Kelly Murdock has been authoring computer books for many years now and still gets immense enjoyment from the completed work. His book credits include various 3D, graphics, multimedia, and Web titles, including six previous editions of this book, 3ds Max Bible. Other major accomplishments include Edgeloop Character Modeling for 3D Professionals Only, Maya 6 and 7 Revealed, LightWave 3D 8 Revealed, Poser 6 Revealed, 3D Game Animation For Dummies, gmax Bible, Adobe Atmosphere Bible, Master VISUALLY HTML and XHTML, JavaScript Visual Blueprint, and co?authoring duties on two editions of the Illustrator Bible (for versions 9 and 10) and two editions of the Adobe Creative Suite Bible.
With a background in engineering and computer graphics, Kelly has been all over the 3D industry and still finds it fascinating. He?s used high?level CAD workstations for product design and analysis, completed several large?scale visualization projects, created 3D models for feature films and games, worked as a freelance 3D artist, and even done some 3D programming. Kelly?s been using 3D Studio since version 3 for DOS. Kelly has also branched into training others in 3D technologies and is a frequent speaker at various conferences.
In his spare time, Kelly enjoys the outdoors while rock climbing, mountain biking, or skiing. He works at the design company he co?founded with his brother Chris, Logical Paradox Design.

"An excellent book for beginners as well as advanced 3ds Max users. A valuable reference that covers everything you’d want to know."
--Andre Surya, Award-winning Digital Artist

A favorite of 3ds Max artists from beginners to pros!

Why is 3ds Max Bible a perennial bestselling favorite? Because whether you’re a beginner looking for a tutorial to get you up to speed your first day or an expert needing a reference to Max’s advanced features, it’s all here. Loaded with advice, professional tips, and more than 150 step-by-step lessons, this is the most comprehensive reference-tutorial on 3ds Max on the market, and the one you’ll turn to again and again.
* Organize and blend sequences with the new Animation Layers feature
* Explore Sun and Sky, Car Paint, and other new mental ray shaders
* Combine and divide objects with ProBoolean and ProCutter
* Create more accurate dynamic animations with updated reactor tools
* Add greater realism with enhanced and integrated hair and fur tools
* Reference objects, materials, and controllers with XRef

Animate a dancing cartoon moose

Isolate mapping surfaces with the Quick Planar map button

Add realistic motion to your model’s hairstyle

What’s on the DVD?
You’ll find before-and-after example files for every tutorial in the book. The DVD also includes:
* Models and textures to customize for your own designs
* Rendered AVI files of animations used in the tutorials
* All the Max files for every tutorial
* Adobe tryout versions of After Effects(r), Photoshop(r) CS2, Illustrator(r) CS2, and Premiere Pro

System Requirements: See the DVD appendix for details and complete system requirements.

Pretty neat

This book has a lot of good tips and demos to try out to understand max more. Pretty easy to understand as well.

Excellent reference

I have been working with 3D for quite some years now and this a really good reference and full of useful tips & handy hints. It’s a weighty tome and there is no doubt that Kelly Murdock knows her stuff.

A word of warning for beginners. The Dancing Cartoon Moose (the very first tutorial to get beginners up and running and wet their appetite) in my opinion is badly written and not really very clear. The modelling tutorial is rather akward and there are faster and better ways to model the body parts. There really is no need to weld - a simple ’flip’ would suffice and vertex edit. I also have a few issues with the chapter regarding Configuring Cameras. Owners of 3DSMax 9 would be advised to check with the packaged Autodesk CD tutorials.

That said, the book is a valuable reference and worth the money.

Holy

It has just about EVERYTHING. If you are like me and don’t have the time to take another class on the subject and/or just want something for both referencing and detailed info this is it. I’ve bought several other books for 3D modeling but this is the only one I still use.

Perfect for those who know what they’re doing to polish up on techniques and improvements to previous versions as well as complete beginners. The tutorials and images in the book give the reader step by step instructions.

