Essential LightWave v9 offers an unparalleled development strategy for graphic designers, illustrators, video producers, motion graphic artists, visual effects artists, and animators who are interested in getting the most out of LightWave 3D. As the book touches on nearly every aspect of the software, it is ideal for all skill levels.

From the basics to the essentials...

After reading Dan Ablan’s "Inside Lightwave 8" - more or less THE standard in Lightwave - there were more questions raised than answered. Not that Ablans approach is a bad one, it’s just that he picks up so many different aspects of the program along the thread of the book, that at times it can be confusing. This isn’t the fact with "Essential Lightwave v9". Although the whole covering of every aspect from the absolute beginning seems a bit cumbersome, it’s worth it at the end. This over 900 pages issue helps you get into nearly every detail of Lightwave and handle the program like some kind of 3D Photoshop.
Add the companion DVD with hours of live modeling and animating, plug-ins and illustration fotos and you surely got something to start your way into 3D via Lightwave.

Must buy - Worth every penny

I am only on Chapter 6 right now but it has really helped me learn 3D the Lightwave way. The other reviews have said it better and convinced me. This is just my 2 cents to agree!

Worth it for the DVD tutorials alone

Over the past three years I’ve gone through racks of 3d books (for lightwave,cinema4d,3dsmax) and this one is up there as one of the most informative and useful.

It describes the Lightwave tool in a clear - yet not boring - way, and the step by step projects are fun and useful, not pointless ’widget creations’ like many other books out there.

The DVD id awesome, about £300 worth of video tutorials.

Minor gripe: some coloured prints would be the icing on the cake.

Authors, please bring on ’Essential Lightwave V10’ next year!

my opinion

Overall, I think this is a very helpful book however it would have been better with color illustrations and the ones included are to small.

Great stuff

The best general Lightwave v9 book around. Masterfully written, great tutorials and clear explanations.

I agree that the pictures should have been color, but I don’t think the book publisher has been able to make that a profitable venture, especially with the limited appeal of a book like this. Unfortunate, but they don’t have the budget of Visual Quickstart and the like.

I am glad they spent their budget on making the content kickass. Black and white pictures just make the diagrams that much clearer ;-)

Truly Essential Reading

This is book contains some of the clearest explanations of Lightwave tools I have ever read. What makes this work as more than a reference (which it certainly will be for a good while) is that the tools or features are explained along with some genuine use cases for when you’d want to use such a capability. The example usages are well written and easily to visualize thanks to generous illustrations. Yes, they are small, but are well labeled.

I much prefer the Essential series (also own Essential Lightwave 8) for its concise descriptions and get-to-the-point examples. The information density here is excellent. Little if any fluff. Unlike the previous version, this one is divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced sections which might help guide your reading. I found the section on projection mapping to be worth the purchase of the book alone. I’ve read the Lightwave PDFs, the Wordware Lightwave Texturing book as well as numerous help forums, and web sites and I’ve not once had UV mapping explained so well. The tutorial on how to build a UV map for a fighter jet goes through not only the unwrapping process but the types of maps you might want to try to make better textures. This type of pragmatic advice above and beyond the goals of the tutorial are some of the great hidden benefits to this book. Often tutorials will just go far enough to explain how to do something without much hinting as to why.

Take the discussion on sub-patching as another example in the Advanced Modeling section. I’ve worked with sub-patch modeling for years and was always curious as to how pros decided when to use it or not. As it turns out my way of thinking was pretty close to the contents, but it always helps to read someone else’s impressions. Basically this book made me go back to read some of the tools that I thought I already knew just to make sure I’m not missing something.

If you own the previous version there is repeated content, but not so much as to invalidate buying this version. Its a good 33% thicker and there’s much more to learn including a new section on stylized characters, character rigging, node editor, the aforementioned projections section, discussions of the new 9.x cameras, etc. I haven’t made it through the whole book yet but it looks like some of the old tutorials and examples have been expanded as well.

Finally, I like the fact that you can easily come back to a section describing some functionality and re-learn without having to read a whole chapter. Often I’m in the middle of a project and want to just remember how to use a tool. I can find that section and easily refresh my skills with this book.

Bottom line: If you’re anywhere near starting in on learning Lightwave you owe it to yourself to read this book. Do the examples. Watch the videos. Intermediate users can probably still benefit especially those coming back to Lightwave from an older version. I rank myself as an Advanced-Beginner (2 years Lightwave hobbiest).

Amazing Resouce - despite B/W print

This has to be the most detailed and informational book on Lightwave9 I have seen to date. Every aspect is discussed in great detail and practical usage notes are sprinkled in virtually every page. It’s easy to tell, that the author(s) have a lot of working knowledge. In fact, the most useful information are the little tidbits on what works and what doesn’t which saves a lot of time in trouble shooting.

