| Ian Mankowski January 30, 2002  Dan Ablan strikes a home run again with Inside LightWave 7, easily the definitive resource for LightWavers. And that's all you really need to know isn't it? If you need LightWave help, you need Inside LightWave 7.
However, since the boss man gives me dirty looks, we'll see about going a bit more in depth shall we? Like previous versions of Inside LightWave, version 7 is a very broad book, covering just about every single thing that LightWave ver. 7 can do. The result is a huge published mass that has more pages then the LightWave reference guide and weighs several pounds. The book is very easy to read with helpful annotations and tips clearly presented for your ease of use. In teaching the hundreds of concepts to the user, Dan uses an exercise based approach instead of a project based one. The result is simple, easy to follow concepts that don't get bogged down in the issues of the practical world, but similarly, don't have all the details and nuances of a practical project. The book is written with an emphasis on comprehension. Despite the simplicity of the exercises, my understanding of what was going on was greatly amplified and it was easy for me to transfer the knowledge to more complex projects. The CD is mainly a content CD for the exercises, as if you're going to be following the exercises, you'll need the tutorial files to complete them. However in addition to that, you'll find a ton of excellent textures of all sorts on the CD as well, nice medium resolution images from grass to houses to sci if deck plating that will help you in many a personal project. The free UV unwrapping utility is included also in all it's various platform incarnations. For those of you who don't actually own LightWave 7, a demo of the application is provided along with a demo of Poser 4 for those who may bin interested It's hard to say much more, because Dan covers everything, from modeling complex human heads to using expressions, hypervoxels, and motion mixer, if LightWave can do it, Dan covers it. It goes without saying that this is the definitive LightWave users guide out there. Between Inside LightWave 7 and the LightWave 7 Reference manual, you have the information to tackle any problem you might have. A good thing too, because between the two of them, they'll put quite a strain on your bookshelf. Strengths: - Easy to follow tutorials
- Comprehensive and broad in the subject material it covers
- Excellent collection of textures on CD
Weaknesses: If you do LightWave, this is the book you need, nay, have been waiting for the past 6 months. Don't let the sticker price turn you away, because the content, and the physical solidness of 10 pounds of book will communicate their worth to you all too quickly. List Price: 59.99 New Riders Copyright © 2002, Ian Mankowski, All Rights Reserved |
