3ds Max Modeling for Games: Insider's Guide to Game Character, Vehicle, and Environment Modeling

Before I begin, just want to get out of the way that I didn't "Dislike" this book.TL;DR available at the bottom of my review.I purchased this book as a required reading for a college course.The book was well written and a hands on tutorial for learning how to use "3ds max".It was easy to read and figure out what did what, as it walks you through everything you need to learn by having you follow along with a step by step project. You learn the various aspects of 3ds max as you go through this project and it teaches you new techniques and tools along the way as needed.So, for anyone hoping to hop into 3ds max and learn how to use it and has the time to follow along with its projects, I recommend this book. You can go at your own pace and gradually learn without being overloaded with too much information at once. Its perfect for that.Unfortunately for me, this is not the kind of book I needed for a 8 week online college class. I had projects in the class that required more tools and features to be utilized at any particular time than what the book was organized to do. This book wants you to gradually learn 3ds max in a way that has the knowledge stick around after you finish the book. You're meant to follow the projects illustrated in the book, which was very counter productive to what I needed for my class. I needed to know specific tools and how they operated, which was a chore to do in this books format. For someone who was relatively familiar with 3ds max and wanted specific tools and utility feature walkthroughs, this book was not helpful and made things very difficult for me. I eventually gave up using the book entirely and resorted to seeking out online tutorials.Now, I'm critical, but I am fair. This book was clearly intended for someone to learn 3ds max on their own time, not someone who had a weekly deadline to learn how to use these tools and make separate projects from the ones presented in the book.Its ironic, because I could have easily just bought this book and learned 3dsmax at my own pace and not have had to take the class.I give this four stars, it was a good book for what its advertised to do, it teaches you how to use 3ds max quite well actually. Sadly, I can't give it five stars because this book was not helpful to a college student with weekly deadlines and projects to work on that this book was not able to support with how it was written. That's not the book's fault, so, I won't unfairly give it a low rating that it doesn't deserve.The bottom line?TL;DR: Great book for learning how to use 3ds max on your own time, highly recommended. However, if you're taking a college course in 3ds max, or you have project deadlines, you're better off using online tutorials and not buying this book.

If you’re working with 3ds Max, or even similar packages, I think this book holds some insight. I’ve tried a few different modeling packages, but somehow Max just seemed to click better for me. Maybe it’s because it was the first one I started learning with, or maybe it’s popular for a reason. Not sure, but I think it’s a very capable product (especially for game development). 3ds Max Modeling for Games shows you how to do some basic (and not so basic) modeling tasks in the app. I found the instruction to be detailed and clear, though at times it can be very specific to the package.So what does Andrew Gahan show you here? Well, he goes through some basics of working with the 3ds Max interface, terminology for game art, and texturing. Then he shows how to create, unwrap, and texture a simple model. Creating a more complex model (sort of a floor sweeper thing), vegetation and alpha maps, a low-poly vehicle, normal mapping techniques, an entire 3D environment, and finally a high and low poly character. Quite a good assortment of chapters and each one was fully fleshed out.I did appreciate that the author goes through each step, even simple stuff other books may gloss over. In some cases, as I started reading I was questioning the method he was using, but eventually he made it work. While the text is very focused on the one specific application, I do think that artists (or aspiring artists) could glean knowledge from the techniques and apply them to other packages. However, this would not be the first book I went to if I was using Maya or whatever.Overall I feel like I learned a couple neat tricks, and after reading the book I feel a little more confident in my modeling skills. Will really need to put this to the test soon, as I’ve been dying to create some nice art to work with building graphic demos and whatnot. Looking at programmer art all day is just not as motivating. I have plans of creating a realistic-style apartment, and I think it’s something reasonable to get finished. Down the road, I’d love to do a full character, but I’ve always struggled with this in the past. At least now that I’ve switched to Unreal, I can free up some of my effort to focus on art since I know the engine will support whatever I throw in there (and make it look good!). Looking forward to checking the Volume II in the series shortly.

I took an intro course to 3ds Max 3 2 years ago and since that time learned Softimage. I decided to return to 3ds Max and actually went through an Autodesk 3ds Max Design Essentials book before tackling this one.Even with my 3D background, this book is frustrating and difficult to read. The text is mashed together in huge paragraphs that reference figures on pages you have to turn to see. One or two I can understand, but considering you are following this book and navigating 3ds Max simultaneously, it really makes the process difficult. Not to mention the author skips steps or takes liberties when telling you the instructions. I want you to compare the formatting with this book "Learning Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010: Essentials" to see how a good layout should look.The projects in the book are diverse enough and you can learn a lot after you get through the poor layout. There are just a lot of ambiguous steps that might delay you for a while so save multiple versions of your projects. I know there is a volume 2 but I am not motivated to buy it because the extra content will be more frustrating to read and a lot of it is not relating to 3ds Max.

When I got this book I had high hopes. Because taken at face value, it looks pretty promising as it's full of colour pictures, it was written by a Briton, which isn't the case with most of these 3D books, and it appeared to be well laid out. But...and this is a BIG but...after starting to read it I quickly saw it's limitations. As others have pointed out, the author has not included important steps and information which will hinder anyone without prior knowledge of the software from finishing the tutorials. This is especially evident with chapter 3, when trying to texture the Floor Buffer that you have to build, the book does not tell you how to properly lay out the image maps after you UV Unwrap them. Someone mentioned about doing digging and using free videos from a certain website (You know the one) along with the book. BUT...doing so, will only highlight the flaws of this book even more. As often, the free videos will show the viewer ALL the steps neccesary to complete building models - And you can even message the person who put up the video with your queries. So why bother with this book? Don't!I noticed that the forum which supposedly supports this book, has messages on it which are 3 years old!

I felt some details were remiss but if followed from cover-to-cover, by each tutorial one will have developed enough understanding to fill in most details in future.You'll get plenty of insight of how things work and how one should approach creating assets, etc.Beginning with a basic tutorial, leading onto more advanced techniques such as normal mapping;by the end you should feel entirely more confident to attempt your own endeavours. Mind you, since it is a book, it lacks the nuances that only a video tutorial can illuminate.Either way, recommended for novices and elites (transfering or focusing their skill in an established manner, elites know that there are almost inifinite ways to achieve the same things from bad to excellent, from my experience, the book's techniques are excellent).Good book, good supporting material (although my 3DS max 2010 could not open the given files so be warned).Well written, clear and as concise as a possible.

First off, there IS stuff missing and this is clearly a book that's aimed at people who know the absolute basics of 3DS Max.Never used 3DS Max before? Go follow some tutorials on YouTube or 3D-sphere.com and check back when you're comfortable with the interface and hotkeys.Secondly, the people saying "the website doesn't work" - check here:[...](First result off Google.)The missing files can be downloaded off their forums.If you have a problem with any of the steps/instructions in the book... chances are, someone on their forums has had the same problems too and has posted about it.TL;DR The forums will save you a lot of headaches.It's not a cheap book, but there's some good tutorials + information in there... if you're willing to give it time.

fast delivery and good quality

good book