Introducing 3ds Max 9

Introducing 3ds Max 2008 breaks down the complexities of 3D modeling, texturing, animating, and visual effects. You'll jump right into the 3ds Max pipelinefrom preproduction through postproductionwith clear-cut explanations, tutorials, and hands-on projects to build your skills. A special color insert includes real-world examples from talented 3ds Max beginners. From immediately creating your first animation to mastering poly modeling techniques and lighting final renders, you'll get a solid grounding in 3ds Max 2008. Build the knowledge you need for game, film, and TV production. Includes a companion CD....

Realize your vision with stunning renders of your 3ds Max projects that can only be achieved with a powerful engine like mental ray. Beginning with a concise review of the essential concepts, you proceed to step-by-step tutorials that teach you how to render scenes with indirect light or with specific effects, such as depth of field and motion blur. Contour line shading and various other mental ray features are presented in detail, then you learn how to use the different light types of 3ds Max inside mental ray and how to use mental ray's own specific area lights and its new daylight system. Finally, the book reviews mental ray-specific materials and what effects can be obtained by using most of the specific mental ray shaders....

Although 3ds Max is highly popular, there is currently a lack of thorough, instructional material specific to game art development. Beginning Game Art in 3ds Max 8 will teach by example, showing how to create art that could be used in a real game and explaining why it needs to be created in a specific way. It will include many step-by-step exercises enabling readers to practice what they are learning along the way. After learning the fundamentals of 3ds Max 8, readers will cover everything from building game objects, worlds, and characters, to rigging characters and animating for games....