dynamics utility, and all the cool features found in Reactor.
♦ Part X: Rendering — To produce the final output, you can render the scene as described in this part. In addition, this part discusses environments, Render Elements, Render Effects, network rendering, raytracing, and mental ray.
♦ Part XI: Compositing and Post-Production — This part describes the compositing process using external tools, as well as post-processing using the Video Post interface.
♦ Part XII: MAXScript and Plug-Ins — This part provides details on using Max’s scripting language, MAXScript, and on using plug-ins.
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