Essentials 3ds Max 8

Finally I've found what I have been looking for in a 3ds max manual. Great for beginners. If you don't like drawn out explanations, and you want to start picking up techniques without having to be explained every tedious step; then this is the book for you. Nice and snappy explanations; quiet clear and concise. As you progress through the book the author assumes you have picked up basics, like converting your object the "edit poly", and doesn't insult you with a drawn out re-explanation every time you want to start a new leason. Also, he doesn't go off (too much)and waste time rambling. once you've gotten 100 pages into the book you will probably have enough skills to explore on your own. I also like how he covers almost all aspects of 3ds max ,customization, modeling, rendering, materials, instead of focusing on one area of the program. This book can also be good for those with some knowledge of max, but want to improve their work flow and clean up their modeling. More for modeling than animation, though.

Well as some beginning animators I started a while back creating models and doing some animation more or less on the fly as i figured it out. I finally decided to get serious and stop wasting time. This book does excactly that. It gets to the nuts and bolts on how to start with effeciency in mind. The results is producing quality work in at least half the time it would have taken me to do the same work without the knowledge. The author also kept it interesting and fun. That is what stood out. Some may take the "whitty" comments too seriously. I thought it was just fun and it allowed me to keep reading and trying. It kept me interested. Too many books out there are simply to boring resulting in a book that has never seen past chap 3. If your just starting and want solid, effective information on how to use 3DMAX 8 this is a great start.

If you are just starting out and want to learn Max with no previous 3D experience then this is a great book to start with. It covers all the basics you will need to get up and running before moving onto more application specific excercises.

I had max for a while and was moving forward but had alot of little questions that needed to be answered. This book helped me understand the UI layout more as well as how to customize it. There are a couple neat character models in there as well that he breaks down step by step in the later chapters.

I've bought many, MANY books for 3d and 2d art software packages and this is one of the best books for beginners out there. It's written by someone "in the field" of game development so he doesn't waste a lot of time explaining useless things. Again, it doesn't cover everything like some books "claim", but it get's you going in the right direction.