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Possible Advanced to Expert Level Arch. Vis. Book for 3ds Max


Brian Smith
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i have not yet had the pleasure of owning any of ur books so i hope u don't mind me giving my thoghts on the subject.

Lwf and color managment is a must.some advanced Vray subject esp creating architectural materials .some down to earth practical examples on how to use the max Modeling tools in modeling complex stuff(eg Louis 14 furniture, modeling realistic Plants ...)

compositing in Ps with render elements is something i am aking to see (the more detailed the better)

setting render farms for small buisness or even at home.

managment of projects (how to set folders,gather resources and collaborate...)

i will get the second book cause it's labelled itrmediate to advanced and if ur third book is advanced it sure will be worth having but at 120 $ inc shiping to lebanon ( i think my wife will think i went nuts and kick me out LOL)

Anyway Brian i hope we will see a 3rd, 4th and so on Keep up the good work and God bless u.

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i have not yet had the pleasure of owning any of ur books so i hope u don't mind me giving my thoghts on the subject.

Lwf and color managment is a must.some advanced Vray subject esp creating architectural materials .some down to earth practical examples on how to use the max Modeling tools in modeling complex stuff(eg Louis 14 furniture, modeling realistic Plants ...)

compositing in Ps with render elements is something i am aking to see (the more detailed the better)

setting render farms for small buisness or even at home.

managment of projects (how to set folders,gather resources and collaborate...)

i will get the second book cause it's labelled itrmediate to advanced and if ur third book is advanced it sure will be worth having but at 120 $ inc shiping to lebanon ( i think my wife will think i went nuts and kick me out LOL)

Anyway Brian i hope we will see a 3rd, 4th and so on Keep up the good work and God bless u.

 

all of your suggestions are in the 2nd book....they really intermediate things :D

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Well I dont know how ebay can do it, but I just went to the FedEx website and got a quote on a 1in x 1in x 1in package weighing 2 lbs from the U.S. to Austrailia. Regardless of the cities selected, it returned a quote of $97. I'm sure ebay has ways around this, but I certainly don't.

 

Hi

 

Have you ever considered having a downloadable version or even on disk....must admit I prefer having something I can flip through. But I agree the shipping costs could be a barrier to ordering copies especially since stuff like this always ends up coming out of my pocket and not the company I work for....end of sob story. (sorry Iam a yorkshireman...we are cheap)

Edited by PAWUK
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Hi

 

Have you ever considered having a downloadable version or even on disk....must admit I prefer having something I can flip through. But I agree the shipping costs could be a barrier to ordering copies especially since stuff like this always ends up coming out of my pocket and not the company I work for....end of sob story. (sorry Iam a yorkshireman...we are cheap)

 

We won't ever release a downloadable version because it will kill sales. When the first book was published, I pleaded with the publisher not to create an ebook. They did it anyway and immediately after, sales were sharply down. That's one of the reasons we self-published this time around...to have full control of sales. It's very likely we'll never recover printing costs as is, but if we made an ebook, there would be no chance. End of my sob story :D

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We won't ever release a downloadable version because it will kill sales. When the first book was published, I pleaded with the publisher not to create an ebook. They did it anyway and immediately after, sales were sharply down. That's one of the reasons we self-published this time around...to have full control of sales. It's very likely we'll never recover printing costs as is, but if we made an ebook, there would be no chance. End of my sob story :D

 

Fair point will buy as soon as I can...and hopefully the next

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rendering in passes and compositing in AE or Combustion for high def.

 

handling high poly scenes: hardware and workflow issues.

 

convincing vegetation in large outdoor scenes (especially semi-urbanscenes)

 

scripting

 

I think some issues that would be addressed in the 'non-advanced' books should still be addressed in the 'expert' book, but the user should gain more under the hood knowledge.

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effective animation techniques (how to get away from the one, long animation path), music and final authering. I realise these arn't max specific, but it makes the difference between amature and proffesional.

 

Colour theory in lighting. how to instill emotion through colour and light.

 

materials and shaders, how to get away from the dime -a dozen downloaded shaders and materials

 

jhv

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Hi Brian,

this is off topic a little, but have you ever had any plans to release a non-software specific version, just covering general theories and workflow? As I'm not a 3DS Max user the books haven't really appealed to me, but would love to get my hands on something like this!

Derek

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Hi Brian,

this is off topic a little, but have you ever had any plans to release a non-software specific version, just covering general theories and workflow? As I'm not a 3DS Max user the books haven't really appealed to me, but would love to get my hands on something like this!

Derek

 

yes i have but it takes sooooo long to put any kind of quality book together, that one will have to wait. nevertheless, i agree it would make for a great book.

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This might have been mentioned already as I didn't read all of the post.

 

I think covering "the mixer" for motion capture files would be a good one.

 

nice...i don't think that one would have crossed my mind

 

I am also loosing track of everything that has been suggested, but another advanced topic would be rendering elements, and how to re-compsite the raw channels in post to gain more control over your image.

 

that is in the second book...though it can be expanded a bit. i think i will have to cleanup this thread before too long with all the suggestions added to the 1st post

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Hi Brian,

 

I purchased your first book and now in the process of buying the other one. I was wondering if you can give techniques on modelling that seem pretty hard for some people. Like for instance can you look into making up tutorials for using reactor cloths etc.. I would really like to learn how to make realistic looking curtains that have a natural look with all of the folds and wrinkles. Other things I would want to see are using Post Programs like after affects and combustion, and LWF is a must.

 

Thanks for asking for our input and good luck with the book.

Edited by kjverine
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I think this book like this could find a top slot in my library.....however I have not used Max in years..(and hope I never use it again)..... Generic descriptions of methods would be appreciated.

 

D.B.

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I think the most important thing is to put in this book (Rendering big scenes with our PCes limitations),and how to render big animations with our personal computers,..thnx

 

that's actually covered heavily in the beginner to intermediate book and a little bit more in the int/adv book

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I bought both books back in January. I read the first book cover to cover in 2 weeks. While some things were basic (hence the name), even on things that I use every day I learned some new aspect of a rollout or somesuch.

 

I eagerly look forward to adding the 2nd book to my Active Reading list.

 

The 2nd book is the only book that I've pre-ordered this far out (6 months now) and that instead of growing frustrated or impatient, I am greatful for the crew at 3DATS for taking a pause, reacting to a very changing product (3DS), and actually choosing quality over marketing metrics and choosing to add more material and content to the book.

 

As far as customer service goes, they've kept me informed monthly with e-mails and progress reports, so I never feel that I'm groping in a dark room.

 

My hat is off to you guys.

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Experts want to know more about whats going on behind the settings.

 

Hopefully by now (now that you are an expert) you should already know how to model ect, but do you really know why things are done in a certain way? For me the "Click this, then this" type tutorial are useless as you never get to really learn the why's. Once you know those it is easier to adapt those workflows into real workflows for any situation.

 

I realise this maybe fairly obvious and problably you are already doing it.

 

Heres a wish specific for mentalray - How to write shaders and compile phenomnon (I cant even spell it, let alone create one :o), which is where alot of the true power of mentalray is.

 

jhv

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