by John Swanson

Product Title: "3ds Max 2010 Bible "
Author: Kelly L Murdock
Level: Beginner/Intermediate
ISBN: 9780470471913
For Pricing and to Purchace: Wiley Computer Graphics Books

From the web site:
"...Whether you're a novice eager to get started or a full-fledged animator seeking new ways to dazzle, the new edition of this perennial hot seller is the perfect 3ds Max book for you. It's crammed with the very latest features, professional techniques, and over 150 step-by-step tutorials that will build skills and spark your creativity. Don't miss the colorful insert, which showcases the work of cutting-edge 3D artists and is sure to inspire you.

• Do freeform sculpting with the new Graphite Modeling Tools
• Use the new Material Explorer interface to quick-navigate material hierarchies
• Discover viewport exposure control, ambient occlusion, and soft shadows
• Add multiple sound tracks to your scene with the ProSound features
• Quickly find mesh problems with the xView display options
• Paint directly on models in the new Viewport Canvas mode..."

I like this book – I think it does what it sets out to do. Regardless of what the web site or the back of the book says – this is an good overview of what 3ds Max 2010 is and what it is capable of. In other words “this is the name of the tool, and this is what it does.” But it does that in a very readable way. This ‘bible’ starts by giving the novice a good tour of the interface and tool sets, then goes on to more advanced concepts. You may not become an expert with this book – but you will understand Max a whole lot better.

Let's face it Max 2010, like its predecessors, is a very flexible, very complicated, very deep program no matter how you look at it. Those of us who get hooked on it want to know how to use it to do our bidding. We want information - and we can find it if we know where to look. Books, magazines, the internet, help files, classrooms, DVDs, user groups, industry seminars/webinars, like minded friends - they all have some of the answers. There is just not enough pages, bytes, bandwidth, meetings, etc. to fully explain a program like Max.

Max – that forever evolving monster of a program with new features piled on top of all it’s legacy capabilities (sitting in there for what I imagine are legitimate reasons and not just to overwhelm us). There are modifiers in the modifier list that have been replaced by improved versions but they are still listed. I honestly can’t remember when I last created an IFL file (3ds animation file list) on purpose. I know I used to make them all the time. Now I occasionally notice them when I render out a sequence of images before I compile them into an animation. I honestly don’t know when I’ll make my first INT file to use with Flight studio. Maybe when I learn what Flight studio is and does…

So, how does a new user learn Max, and how can a current user keep up with all of these new functions and capabilities? They are being added at an incredible rate. There is a new Max release out before I get a chance to get comfortable with the last release. Don’t get me wrong, I welcome great tools added to a familiar interface. Most of them are truly amazing. Some began life as a plug-in for Max and then became fully integrated features. Like I said - How does a user keep up with all of these functions and capabilities?

If you have been around long enough you, or people you know, learn a procedure in a program and continue to do things that way even when there is a new more efficient way to get the job done introduced in the new version. A person gets comfortable with the way they do things in a program, It’s been like this since the dawn of time. I think for most of us we are just unaware how a new function or capability, once learned, can truly increase our productivity. While reading this book for this review I have definitely learned a few things or I have been reminded of a few things that I can now put to use.

We'll take a look at this latest version of the "Max Bible" to see how well they live up to that web site promise. Like the other bibles that came before it, is a big book - around 1250 pages big. I usually try to reprint the table of contents of the book at the end of my reviews. Don't even look for it on this one. it's about 30 pages long. Instead I'll reprint their 'Contents at a Glance'. (on a side note - the Max R3 Bible had about a 50 page table of contents, so the ratio of table of contents to content has improved over the years)

So who do I think this book is for? If you are completely new to Max and want a book that you can look up how to do something in Max this book should serve you well. If you consider yourself an intermediate user and have not read a Max book in a while, you may want to go through some of the topics. It does cover the new bells and whistles fairly well.

