3D Graphics Tutorial Collection (Graphics Series)

One of the best ways to learn a tool is to look over the shoulder of someone using it. In 3D Graphics Tutorial Collection, you get to watch a variety of artists use a variety of applications. This book is full of tutorials for the 3D artist on how to use tools ranging from low-priced applications like Bryce and Poser to Alias|Wavefront's Maya, and everything in between. The tutorials are written by users in the field, and each one offers insight and tips won from hands-on experience. You get lessons in Photoshop to create pseudo-3D images, in Illustrator to create patterns using text, and in 3D Studio Max for modeling a talking head and learning the basics of animation using Maya.

The good news is that some of the techniques taught using one application can be applied to most others. The bad news is that the diversity of the book is both its strength and its weakness. By spanning such a broad range of applications, there isn't enough on any one of them. Covering everything from the long-discontinued consumer-level app Ray Dream Studio to the current professional-level Maya application, 3D Graphics Tutorial Collection attempts to appeal to the widest possible audience. It succeeds in showing new users how projects are done in a variety of applications without their having to buy all those apps. But for a professional artist, it works out to be fairly expensive. Most professionals in the field use one program about 90 percent of the time and rely on a handful of supporting applications for the rest of the work. A book that offers only one or two tutorials on the program used the most is hardly a bargain. To add insult to injury, the accompanying CD-ROM includes a free working version of Amapi 4.1, but the book itself doesn't have an Amapi tutorial.

If you're brand-new to the world of 3D modeling and haven't yet settled on which application to use, 3D Graphics Tutorial Collection will give you a peek into the workings of many. It presents the kind of overview that's not readily available from most books or magazines. --Mike Caputo