One caveat though dims the book. The screenshots are relatively small (compared to the print resolution) and all in black and white. This is less problematic when using the included disk with all screenshots (in color) and good training videos. However, it’s a bit disruptive nevertheless. Another factor is the odd format of the book; stubby but thick, which makes it harder to flip through the book. The samll print helps packing a lot of information, but may be a problem for people with less than perfect eyesight.

If only....

...if only I’d had this book 3 years ago!

I bought LightWave8 a few years ago, and was unable to get past the text-only interface, and put it aside after about a month of frustration.

In the last 3months I’ve tried at least 10 other 3D apps, including LW9 again. I would really like to be able to use it, but again, couldn’t crack the gui.

As a result, I settled on another 3D app (email me if you want to know which & why)...I’m very happy with the other program, but the point is,
I may have stayed with LW9 if I only had the right learning tool to begin with.

This book is phenomenal...well printed and well laid out as well.

The first thing that struck me about this book (besides the striking cover and the thickness) is the attitude of the authors. Up front in the dedication they write with heart-felt empathy:

"To all those who have yearned to create great works with LightWave yet
found themselves facing a steep and seemingly insurmountable learning curve...we know exactly how you feel. This book was written for you. We hope that it causes you to grow in your skills and inspire others with your wonderful artistic visions."

And you can tell they put their hearts & souls into it. The book is a chunk, no getting around it, but it is packed with well written and solid information. And when you add the video tutorials, it’s an incredible
learning tool.

I’m committed to another app for now, but when time permits, I’ll
get back to LightWave....I feel a lot better about it now...I don’t have
the sense of forboding as I used to, now that I have Steve, Kevin & Timothy to show me the way.

Thanks, guys!!!

This book actually deserves 10 stars!!!!

Hello :-)

This book is awesome!!! The whole way it is structured, the in-depth explanations, the easy-to-follow tutorials, just everything is really well thought through and brings you quickly to a new level. The video tutorials on the DVD are fantastic and the information you get is priceless.
The total knowledge you get for that price is just incredible.

This book really deserves 10 stars! I can recommend it to anyone who works with Lightwave, no matter if beginner or professional. What you learn from
this book will have a huge impact on your future 3D work!

I’ve bought many books in the past for Lightwave but THIS one beats them all!

Thanks for bringing this book to the market!

And now.....go and order it! ;-)))

Cheers!
Steven R. (Switzerland)

This book actually deserves 10 stars!!!!

Hello :-)

This book is awesome!!! The whole way it is structured, the in-depth explanations, the easy-to-follow tutorials, just everything is really well thought through and brings you quickly to a new level. The video tutorials on the DVD are fantastic and the information you get is priceless.
The total knowledge you get for that price is just incredible.

This book really deserves 10 stars! I can recommend it to anyone who works with Lightwave, no matter if beginner or professional. What you learn from
this book will have a huge impact on your future 3D work!

I’ve bought many books in the past for Lightwave but THIS one beats them all!

Thanks for bringing this book to the market!

And now.....go and order it! ;-)))

Cheers!
Steven R. (Switzerland)

awesome book!!!!! Essential to learning Lightwave

This is a very awesome LightWave book. The video tutorials that come on the DVD are priceless themselves. Either beginner or intermediate, this book is a gem to your 3D training.

The video tutorials, Steve Warner goes slow and in depth, not like some of these DVD training videos that click on the mouse like maniacs with no explainations of what they are doing . The video tutorials are clear to see, no blurry or fuzzy pictures

The one thing I wish this book and other lightwave book had was glossy/colored images. Even though these images are on the DVD I still think it is essential to have them printed in color or at least have the images colored.Sometimes when I am reading these books, I am not at my computer (I love to read in resturaunts for some reason)so I don’t always have the ability to reference from the DVD, coloed images would be awesome.
I know that would make the book cost more, but I would pay the extra for sure.
Black and White images just don’t cut it in an art style book.
Just my 2cents!

But overall the information in this book deserves 10 Stars
A++++

way to go Steve, thanks for your hard work in putting this together-

Great book for different experience levels...

Well, I’ll keep this pretty short. I can’t really recommend this book enough. I’m fairly new to LW and this book has been a tremendous help. Even on areas where I though I was up to speed I keep on learning new things. The book starts off with a general introduction to 3d, and then has main chapters covering topics such as modeling, lighting, animating, texturing, rendering, etc. Then it moves onto more intermediate and advanced chapters and projects.

What I like best is that each mini-area is followed by a simple illustrated example that makes it very easy to understand and see it in use. Also, the way the book is broken up into sections, if you don’t really want to read up on animation right that second you can just move on to the next area without feeling too lost (and hopefully go back to that section later).

I will also point out that the book comes with hours and hours (about 14 I think) of tutorial videos that cover a broad range of topics including new 9.2 features. These videos alone are worth the price of the book. (Just as a note, if there are any videos that don’t work on your DVD, go to publishers website for info on how to get them) As this book covers so many areas, especially many 9.2 new features, it really is good for all different levels.

Have fun riding the Wave...