All in all if you are serious enough to invest in 3ds Max 9 in the first place then this book is exactly what you need. Most of the others just help with conceptual work, not particularly useful if you already know what you want to do, this book WILL help you.

very good

it walks you through 3d quite well, im a medium level of experiance at 3d max and felt that for a complete begginner this may be a little overpowering for them. fine if you had a good mess around and understand a little bit.

overall very good

Solid Read for Beginners

The Max Bible serves as a solid resource for anyone new to the program. The information is relatively complete and the explantions make sense. If you’re looking to buy one book, and you’re a newbie, this would be a good choice.

greatest

I’m begginer but the book has step by step about the software.
A bible, really... Really great!

Detailed but under-illustrated

This is an excellent and highly detailed reference for the program 3ds Max 9. As near as I can tell it mentioned every button and command that 3ds Max has available. My main criticism is that it is highly under-illustrated. While every function and button is mentioned, as a beginner to 3ds Max, I found that I often could not find the command being referred to in the text, whereas a screen shot would have quickly, and clearly shown what I should look for. In addition, since 3ds Max is such a sophisticated and detailed program which is great, it is often not readily apparent how all the various settings and parameters that can be entered for a given effect should be used. This book mentions most, if not all of the parameters, but examples as to how they are used in an actual project would have been good. There are short tutorials on the main features of the program, but these are generally restricted to singe effects. This book is probably for a more advanced user who is familiar with all the commands and knows how to use them to create a 3d scene, but would like a more detailed explanation of various functions in 3ds Max. Definitely well written though, and the DVD with the material and software described in the examples is great.

Done it again!

I’ve had two of these books over the years. They are fantastic reference to have.

Great book

I got this book to learn 3Ds Max. I’ve never done any 3D graphics before but the book manages to demonstrate and explain all the most basic concepts - and also dwell deeper into some of them.

Overall this is a very good book.

Excellent

Perfect for beginners...after the opening tutorial, step-by-step walkthrough to understanding all aspects of the program. Would reccomend to anyone!

OOPS missing 1059-1154

This is a good book, Wiley Publishing messed things up though. It is missing over a 100 pages. As soon as I got it I searched for the chapters on MaxScript and detected the omission. The book itself is great; but the publishers omission is not acceptable. I have informed Amazon about this and hopefully they will recover the missing chapters. The DVD does have a complete version of the book which is very helpful in the interim.

Awesome read

This book helped me a lot to become a much better 3d artist/animator. It is a absolute necessity for any budding 3DCG artists. The 3ds max 9 bible contains information for both beginners and advanced users who may use it as a reference.

Although I now have accquired the skills that is taught in this book I still use it as a reference when I’m stuck.

I’m a 13 year old male living in Perth, Australia.

3d max bible

very useful book step by step procedure
good for beginners

3d max bible

very useful book step by step procedure

good for beginners

EXTRA_ODINARY, I mean it is wonderful

I am still using this book again and again, trying to learn everything inside, because you know it explains everything what you need in design, ligtning, forming, modeling, texturing looks like you are working in a real 3d or 2d world, THANKS FOR AMAZON-THE BEST SELLING COMPANY, I like amazon service more than other ones, thanks

Great resource

Clear and easy to follow! Great resource for veterans while being simple enough to follow for those new to Max.

Altamente Recomendado para iniciantes

Uma linguagem simples, bem-humorada e dinâmica. Recomendado, principalmente, para quem está ingressando em 3D Studio Max. Ele tenta se vender também para quem já conhece o programa e está migrando para uma versão mais recente. Para esses usuários, eu recomendaria algum livro mais específicio ou mesmo pela internet.

Amazing book for 3ds max learning and reference.

I just start reading 3ds max bible book. I never read any of Kelly Murdock’s books, but I’ve found the way he presents and explain every feature of 3ds max very good and being as non technical as possible! It isn’t boring to read and fun sometimes. I’ll consider buying the author’s books from now on!