Highlighted by a CD-ROM containing sample files and code, tutorials, and selected images and animations, a complete guide to 3ds max 6 reviews the key features of the latest versions of the software, covering such topics as lip sync, facial expression, walk cycles, scene animation, and visual effects.

Covers 3ds max 6 and provides an organized and thorough process for integrating all of the features of max to create, animate, render, and finish an animation project.

3ds max? 6 Animation and Visual Effects Techniques is a completely updated version of this best-selling book. It covers 3ds max 6 and provides an organized and thorough process for integrating all of the features of max to create, animate, render, and finish an animation project. Beginning with a review of the essentials, users learn about all of the key features used in animation and visual effects, including the fundamentals of animated filmmaking, and then work through detailed tutorials covering modeling of buildings, environments, humans, and aliens. Once they have created the models, the animation techniques are explored, including character setup with bones, lip sync, facial expression, and walk cycles. From there the process moves to scene animation, visual effects, materials and textures, event-based particles, and lighting and rendering. The book ends with detailed chapters on character studio® 4, combustion® 3.0, reactor® 2, Mental Ray® 3.2, and the Shag Hair and Dynamic Effects plug-ins. Anyone interested in learning an efficient and practical process for creating animated environments and films will find what they need here.

3ds max 6: Animation and Visual Effects Techniques has been thoroughly updated to cover the enhancements and new features of version 6. The book provides an organized and thorough process for integrating the features of 3ds max 6 into your own projects. Everything taught throughout the book is based on the creation of a film project that was done completely with max, including all of the visual effects and animation techniques. Beginning with a review of the essentials, you’ll learn the key features used in animation and visual effects. You’ll learn about the fundamentals of animated filmmaking, and you’ll work through detailed tutorials covering modeling of buildings, environments, humans, and aliens. Once you’ve created the models, the animation techniques are explored, including character setup with bones, lip sync, facial expression, and walk cycles. From there the process moves to scene animation, visual effects, materials and textures, and lighting and rendering. The book ends with detailed chapters on character studio® 4 and combustion® 3, and the Shag Hair plug-in.

Highlights!
* Uses the latest features of 3ds max 6 to teach particle effects, including rain and Hollywood explosions and details the changes from version 5 to 6
* Teaches how to use character studio 4 to animate crowds of people, and how to do physics- based animation using reactor 2
* Explains facial animation and how to record dialog and sound effects
* Details lighting and rendering features, including
* Radiosity and Global Illumination, Skylight and Light Tracer, visual effects lighting, and network rendering

On the CD
* Original, full size figures from the book
* All the files needed to complete the tutorials from the book
* Extras folders that contain color images, animations, 3ds max materials libraries, and texture maps
* An animated scene from Homing Instinct, the movie used to illustrate the techniques in the book

First Edition User Comments

"Up-to-date sprung to mind when I skipped through this book…Finally someone has added a FULL tutorial on how to model a human from scratch! The effects chapters are amazing too, thick, Hollywood explosion techniques! …this book is aimed at someone who has used Max for quite sometime and knows a little about modeling. But I recommend this book to anyone that has Max!"
"I love this book! It makes sense of things in 3ds max that I couldn’t quite grasp before. I’m finally getting over the learning curve for lots of stuff in Max!…"

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Minimum Requirements: 3ds max 6, IBM-compatible PC, 800 MHz processor, 256MB RAM, Video Display with 32MB RAM, free HD space 600MB; Recommended System Requirements: 3ds max 6, IBM-Compatible PC, 2.0 GHz processor, 1GB or more RAM memory, Video Display with 64 or 128MB RAM, free HD space 4 GB.

Find Something - ANYTHING - else to study from!

This book leads me to believe that: a)I will NEVER be able to animate ANYTHING with a bone structure; b)I will NEVER understand the skin modifier; c)I must be a complete dolt.

I know for a fact that I am not a dolt, having worked in the animation industry for some time now, and being an intermediate 3ds Max user. A lot can be said for Max, pro’s and con’s, but possibly the hardest thing (for me) is animating the human body. We spent about 10 minutes in college learning this, and all the notes I have and Max Bibles and everything else do NOT teach (in layman’s terms) HOW TO ANIMATE A HUMAN BODY.

This book was intended as a resource to learn how to animate a completed human model; I am not interested in learning the dreaded techniques of modeling a human just now, as this expansive learning curve is too detailed and time-consuming for me at the moment. Rather I was hoping to modify an existing model (free domain, of course!) and learn to animate it.

The models on the cd which accompanies the book are okay; they’re not top of the line, and quite frankly, the nipples on the female body are a bit over the top (its really cold in virtual reality!!), but they are workable. The bone structure is fine. The textures are horrible, and the animation itself is cheeeeeeeesy, but for a learning tool its not that bad. Beware any positive sentiment you may have derived from that last comment, as the book and tutorial in general is horrible.

I have tried and tried and tried to skin this model over and over and over again, only to find the exasperating and frustrating errors of ’envelopes’ associated with the model which, I assume, the author purposely created for ’teaching’ the correct way to utilize the skin modifier. However, the instructions for troubleshooting this UNFATHOMABLY FRUSTRATING problem leave far too much to be desired; in essence, the instructions do not explain enough. My model is naked, and the skin on his hands is like a rubberband being stretched to its fullest capability. And no matter how many times I try to figure out how to fix this, I am left without a working answer. The book does not cover the troubleshooting of this error more than a line or two aimed for the expressly expert 3d Max user.

