3DS Max 5 for Windows

• Award-winning artist and teacher, Michele Matossian, covers all 3ds max 5's new features, including streamlined interface and expanded scripting options.
• Popular format functions as a tool for learning 3D modeling, animation, and rendering, and as a handy reference.
• The most affordable, comprehensive book onguide to 3ds max 5 on the market.

SUMMARY:With 3ds max 5, illustrators, animators, game designers, and special effects designers can create and animate dazzling, highly realistic 3-D graphics such as those seen in summer blockbusters like Minority Report and Spider-Man and in scientific and medical publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine. That's one reason so many art schools offer 3ds max training to aspiring professionals. The complex interface and powerful technology underlying 3-D animation and modeling software can be intimidating to newcomers, but the 3ds max 5 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide breaks the process down into manageable tasks to remove the fear factor. The amply illustrated, task-based format also makes the book an invaluable reference for experienced users upgrading to the new version. This is an efficient but authoritative guide, fully updated by master teacher and illustrator Michele Matossian. After a thorough introduction to the program's interface, navigation, and display tools, Matossian gets to the real heart of this QuickStart Guide: modeling and transforming objects, surface mapping, 3-D rendering and animations. She covers all of the program's new features, including enhanced characteranimation, the Active Shade interactive renderer, improved UV mapping tools, advanced lighting and shadows, and more, and presents them in the straightforward, well-paced style that characterizes the Visual QuickStart Guide series. This book is essential for anybody wanting to gain or enhance professional skills in 3ds max 5.

AUTHOR:Michele Matossian, MFA, is an award-winning artist with more than 10 years of college teaching experience. Her work has appeared in games, galleries, Web sites, magazine ads, and medical and scientific education CD-ROMs. The founder of Lightweaver Communications, Michele provides e-learning consulting services to corporations and education institutions.

AUDIENCE:Beginning to intermediate 3ds max 5 users and experienced 3-D designers looking for a quick reference to all of the new features in this industry-standard animation and modeling program.