| Okay,
first I'm going to tell what this book is
Not! It is not a book filled with chapters
and chapters of tutorials telling you to press
this button and input that number. It is
also not a book that describes in detail any
particular type of methodology in using LightWave.
It is not step by step, in fact, it is not really
a book of tutorials at all!
So what is it
then? This is a book of of tips and
tricks. Each tip takes up less than a single
page and many are only half a page or shorter. The
book is printed in full colour so that screen
shots show up clearly and are easily readable for
each tip. This book is, as the cover says, a
collection of cool tips and hidden secrets for
LightWave users.
Are the tips cool
and of any use? Well, simply put, you
bet! Now this may depend on how long you've
used the program and whether or not you read the
entire manual each time a new revision of the
program comes out and actually memorize all the
little things in LightWave that can save you
time. As LightWave grows and becomes more
complicated to use it gets harder and harder to
learn all the little hidden things that have been
built in.
This book isn't
really geared to the complete beginner who has
just opened the box and fired up LightWave for the
first time. Rather it is more useful for
someone who already knows the interface but has
gotten stuck in "the old way" of doing
things. I must admit that I'm a bit like
this myself - you know like when you are so used
to doing something a particular way and you just
get too busy to learn all the new bells and
whistles in the latest revision of the
program. Sure you take the time to learn the
newest greatest thing if it's going to help you do
something that you couldn't do before like
particles or dynamics, for instance, but do you
always take the time to peek into every little
corner of the program to see what's there.
Sometimes it is time well spent, sometimes it is
just time taken out of you day and possibly
even ending in frustration. Here is the book
that helps take the frustration away and quickly
points you in the right direction.
The book is a very
easy read. You don't even have to read it in
a linear fashion, just open the book read the two
minute tip at hand and away you go! Often I
found myself thinking, "hey, I didn't know
you could do that", or thinking "now
that is a cool little tip". Sometimes I
already knew the tip and could say to myself
"heh, I knew that but I guess a lot of others
don't". It's amazing how you can work a
particular way and already know a little trick but
when someone else sees you using the little trick
they go "hey, how did you do
that?". That is what this book is all
about. It's kind a of a treasure chest with
all kinds of good things inside.
This book may not
be for everyone, pros who use the program day in
and out may already know most of what is in here,
but then again maybe not. Complete beginners
to LightWave won't be far enough along the
learning curve to understand what the tips mean
but once the beginner begins to learn the
interface and has done a few things with the
program then the book is perfect to start honing
and refining the skills. It is great way to get
introduced to some of the newest features, bells
and whistles in version 8 though so you won't have
to read the manual, again. You did read the
manual at least once, right? All the way
through right? From beginning to end!
And of course, you read all the instructions on
the latest changes in version 8 of LightWave
right? Well if you didn't then this is the
book for you.
What I found
reading this book is that I would take a tip and
try it out in LightWave. My natural
curousity would then keep me going for sometimes
several hours as I played around and poked even
deeper to find the hidden treasures.
The price of the
book could be a little less expensive but seeing
as how I have an extensive printing background I
realize that part of the price you are paying for
is the full colour. Without the colour
though the diagrams would become muddy and
unreadable so the colour is well worth it.
Of course, I would
like to seen even more tips and tricks but I'll
take what I can get.
|