For instance, "....this indicates that the skin envelope needs to be adjusted.... Select one of the envelope adjustment handles..." ENVELOPE ADJUSTMENT HANDLES?! WTF ARE THOSE? IS ANYTHING LABLED ’ENVELOPE ADJUSTMENT HANDLE?’ NO!! The book continues, "...move it to enlarge it..." MOVE IT? WHERE? HOW? THE ENVELOPE IS UNEFFECTED BY MY ATTEMPTS TO ’MOVE IT.’ "... Part of the skin that is sticking up should move down to the hand. Repeat this process for both ends of the skin envelope...." !!!!!!!There are TWO parts of the skin envelope? WHAT?! WHERE?!!

This is what I mean - no explanation. Nothing is labled properly. When I attempted to assign all the bones in the skin modifier, I noticed over HALF of the bones ARE NOT LABLED AS BONES! WTF?!

Believe the criticisms already posted: this book is horrible, it will leave you feeling uninspired to animate humans and frustrated, and is a real waste of time and money.

Very good overview

Contrary to some of the other reviews I think this is a great book; it’s one of the only books I’ve found that gives a "complete" overview of the film-making process with 3ds Max. While the content may not be in it’s final stage; I think the major problem most would have with it is the fact that it claims to be professional work instead of merely educational examples like most books. I’ve always found its better to learn with "real" examples, so while I don’t know how good the film would do they are excellent learning tools.

Poor Animation Quality

Kennedy’s book teaches some basics but the quality of his results leaves alot to be desired. It makes you wonder why he would slam the incredible 3D done in Final Fantasy when he isn’t even in the same league and probably never will be. The illustrations and textual layout are not as clear as they should be. If you want to learn the basics, you can get something from this book. However, a good book shows you how to get good results. The results he achieves in this book are subpar.

Many other books do far better.

Not recommended.

Bessere Bücher auf dem Markt

Es findet sich der ein oder andere interessante Tip in diesem Buch, aber alles in allem ist es ein ziemlich oberflächlicher Einblick in die Materie, der einem hier geboten wird. Wenn man sich Kennedies Modelle anschaut, kann man sich kaum vorstellen, dass diese den Standarts der Industrie entsprechen. Das Kapitel über Texturieren ist geradezu lächerlich. Wer einmal einen Charakter, besonders den Kopf, versucht hat zu texturieren, weiss, das da etwas mehr dazu gehört als ein bisschen Gizmos verschieben.
Sein "Hollywood Animation Feature Film", dessen Entstehung er beschreibt, wird wohl auch nur auf seinem Schreibtisch und in seinem Unterricht eine Rolle spielen.
Hier wird versucht, mit einem Hype Geld zu verdienen.

Worst looking renders I’ve seen in a published tome

I’m stunned that the author claims to have success in this industry given the absolutely horrible work he passes off as being professional in quality. I’m very serious that I have not seen such poor quality in ANY other book. I teach 3D and have seen much better work from novice students. My only conclusion is that the author completely lacks the capacity to be self-critical of his own work given that he obviously believes his film-in-progress merits serious consideration. Do not be misled into thinking that any of the work shown in this book would be acceptable commercially.

Terrible Book

This book misses a lot of what it teaches by not including much of what you see in the book (models, etc....), I agree with most of the other reviews here, I have this book that is why I do not recommend it, better get the book by Barrett Fox on 3DSMax6 on how to complete an animation project. That is a great book.

I learned so much from this book

This book was indespensible for me. I didn’t have a handle on this material before I picked up Mr. Kennedy’s book but his clear teaching style really helped me through it. All the tutorials and animations were very helpful and related directly to the text. I was pretty pessimistic that I could get a solid handle on this software before I bought the book, but now I am feeling pretty good about it. I would reccommend the book highly.

Terrible

When i saw the firt pictures of this book, I was totaly chocked.. After 2 years using 3ds max, I was able to do much beter than Mr kennedy.. The rendering and the effects in the book are totaly ridiculous..

Even the cover has no connection with the book.. verry bad.

Last thing, the web site is full of error and never updated.

Please buy another book ! Like 3ds max 6 by Barrett Fox..

Appalling...

This is appalling, the models are terrible, the animation amateurish, and the texturing ugly (horrible misuse of procedural textures). Avoid if you can, there are many fine books on Max, this is NOT one of them.

This book is terrible

Sanford Kennedy may be a 3ds max whizz but the quality of the animation and modelling is just dreadful. When I buy a book like this I expect to learn something. It just isn’t worthwhile and doesn’t deliver on its promises. Everything about this book is shoddy.

This book is terrible

Sanford Kennedy may be a 3ds max whizz but the quality of the animation and modelling is just dreadful. When I buy a book like this I expect to learn something. It just isn’t worthwhile and doesn’t deliver on its promises. Everything about this book is shoddy.

Shockingly bad...

Well, this is quite simply shocking. The quality of work produced in this book is appalling. The modelling is amateurish, the animation is terrible, and the texturing of the models is non-existent. How this can claim to be an "intermediate to advanced" book is beyond me.

Stay clear of it at all costs!

Shockingly bad...

Well, this is quite simply shocking. The quality of work produced in this book is appalling. The modelling is amateurish, the animation is terrible, and the texturing of the models is non-existent. How this can claim to be an "intermediate to advanced" book is beyond me.

Stay clear of it at all costs!

3D studio max 6

This book has many tutorials that are reasonably easy to follow, but some experience will help. As the title says, it deals more with the animation and effects, than basic modelling. The CD that accompanies the book contains extra tutorial resources, with images, models and video clips.

This isn’t a book for beginners, but is a good reference for more advanced users.

3D studio max 6

This book has many tutorials that are reasonably easy to follow, but some experience will help. As the title says, it deals more with the animation and effects, than basic modelling. The CD that accompanies the book contains extra tutorial resources, with images, models and video clips.

This isn’t a book for beginners, but is a good reference for more advanced users.