I believe Kelly L. Murdock has been at this ‘Max bible’ writing since 2000 when the 1,100 page 3d studio Max R3 Bible was published. He obviously knows Max very well. I happen to like the way the material is presented. The first part of the book is aimed at the beginner with all the basic information presented in a logical order. The other part of the book is for the more advanced tools in Max 2010. While reading the book I noticed that the legacy components of max were, for the most part, left out. I was going to call the author on that but found I missed something in the preface that addressed this. He had purposely left out the older legacy parts to conserve room for more important topics. I found the Note, Tip, Caution, New Feature, Cross-Ref, and On the DVD tag notes useful for the most part. It’s like having someone looking over your shoulder while you are reading and telling you all the points that are important to understand now, or where they are covered elsewhere in the book or DVD. I like these – especially the tips and cross references.

Speaking of the DVD – it’s pretty impressive. All the chapter files for the fifty-one plus chapters are on here. Two applications – a 3ds Max 2010 Trail 30 day version and Adobe Reader. There is a section with 3D models from both Viewpoint and Zygote. Zygote also provides a man and a woman model. There is an e-book on here also. The entire book in PDF format – as stated on the e-book splash screen “All the text for the book is included on the DVD in PDF format along with Adobe Reader. Using the electronic version of the book, you can search the text. You’ll also be able to see the book’s figures in color.” I guess in order to keep cost down they decided not to do the PDF figures in color. That’s too bad – it would have been nice. We would have benefited with colored figures To be honest for the most part the B&Ws are fine and serve their purpose. Three bonus chapters are provided here as well. One on installing 3ds Max 2010, one with an extensive list of shortcuts broken down into categories, The third is ‘Working with NURBS’. The subject of NURBS does come up in the book a few times – mostly in Chapter 27 on modeling with patches and NURBS. It’s nice to have more info on them.

On to the book…Just like the majority of books like this we are given the ‘tour’ of the Max interface and shown how to get around. Viewports, files, and the setting of preferences fill out the rest of Part One. Through the use of some exercises a novice should be brought up to speed pretty fast. I did the exercises to see how they worked. I had no trouble following them and I’m sure they will help someone new to 3D get a good handle on the Max UI. Nine times out of ten if I did not get the same result from a tutorial that the author was leading to in an exercise, it was because I missed a step. The many tutorials throughout the book are clear and easy to follow. The models used in the provided Max scenes are sometimes very simple low res objects but they get the point across without slowing you down if rendering or animation is involved.

Creating, editing, selecting primitive objects and setting their properties is well covered in the next section. We are shown how to hide objects, and how to use layers to organize your scenes. After reading about the new Scene Explorer I may just start to use some of it’s functionality. I was a fan of the old way of accessing object through the old dialogue box. The instructions the many ways of transforming objects were illustrated well with the exercises provided in the text. I was surprised that I didn’t read how to ‘constrain to an axis’ by double clicking that axis on the move gizmo when we were going of that transform gizmo. Cloning objects. Arrays, grouping, linking, and the new capabilities of containers finishes of this part of the book.

Part Three covering basic modeling techniques gives us a pretty complete overview on this subject. Mr. Murdock starts at the beginning explaining the difference between parametric and editable objects and topics like normals and subobjects. All the model types used to create models are briefly described – things like primitives, shapes, splines, meshes, polys, patches, NURBS, compound objects, particle systems, cloth systems, hair and fur. A very good explanation and demonstration of different types of modifiers and the modifier stack and it’s workings is next up. Following that we get to see 2d splines and shapes and all the possibilities they bring to modeling in Max. I liked the way the new Graphite Modeling Tools were presented – section by section in way that made sense to me.

In Part Four we start to delve into material, cameras, and lighting. I was surprised I learned a few things in Kelly’s tour of the Material Editor. I was unaware or had forgotten that there is a ‘Sample UV Tiling’ fly-out button there that sets the UV tiling for the map in the sample slot. Cool. It was interesting to read his explanation of the functions of both the ‘Material/Map Navigator’ and the ‘Material Explorer’. It’s nice that the Max developers gave the ‘Material Explorer’ a similar interface of the ‘Scene Navigator’. In this part it was nice to see all the examples of the different kinds of maps available in Max shown with different settings for comparison purposes. The description of all the material properties of map in the maps rollout was enlightening. Before moving on to cameras we are shown how to create compound materials and use material modifiers. The basic configurations and setups of cameras is nicely covered with good examples. We are then introduced to some very basic lighting techniques.

