How to Cheat in 3ds Max 2010: Get Spectacular Results Fast

Need to get results with 3ds max fast? Why take months to learn every button in 3ds max when you can create great visuals with just a few key tools? Learn to create quick yet stunning special effects, and animated characters with the fastest techniques possible. Need convincing grass, trees, water, shadows? You can use the memory-hogging methods that choke your display and take forever to render, or you can get it done bing-bang with this book. When you need an animated character you can spend days fiddling with polygons, or you can use this book to put it together in minutes and get the entire project done in a day. How to Cheat in 3ds max includes a host of time-saving techniques as well as little-known tools that will make you look like an expert in no time flat. This book is for busy professionals who need to get it done right, but also need it done fast. NEW to this edition will be higher-end cheats (for Intermediate users) geared towards greater realism in images, and game-centered cheats. The DVD includes scene files and bitmaps used to illustrate the cheats, also music files, organizational samples, and instructional Camtasia movies of Michele showing some of the trickier techniques.

Table of Contents:
UPDATES FOR THIS EDITION: High-end techniques: More cheats geared toward realism and games. --Game-centered cheats --Normal maps - Realistic bumps --Subsurface scattering - Realistic skin and marble --HDRI - Use of images in conjunction with lighting to make realistic lighting in scenes. This technique is tricky, but the results are astounding. --More on mental ray - Sky, Sun, portals --MAXScript basics and cheats --Hair/fur - both for hair/fur and grass/vegetation NEW DVD Content: Camtasia MOVIES where Michele will show some of the trickier techniques. All the techniques above - 5 or 6 movies Skinning - 2 movies Character animation - 3 movies Controllers - 2 movies ----------------------------------- Introduction 1 Modeling 2 Materials and mapping 3 Lighting 4 Shadows 5 Reflections 6 Glass 7 Animation 8 Character animation 9 Rendering 10 Logo treatments 11 Parameter wiring 12 Appendices: Challenges, CD files

About the Author :
Michele Bousquet is an Autodesk Certified Trainer who has been using 3ds Max since its first release. She has worked as a Senior Technical Writer for Autodesk and has authored more than 20 books on 3ds Max. Michele is currently the Director of Marketing at TurboSquid.com, the largest online marketplace for stock 3D models in the known universe. TurboSquid and Michele were recently featured on CNN's Anderson Cooper's 360 Blog.

Review :
Praise for current version: Max 2009: 'My first impression was "WOW!" and my second impression was "This is what reference material should look like!" The balance between illustration and text is just right for visual people - 3D artists will love it.' - Borislav "Bobo" Petrov, Technical Director of Visual Effects at Frantic Films 'The most visually interactive training tool ever for 3ds MAX. It is visually engaging and sets a new standard for understanding complex concepts. Michele Bousquet Rocks!' - Richard Lapidus, Assistant Professor, 3D Animation, Mechanical Design and Drafting/CAD 'Best tricks of the trade, deliciously illustrated. Michelle reveals the secrets behind the magic of using 3ds Max. Move over David Blaine.' - Mark Gerhard, 3ds Max Guru 'I found this book to be thoroughly readable and filled with time saving ideas. It's well organized and clearly written. There's lots of information in each section and the abundance of pictures makes it easy to follow. I know this book will soon become a well used and dog-eared reference in my classroom. It's filled with just the type of information my students need every single day. Each topic is covered in a single two-page spread so it's easy to read and quick to put into practice.' - Pat Gombarcik, Autodesk Certified Instructor " The easiest book to read of the two books being reviewed. The writing style is personal and direct. The author clearly knows 3ds Max backwards and forwards and shares personal methods (the "cheats") for creating instant results in modeling, mapping, lighting, rendering and many other subjects of interest to 3ds Max 2011 users."This book also contains one of the best simple introductions to 3ds Max for a beginner that I've ever read (or seen on video). The no-nonsense approach of the author focuses on practical use of the program and steers away from overly-technical descriptions and processes. Organized much like the workflow of a typical CG project, where you start with the basics of modeling, create textures, light and animate a scene, ending with rendering and special effects. There are 11 well-organized chapters with profuse COLOR (yay!) illustrations that make it very easy to follow a particular lesson. The author has a great sense of humor and I found myself laughing several times as I was working through a project, which helped keep my frustration level low (mostly with myself for clicking the wrong object)."This updated version of Michele's previous How to Cheat in 3ds Max 2010, is a superb example of how to write a technical book in a non-technical fashion. She makes learning important aspects of this powerful program a lot of fun. Her attention to detail is impressive, too. There's even a nice list of all files mentioned in the book (with page numbers) for folks who want to scour the book's website looking for interesting files and then find them in the book. The website is simple, but contains almost all of the starter scenes, maps, final scenes and animations provided by the author. You can also check out the full table of contents/chapter list at the site."I highly recommend this book for beginning to intermediate users. You'll not only get a great series of practical "cheats" for 3ds Max 2011, but you'll have fun while you learn. And congratulations to Focal Press for producing such a well-designed and attractive, not to mention, reasonably priced book."--so glowingly reviewed on Renderosity.com that I am reproducing it in its entirety here