This book teaches lighting theory and introduces the lighting tools in 3DS MAX. Coupled with numerous practical examples, this book will have a beginner lighting like a pro.

Lighting Techniques

Overall its a good book.But the author is explaining the physical qualities of light too much which sometimes confuses & may not be required that much.Because physical qualities of light is different from CG lighting.So there is no point of comparison explained randomly.Well this book gives you fair understanding of 3DMax lighting interface & some techniques for intermediate users in good detail.And it evokes in you a quest to study the lighting in reality first with the eye of an artist.Then try to implement in your Max scenes.Which i think is a very good approach.e.g I improved certain elements of my lighting scenes like source of light,intensity,interaction with materials.I would like to read any advance book as well written by Mr Nicholas.

What an Amazing Book!

I got through, maybe the first eighty pages before I realized that I hardly new anything about lighting. This author is the master. He understands and explains real light so well that any artist could walk away with a brand new understanding of how to light. I never new before how inadequate MAX lights are, and how much has to be done to make them work like real lights. Now I know. My lighting will always be better and I owe a debt of gratitude to the author.

A valuable resource

As a newcomer to 3DS Max, I was delighted to find this wonderful book to teach me about how to use lights properly. The author has written the book to give beginners a good grounding in lighting theory, and follows that with numerous examples of how to use lights to effectively light scenes.

I found the step-by-step approach very helpful in learning each and every parameter. I believe my lighting is much better now that I have read most of the book. I would highly recommend it to anyone wishing to learn lighting in 3DS Max

you can judge this book by its cover

This book is really not very good at all. Looking at the cover you can see the standard of lighting in the book is not going to be great. The examples consist largely of scenes constructed from primitive spheres and cubes and don’t go into any real depth...they are so far removed from real-world production problems that it is laughable. This is no surprise when you discover that the author has actually written a book on Lightwave lighting and though his production experience is fairly lengthy, these all seem to be Lightwave productions, as there is nothing within this book to suggest that the author’s knowledge of 3ds max is anything but cursory. I think that if the makers of 3ds max saw this book they would be very disappointed that a book is available that makes their great application look so very very bad.

High Quality 3ds max Resource

If you are already good at modeling and texturing, you really owe it to yourself, your models, and maps to pick this manual up and study it so that you can coax the most out of the many lighting options 3ds max gives you. You may say, well, I already know alot about 3ds max lighting. You may know enough to get by, but after you read this book, you will be doing more with 3ds max lighting than just getting by. This author will teach and give you alot of insight into how to properly manufacture different lighting situations. The majority of the book is of the ideals, practices, and methods you should employ while being concerned with lighting. There is not very much actual 3ds max lighting work or training, hence the 4 star rating, but the way in which this type of information is presented is probably the best choice for "understanding lighting for the long haul." The author takes the approach of explaining everything about light to you in detail, then essentially leaves it up to you how you proceed from there based on what you have learned about light, NOT JUST 3DS MAX LIGHT! I agree with this method. I would rather understand light, and in turn be able to apply that in 3ds max with much greater effect than just knowing what the 3ds max tools do, but not why they work the way they do. 2 different mindsets really, and I’ll bet that the student of light first, will produce higher quality overall results most of the time if not all of the time. This author writes very well, and I liked his book alot. The only reason I did not give it 5 stars is because although the included tutorials are reasonable and serve the purpose, perhaps at least one or two complex/advanced lighting effects, or exercises could have been included to really blast the reader off in the right direction and give the user a concrete notion of how to tap the lighting power. Even without this though, this book is worth your time. It will make a very noticable difference in renders, and will unlock the world of lighting to you. Maybe it would be nice to see this author offer other cg topics in the future!

I Can’t agree with Jonny

If you are looking for a book with nothing but "put a light here and here and here and render", then you will be disappointed by this book. The book clearly states that it is about learning the theory behind lighting so that artists will be able to tackle any lighting problem without a formula. If you want a "quick fix", yeah sure, this book isn’t for you, and you are probably a lazy artist. But if you want to learn real lighting, how real light works and how they differ from MAX and mental ray lights, if you are a serious artist who wants to really understand lighting, then this is a brilliant book.
As for the content being available on the web...who cares? Would I rather have to search all over the net for it, or have the author package it in one place for me? I found it convenient and thoughtful. I’m not sure what book Jonny read, but I don’t think it was this one.

what is it?

the book was not good. author deals with general concepts and examples are really silly, even images like Hdri is not included on the cd. you can get more help from reading a manual or internet. I bought this book because I wanted to do architectural rendering especially exterior and I thought I would find practical examples in a book. That’s not what happened, there was nothing new I did not know and examples with boxes and spheres are just a joke.
If you have a real job doing renderings you will be in a big trouble because book doesn’t touch that. Author seems like he doesn’t knows this stuff but doesn’t really get into specifics.
Author wrote a book for Lightwave so 3dsMax came naturally to write, how convenient. There was no quality example in a book that I could use and book is not cheap. It said that author worked on Stargate and other movies. Why didn’t author just give practical examples in a real environment? All examples are stupid and I can’t find it useful. All scripts in a book can be found on internet free anyway. I don’t think that title "3dsMax Lighting" is the right name, it just makes Max look not what it can do.