All the necessary introductory instructions to begin animating in Max starts off Part Five. Someone new to computer animation will get a good felling for the way this is handled in Max. I think the examples found in the tutorials here are varied and presented well and should help in the understanding of this complicated topic. Constraints and simple controllers follow. I particularly liked the explanation on assigning controllers. After creating a model and setting up lights and cameras then making an animation – what do you want to do? You want to render it out. So that’s what we cover next. All the settings in dialogue boxes necessary to output a ‘finished’ rendered product is aptly explained and illustrated with examples.

In Part Six of the book we start to get into the more advanced features in Max like the use of Xrefs and Asset tracking. Coming from an AutoCad background I am familiar with the concept of Xrefs (eXternal References). Here we are given a good explanation of what they are and how they are used in the context of 3ds Max 2010. If you plan on working on large scenes – sooner or later you have to make friends with Xrefs. I found it really helped me get used to the way Max handles Xrefs by opening the ‘Xref Object’ dialogue box and poking around while following the text in the book. Reading is one thing doing is something else and I find it’s what really makes a difference when trying to absorb any new concepts. If someone says to me “Oh that book or this training DVD is no good” My first thought is that they most likely just read the book or watched the DVD and expected the knowledge to be automatically transferred to their brain. When dealing with programs like Max and the set of skills that must be mastered to get anything worthwhile out of the program you can’t be passive in your education. You have to open up the program and do the exercises, play with the, menu items and buttons, spinners and text boxes on the interface when ever you read the book. That’s the only way to get comfortable with what you have to do.

Back to Part Six we are shown the value of using asset tracking especially in a situation where more than one person is involved in a single project. I’m not sure if a person who works alone with a good folder system would need to use the Asset Tracking in Max but it was interesting to read what it’s about. I really like the authors handling of the topic of schematic view. I used to use it a lot in Softimage but never used it in Max – until now. I added it to my workflow especially on my larger scenes. There a lot you can do in there to organize and access parts of your scene. Mesh modifiers are covered next along with the edit mesh and edit poly modifiers you use to maintain the basic creation parameters. Following this, Kelly covers a list of modifiers too long to go into here, but you will want to understand the use of these if you are just learning Max. In the remainder of this part I was particularly impressed with the way the somewhat less popular patch modeling is handled. As well as the section on lofting. I did most of my lofting back in my 3ds DOS days. But after reading the way Max implements this tool I might just have to explore it more. It’s nice when you read these techniques outlined in a book and you get a chance to reacquaint yourself with tools you might have abandoned for no good reason. The introduction to the topics of Hair, Fur and Cloth are handled well here at the end of this section - with plenty of good examples. I particularly liked the tutorial exercises in these sections.

Since we have entered the 'Advanced' section of the Bible where should Mr. Murdock take us next in Part Seven? How about 'Advanced Materials'? This is an area of Max I am especially interested in since I like to use max for architectural visualization and getting the materials right is a big part of this task. The first chapter in this part covers materials like the Ink 'n' Paint and the Architectural Materials. We also get our first look at the Mental ray materials. Moving on to a new feature in Max we are introduced to using the Viewport Canvas. Here is my result when I followed the tutorial exercise entitled 'Face Painting.

Another new feature in Max called Surface Maps was covered here. According the explanation this could turn out to be a very useful tool.In the Unwrapping UVs and Mapping Textures section of this part we begin working with mapping modifiers. We are given a pretty good our of the Edit UVWs Interface when we use the 'Unwrap UVW' modifier with some of the features that are new to 2010. Pelt mapping which has been in Max for a while is covered in this part. I've seen other tutorials on pelt mapping - the one included here is one of the better ones. Normal Maps and Baked Textures finish up this part.

In Part Eight We go on to the Advanced Animation Techniques where we are shown animation modifiers like the morph modifier and the flex modifier. These are used for such things as creating changing facial expressions and adding secondary motions to animations. Some modifiers like the melt modifier and patch and surface deform make it possible to do things that would be very hard to do with out them being at our disposal. Many useful tools like these are examined and illustrated with good exercises here. So what more complex and sophisticated topics are tackled in this part. I always found expression controllers a bit hard to work with in Max but Here we have a good basic introduction to this subject. Operators, variables, and functions are explained with the use of variables. I gained a lot by opening the Expression Controller interface and poking around while following the text. Track View with function curves is well covered in this part. After a good tour of the track view window layout we are shown how to work with keys to refine our animation. This is a very complicated process but I believe the way it is gone over here is a good way to get someone to understand all the possibilities available, or at the least point them in the right direction. Many tips are given to help streamline the whole process. Again let me say the tutorial exercises are basic, but to me, their simplicity definitely helps to get the point across. Animation layers and the motion mixer finish off this part.

