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


Brian Smith
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My book arrived this morning - how excited am I? I take back what I said about the postage - it was wrapped up safe and sound, and took less than a week. Fantastic. Cant wait to wipe away all my bad habits! Thanks again Brian!

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My book arrived this morning - how excited am I? I take back what I said about the postage - it was wrapped up safe and sound, and took less than a week. Fantastic. Cant wait to wipe away all my bad habits! Thanks again Brian!

 

Thanks for the comments.

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Wait - you got the 2nd book?!?!?

 

Hmm....

 

We're both in Australia....

 

Need to check with my local Postie

 

he got the beg to int one. the second one is enroute right now from the printer...frigin finally. they sent me an unbound copy last week and I can finally sleep because it rocks. they nailed the print perfectly.

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ah ha. Cool. Thanks for that. The last email I got from you was saying it was going to take a little longer - which is fine. I'm very stoked and I've pimped your book to everyone in my ArchViz class.

 

it has taken longer than the june 16th date...the hardest part dealing with a chinese printer makes for tough communications and i couldn't get a firm answer about the shipping, but boy they sure do make high quality great books. they told me that because i was a few days late getting the final few pages to them they bumped my book for some 10,000 run cookbook. i was really peeved til i saw the book printed they sent last week. now i'm stoked too.

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I suppose there's millions of things.

 

I'd like to see some in depth work on animation techniques ( not character animation ) including the track views e.g. the dope sheet, curve editor, motion mixer, and how to get optimum performance out of vray when animating etc. These subjects seem to to be bypassed in most books or only touched on lightly, and how's about a piece on Combustion

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Particle systems - they're very powerful tools. I've seen a lot of tutorials online that range from using particle systems for smoke, running water, falling water, populating areas or volumes with objects (like vegetation/stadium seats/etc.), just to name a few. In general I avoid trying to use them, because they seem very complicated. It would be nice to have it explained from an arch-viz point of view. Thanks.

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Particles would be great for water features, rivers, grass, clouds...

 

Alan McKay (an Aussie) has some great tutorials, as does Pete Draper's Deconstructing the Elements.

 

Particles might be 'too involved', but maybe a chapter or 3 with specific examples.

i.e. "Particles as a water fountain..."

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Guest nazcaLine

if you include a topic in how to solve flickering in vray animations with huge number of trees, i'll buy it immediately. (i bought your first book)

this issue just drive me nuts

Eduardo

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Now that I give it a little more thought. With the way things are going with prepass, it might be a good idea to add a chapter on rigging meshes and using mocap data in your intermediate book, assuming its not in there already, and then get into the motion mixer in the advanced book. Or maybe just put all of that in the advanced book, it would seem odd to address the mocap motion mixer and not the previous steps.

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Now that I give it a little more thought. With the way things are going with prepass, it might be a good idea to add a chapter on rigging meshes and using mocap data in your intermediate book, assuming its not in there already, and then get into the motion mixer in the advanced book. Or maybe just put all of that in the advanced book, it would seem odd to address the mocap motion mixer and not the previous steps.

 

yeah this one definitely. lots of good suggestions. going to have to compile a list.

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Apologies if this has been covered in the previous 2 books, or mentioned in this thread somewhere, but the one thing that comes to mind that might be handy could be some tips on producing large scale animations - i.e modeling and creating a scene with the network rendering process in mind.

 

I mention because after years of late nights and bumping into unexpected issues at the last minute on a large scale animation, it might be of use to highlight the need to keep the whole job in mind from start to finish. If any of that makes sense....

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  • 1 month later...

After going through the modeling portion of the 2nd book I realize I still don't know how to model a wall with a gable. Using your loft technique is great for flat topped walls but what about gabled walls? Gabled roofs? The trim around these walls/roofs. I haven't read the 1st book.

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After going through the modeling portion of the 2nd book I realize I still don't know how to model a wall with a gable. Using your loft technique is great for flat topped walls but what about gabled walls? Gabled roofs? The trim around these walls/roofs. I haven't read the 1st book.

 

it's mentioned in the 1st book, but all that you need to do is add a vertex along the path at the point that the wall is supposed to increase in height. you can then apply multiple shapes to the same path (as discussed in book 1), create a separate loft for that portion of the wall that changes height, or use the edit poly modifier to place the vertices at the top of the wall at the correct height.

 

as far as trim, that's included in the lofting exercises in the 2nd book. you can include the fascia and soffit in your shape so that they are created along with the wall itself.

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it's mentioned in the 1st book...

 

Just bought the first book. Question though. How does adding more shapes to different points on the loft path enable me to make the gable? Do I change the z depth of the point on the loft path that is at the top of the gable before or after I do the loft or does it matter? Either way, when I do that the trim doesn't look right. Is this all covered in the first book in depth?

 

I know about lofting the trim with the wall but it does not come out right for a gabled wall. Do I have to do the trim and the wall separate for a gabled wall? Hope my questions are answered when I get the first book.

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Just bought the first book. Question though. How does adding more shapes to different points on the loft path enable me to make the gable? Do I change the z depth of the point on the loft path that is at the top of the gable before or after I do the loft or does it matter? Either way, when I do that the trim doesn't look right. Is this all covered in the first book in depth?

 

I know about lofting the trim with the wall but it does not come out right for a gabled wall. Do I have to do the trim and the wall separate for a gabled wall? Hope my questions are answered when I get the first book.

 

See attached Max file. It shows the use of 2 shapes for the same loft...both of which incorporate fascia and soffit.

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Brilliant! :) You are truly a professional. Not many people would have taken the time to give an example like that.

 

thanks. btw, we are starting a private forum here on CGA for readers of the books beginning on Aug 25th.

 

you'll be getting an email about this over the weekend since you just got one of the books.

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