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The LightWave Tutorial Review of Inside LightWave 8 by Dan Ablan

 

Product Name : Inside LightWave [8]
Author : Dan Ablan
Publisher : New Riders Publishing

Cost : US $59.99, $86.99 Canadian
(Cost is as of October 2004 - prices subject to change)
Media Type :
Black and White printed book with a DVD.
Target Audience :
Beginner to Intermediate (Definite focus on the beginner though).
Size : 946 Pages including the Index (922 without).
       
Index   Quick Start - This first chapter dives head on into the world of animation and modelling by having the reader model a butterfly and then animate it and render out the animation.
3D Animation Basics -
This chapter teaches the basics of how 3D works and how to set up a proper content directory.
Modeler -
A brief overview of the Modeler interface and an introduction to some of the most used tools.
Layout -
A brief overview of the Layout interface and an introduction to some of the most used tools.
Lighting -
A brief introduction into lighting.
Textures -
A brief introduction into basic texturing. You texture a watch and a create a surface from an image map.
Cinematic Tools - 
Introductions on the use of the camera and things like depth of field and motion blur.
Simple Modeling and Animation
- Create a flying logo scene from modelling the pieces to lighting and animating.
Modeling Quadrupedal Characters -
An excellent chapter on how to model a cartoon giraffe easily and quickly using only basic tools with subdivision modelling.
Modeling Electronics -
A tutorial on creating a cell phone using a variety of techniques.
Modeling Vehicles
- A tutorial on building a corvette using a variety of techniques.
More Character Modeling
- A tutorial on creating the character that shows up on the cover on the book using splines and patching. Texturing is handled by videos from the DVD.
Enhanced Textures and Environments -
Tutorials on basic UV mapping and an examination of an already textured hallway scene..
Bones and Rigging -
This chapter tutors the reader into setting up a basic bone hierarchy including weight maps and the use of skelegons.  
Animating Characters - 
An introduction to character animation.
Particle Dynamics -
This chapter introduces particles by creating water pouring from a tap.  
Hard and Soft Body Dynamics -
An introduction into hard dynamics sets up a scene where a ball rolls down and slide and then the slide blows up!  Pillows and a jiggly belly on a character introduce the reader to soft body dynamics.
Cloth Dynamics -
How to use cloth dynamics to move a skirt around.
Compositing and Match Moving -
A tutorial that composites a car onto an image of a street.  The match moving tutorials are on the DVD in video format.
Rendering and Screamernet -
A substantial tutorial on setting up your own render farm with Screamernet.

Appendices and the DVD - TONS of stuff here.  The appendices give you several useful charts and other information and the DVD is just packed with all kinds of goodies from royalty free models to extra video tutorials, a few plugins, and all the supporting images and files for the book.

 

 
Review   First let me say that this book is huge!  At over 900 pages of content this is practically as thick as the LightWave manual.  The DVD is also packed with a lot of stuff, so much so in fact that it has practically as much information as the book does so be sure to explore the DVD.  I highly recommend that you view the images of the book from the DVD as you read the chapters.  The images on the DVD are in colour and are much clearer than the greyscale images in the book.  I also recommend that you read the book with the LightWave manual next to you for reference.  Often the author moves quickly through various aspects and you might want to refer to the manual to get further information.

This book, despite it's size, is just an introduction into the various aspects of LightWave so don't expect to be setting up huge complex scenes.  At first some of the chapters seem all too brief but here is where the DVD comes into play.  As you go through each chapter in the book refer to the DVD for added video tutorials which really help to fill in some of the gaps.  In fact I really like the video tutorials, it feels like the author is sitting right next to you explaining how to do things. The video quality is excellent but the audio quality can sound a little tinny at times but never seems to distract from the videos at all.

The book does not have many errors either.  Sometimes tutorials are not fully proofed before going to the printer and errors in a tutorial can be very frustrating for the reader.  I found the most errors in the watch texturing tutorial in chapter 7.  Wrong surface names are referred to in some cases and some steps accidentally omitted that for a beginner would leave them scratching their heads.  Luckily, the reader has an outlet to question the steps of these tutorials by going to the forums that Dan Ablan has setup for this sort of thing.  Unfortunately the book doesn't make note of these forums so here is the address in case you are interested. http://www.lwg3d.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=386 

The book seems to cover just about everything in LightWave that a beginner should know, the language used in the book is easy to read and the explanations are well presented.  The videos are also well presented and fun to watch with lots of cool stuff in them.  In fact if a chapter seems to barely cover a topic start going through the videos and you will discover a wealth of information.  In one video the author notes that the DVD is getting too packed with stuff so he points you to the www.3dgarage.com  website where you can find more tutorials.

There are very few things that I disliked about the book.  I found that the tutorials get you started but don't really finish things off but then this forces the reader to start experimenting so perhaps this isn't such a bad thing.  I thought that perhaps more could have been written on texturing although there is more information on texturing in some of the videos.  We never get to texture the giraffe and although we create a rig for the model we don't ever get to animate it.  To be honest though these are getting a bit nit picky on my part.  The book is big enough and to add more would probably require another book.  As a general introduction to the various aspects of LightWave I think this book/DVD combo hits the mark well.  A beginner cannot go wrong getting this book.

 

 
Value   The book is huge with lots of information.  The DVD is packed with tutorials and lots of other stuff as well.  More video tutorials from the author are on his website as well. You can ask the author questions about the book over on the forum.  All this for $60 US.  Great value for the money!  
       
Final Score   Highly Recommended for Beginners.  This book will get you going right off the start and covers a lot of cool stuff.   Intermediate users will find the Screamernet tutorial very useful and will help get you started in areas of LightWave that you haven't explored yet.

A

       
Final Words   If you have just started in LightWave this should be the first book you get.  
       

 

   
 
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