I was once told that most guys get into 3D animation so they can 'blow things up'. Well - there is a little of that in the next part - Part Nine - Dynamic Animation. The good news is there is a lot of great information on particles, space warps, reactor (the physics-based simulator in Max) as well as a section on animating Hair and Cloth. Let me start off by saying that I was very impressed with this whole part. I thought that it handled the explanation of all these tools very well. I can see you walking away with a good understanding on what these tools are and how to put them to use in your projects. This is a good illustration of why a book that calls itself a bible may be a good choice for a book to have on hand. There is a lot of related topics that work together all in one place. When it is handled so well it is even more valuable. The tutorial exercises in this part are fun as well as educational. Getting a good look at reactor the Havok physics engine that has been a part of Max for a while now is another reason I like this part of the book. After that thee is a brief look at how to animate Hair and Cloth. This is not the best part of the book but it will serve to get you started with this capability in the program. By the way below is an example of one of the exercises in Part Nine. This is the result I got from the 'Creating the Sun' tutorial.

I was looking forward to Part Ten where I knew we would be starting to work with characters in Max. Besides getting a good grounding in the art of rigging (this is by no means the final word on the subject - just a real good introduction to the concepts and terms you'll need to know) By intelligently laying out the workflow of building a bone system the reader is bound to end up with a solid understanding of this topic. The explanation of inverse kinematics systems is one of the better instructions I have come across. The tutorial exercises only make the whole thing a lot clearer. The Bipeds and Crowds (Crowds with a capitol "C" is a system comprised of the helper objects Crowd and Delegates). Used together you can create some very sophisticated, complex animations relatively quickly. Skinning characters finish up this part and we are treated to a good run through of this process. It was never my favorite thing in Max. Here we are shown a good deal of the process with a lot of tips along the way. This part concludes with a list of several different 'Character Animating Techniques' that any beginner should read and keep in mind when doing any serious character animation.

Getting away from animating we get back into lighting and rendering this way in a slightly 'advanced' way in Part Eleven. First up we look at the 'Advanced Lighting' tab found in the default scanline rendering setup dialogue. Light Tracing and radiosity is explored with some good tutorials. Lighting analysis which is only found in 3ds Max 2010 design is given a once over. Atmospheric and Render Effects is next in line and starts off with using exposure controls in the Max interface.

The last part – Part Twelve we ge to MaxScripts and Plug-ins.

From the book:
“…This chapter is organized to give you an introduction to the Maxscript and to teach you the basic skills you need to get some mileage out of it. What is given here is a foundation that you can build upon according to your own interests and needs.”

This is certainly true for this part of the book and Murdock goes ahead and builds a firm foundation for you to use Maxscript. But I’d like to point out that he could have been writing about the way the whole book is presented. If you were to substitute the word 'book' for word 'chapter' and the word ‘Max’ for the word ‘Maxscript’ you would have a pretty good idea about this book.

Back to Part Twelve – this is a very good introduction to Maxscript. I am far from being able to call myself an accomplished Maxscripter. But I have been exposed to it over the years – enough to know what it is and what it is used for. I followed along and did the exercises. This resulted in a better understanding of this tool. As you move through this part you learn bit by bit in a logical order where you are building on the last concept learned. I always liked this method and I feel it works well here. You will use the Listener in Maxscript to evaluate simple expressions, then move on to more complex expressions and conditions. Collections, arrays and loops are studied before moving on to functions. Let me say that this section is very well done. I enjoyed using Maxscript to make two fish swim through the water. Cool. I don't know how useful the last section of this part is. Here the subject of Plug-ins is discussed. I guess he makes some good points and come up with some good tips. I just felt it doesn't measure up to the rest of the book. Well that is my opinion anyway.

