Product Description

Get the most realistic effects from 3ds Max without having to spend more on plug-ins!

Boost your effects skill-set with this 3ds Max workshop. Tutorial lessons give you hands-on experience in creating realistic fire, earth, air and water effects. Updated to demonstrate production techniques suitable for any version of 3ds Max, this new edition is co-published by Autodesk Media and Entertainment, and includes new tutorials on entering the Earth's atmosphere, glaciers, lava eruptions and a Badlands landscape.

Inspirational color images cover every page of the book as the author shares his professional techniques and workflow processes. The companion DVD contains all of the required tutorial media as well as over 6 hours of video tutorials.


User level: Intermediate and advanced

· Realistic effects without plug-ins!
· Tutorial lessons demonstrate professional techniques and workflow processes.
· Companion DVD contains all of the required tutorial media plus additional video tutorials.
· Co-published by Autodesk Media and Entertainment.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #357336 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 408 pages

Review
'I congratulate Pete on this amazing accomplishment. I am certain that those of you who read this will find it incredibly useful, both as an educational tool and as a volume of reference. I encourage you all to read and absorb the information found within, and use it to help strengthen both your own skills, and to help strengthen and maintain our ever spreading 3D community.'
-Jason 'Buzz' Busby (www.3dbuzz.com)

About the Author
a UK-based visual effects animator and artist with 10+ years experience on large and small screen projects. Starting out as a fine artist and designer, his shift to CG animation led to key roles such as Lead and Senior Artist, Head of Media and, more recently, Visual Effects Supervisor / Director. Pete's work covers a broad range of disciplines and genres from visual effects to reconstructions, commercials to in-house training. He currently writes for 3D World magazine, providing tips, tricks, reviews and tutorials for 3ds max and other animation and graphics tools.

Customer Reviews

You Need this book!
If you use 3DSMAX there is no reason why you shouldn't own this book! It will astronomically increase your understanding of procedural texturing using many multiple nested maps, Particle flow, legacy particles and other fancy trickery i never knew existed until buying this book.

I have worked through the first 4-5 tutorial and can honeslty say that my own knowledge has grown exponentially (I am a 3D art hobbyist 2yrs exp) and now i find myself attempting things and problem solving in a whole new way after working through only 1/10th of the books content.

Awesome colour images every step of the way and tons of reference images / movie files are also supplied on the DVD as well as the best video tutorial i've ever seen! (a teapot entering a planets atmosphere and violently burning as it heats up!)

Congrats to Pete draper on creating, in my opinion, the best 3D learning resource out there.

A great book for the intermediate
If your looking for creating some quite convincing effects without plugins, this is the book for you.

Book is aimed mainly at the intermediate user, but after working through autodesks good tutorials in 3dsmax, this book is a snap.
Ever wanted to combine live video with CGI effects? do what the film makers do in most modern films?
Would recommend this book to anyone interested in film or game productions.

Structure of the book is well laid out, each section (Earth, water, fire and air) is sectioned nicely, and such is each section that you can jump to an effect that interests you (or require), and not worry about it asking for information contained in previous sections - can tend to repeat some things in each section, but personally prefer this method.
Much easier to follow than some of the books in previous years.

Would give it a 5 star rating, but the DVD was a bit of a pain, badly pressed disc gave some trouble, but made a copy, and works great now.

Files all contained in relevant sections and rendered clips of what you do from the tutorials provided.
Another nice thing about this book involves "Taking further", which gives ideas on how each effect can be taken further (adding glows, particles). Also has some additional material of tutorials not featured in the book, and some video tutorials if you get stuck.

Thumbs up for this book - look forward to seeing more books like this