The rest of the book just goes into what is new in Max 2010 - not a bad overview. Then there is a bit of information on what's on the DVD. I used the 37 page index at the back of the book a few times and was pleased to find exactly what I was looking for in the listings. I know this is a small point but I just wanted to mention that this index was useful.

Let me end this review by saying it again. I like this book. I think it is well done and would serve the novice as well as the not so novice user of Max well. It is by no means the last word on every thing in Max. We all know that some of the topics tackled here can and do fill whole books. What this book does is explain, and by way of well thought out tutorials, much of what makes Max tick. The reader will become familiar with, or get reacquainted with the ins and outs of Max.

Part I: Getting Started with 3ds Max
Quick Start: Landing a Space Vehicle
Chapter 1: Exploring the Max Interface
Chapter 2: Controlling and Configuring the View ports
Chapter 3: Working with Files, Importing, and Exporting
Chapter 4: Customizing the Max Interface and Setting Preferences

Part II: Working with Objects
Chapter 5: Creating and Editing Primitive Objects
Chapter 6: Selecting Objects and Setting Object Properties
Chapter 7: Transforming Objects, Pivoting, Aligning, and Snapping
Chapter 8: Cloning Objects and Creating Object Arrays
Chapter 9: Grouping, Linking, and Using Containers

Part III: Modeling Basics
Chapter 10: Accessing Sub objects and Using Modeling Helpers
Chapter 11: Introducing Modifiers and Using the Modifier Stack
Chapter 12: Drawing and Editing 2D Sp lines and Shapes
Chapter 13: Modeling with Polygons and Using the Graphite Modeling Tools

Part IV: Materials, Cameras, and Lighting Basics
Chapter 14: Using the Material Editor and the Material Explorer
Chapter 15: Creating and Applying Standard Materials
Chapter 16: Adding Material Details with Maps
Chapter 17: Creating Compound Materials and Using Material Modifiers
Chapter 18: Configuring and Aiming Cameras
Chapter 19: Using Lights and Basic Lighting Techniques

Part V: Animation and Rendering Basics
Chapter 20: Understanding Animation and Keyframes
Chapter 21: Animating with Constraints and Simple Controllers
Chapter 22: Rendering a Scene

Part VI: Advanced Modeling
Chapter 23: Building Complex Scenes with XRefs and Using Asset Tracking
Chapter 24: Working with the Schematic View
Chapter 25: Deforming Surfaces and Using the Mesh Modifiers
Chapter 26: Working with Compound Objects
Chapter 27: Modeling with Patches and NURBS
Chapter 28: Adding and Styling Hair and Fur, and Using Cloth

Part VII: Advanced Materials
Chapter 29: Using Specialized Material Types
Chapter 30: Painting in the Viewport Canvas and Rendering Surface Maps
Chapter 31: Unwrapping UVs and Mapping Textures
Chapter 32: Creating Baked Textures and Normal Maps

Part VIII: Advanced Animation Techniques
Chapter 33: Using Animation Modifiers and Complex Controllers
Chapter 34: Animating with the Expression Controller and Wiring Parameters
Chapter 35: Working with Function Curves in the Track View
Chapter 36: Using Animation Layers and the Motion Mixer

Part IX: Dynamic Animation
Chapter 37: Creating Particles and Particle Flow
Chapter 38: Using Space Warps
Chapter 39: Simulating Physics-Based Motion with reactor
Chapter 40: Animating Hair and Cloth

Part X: Working with Characters
Chapter 41: Understanding Rigging and Working with Bones
Chapter 42: Working with Inverse Kinematics
Chapter 43: Creating and Animating Bipeds and Crowds
Chapter 44: Skinning Characters

Part XI: Advanced Lighting and Rendering
Chapter 45: Working with Advanced Lighting, Light Tracing, and Radiosity
Chapter 46: Using Atmospheric and Render Effects
Chapter 47: Rendering with mental ray
Chapter 48: Batch and Network Rendering
Chapter 49: Compositing with Render Elements and the Video Post Interface

Part XII: MAXScript and Plug-Ins
Chapter 50: Automating with MAXScript
Chapter 51: Expanding Max with Third-Party Plug-Ins
Appendix A: What's New with 3dsMax 2010
Appendix B: What's on the DVD
Index
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