Rating: 
Summary: Look no further, you have found it.
Review: Inside Lightwave 7 covers all the bases. From the simplest procedures, to complex methods of creating professional looking images and animation in Lightwave. It does so, in an easy to read format. Whether you're just starting out in Lightwave or a salty industry veteran, you will find this book valuable. You'll never look at your Lightwave manuals again.
Rating:
Summary: THE definitve Lightwave book
Review: The Inside Lightwave series of books have always been excellent resources for understanding such a complex application like Lightwave. One would think that after packing so much information into Inside Lightwave 6 that it would be hard to top but Dan Ablan has once again raised the bar with Inside Lightwave 7. Packed with over 1100 pages of Lightwave 7 goodness, this is THE definitive Lightwave book. Dan makes you feel right at home explaining everything you need to know to get up to speed quickly and easily. New users and seasoned users alike will benefit from having this book as real world projects are the best way to learn and hone your skills and this book has plenty of them. The book is layed out extremely well, taking you from your first baby steps to creating full blown complex scenes. The book is packed with information and Dan has done such a wondeful job I highly recommend this book to anyone using Lightwave.
Rating: 
Summary: Not recomended for the easily frustrated
Review: Credit has to first be given where credit is due. For Dan Ablan to take on such a huge task of trying to teach people how to use a program as complicated as Lightwave is commendable. But it seems that once again the publisher New Rider has dropped the ball. This book like Inside Lightwave 6 is chocked full of errors. It would be nice if New Riders or Dan Ablan would hire someone to do the tutorials and check for errors before a book like this is published. All I can say, after waiting for months for the release of this book is --- "I am disappointed." And in my humble opinion I would not recommend this book until the errors have been fixed or at least Dan's Website has put up the definately upcoming errata page to fix errors.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: Wow.... So many things I've wanted to learn how to do with Lightwave. I have only started with Lightwave in the sense that I have read one other book. Yet after that book there were so many things I still wanted to know. This book is both a reference, and a pleasure to read straight though... (so far). I say so far as the book is *huge*. I gasped when I first saw it. :) There is no other book I know of that is better for Lightwave... infact there is no other book I know of that is better for 3D. I'll be buying more 3D books for sure.... but it will be a while I'm sure before I find so much information in one place. *Is anyone going to rate this less then 5 stars?* Heh.. I bet not!
From Caustics to Organic Modeling this book has it all!
Rating:
Summary: The lack of context or continuity is staggering!
Review: If you do not already know Lightwave specifically and extensively, this book is almost unreadable. It's like watching someone demo a product, spastically clicking around the different controls, showing you what the product CAN do. It does not teach you how or why to do something in any sort of context. For example, instead of showing how to create an object, apply a surface texture to the object, and THEN how to change or edit surfaces for different effects, the book STARTS with a chapter on the idiosyncrasies of the surface editor. Why not put the chapters on Lights and Cameras, BEFORE the chapter on using the Graph Editor to manipulate lights and cameras? The examples and illustrations don't so much teach as just provide evidence of the tools capabilities. The book's tone is more one of self-congratulatory showcasing and advanced reference than instruction. Why not present each new feature as it is relevant to an overall process? Telling the reader how "cool" the Schematic view is for setting object Parents doesn't mean anything until the concept of object Parents is introduced 158 pages LATER.
The book has no continuity. No flow. No synergy. Examples and exercises don't seem to build on themselves from one chapter to the next. Each chapter seems to be a discrete little world. It's like a disparate collection of magazine articles. It's incongruous to the point of being disfunctional. Why not take at least one tutorial/example from the beginning chapter to the end? Anyway...
If you are already experienced with LightWave, this book will at least update you on behavioral differences in version 7.If you are new to LightWave, there has GOT to be a better explanation of USING this tool out there.
If you are new to 3D-Rendering tools altogether, STAY AWAY...FAR AWAY!!!
Rating:
Summary: An Indespensible Resource!
Review: Great book yet *again* from Dan and crew. Not merely a rewrite, Inside Lightwave 7 is a continuation of the training paradigm that worked so well for Inside LW6. If you are working with Lightwave 7 and want to plumb the depths of the new features instead of just scratching the surface, you have to get this book! Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Best Lightwave Book Available
Review: Dan has written several Lightwave books in the past, and I've always found them useful and instructive. However this book besides being larger then his previous efforts is also his best book by a pretty big margin. Several of the chapters are worth the purchase price by themselves and I was using some of the new techniques Dan showed in the book today for one of my customers. If you have Lightwave 7.0 this book will pay for itself over and over.
Rating: 
Summary: Ablan and Company do it again!
Review: Dan Ablan and company once again have set forth a lightwave informational Tour De Force! The book is packed with information fro both the newbie as well as the advanced user. You don't even have to have Lightwave, just a desire to try the program since the CD contains a demo of the Lastest version of LW itself. The Tutorials are well thought out, and the CD even contains the full color screengrabs so that if you don't understand something in the image in the book, you can view it in full color on your computer. So I would recommend this book to everyone interested in LW
Rating:
Summary: The original and best Lightwave Books
Review: Dan Ablan has succeeded in doing the impossible: writing a more comprehensive guide to Newtek's Lightwave than his previous "Inside Lightwave 6"! This book is quite simply fantastic. As well as explaining the differences between this and the last version of the software, the book offers the perfect grounding for the first time user. When you buy the Lightwave software, you will recieve a hefty manual. Like most manuals, the LW7 one is vast, confusing and not that great. It is nigh on impossible to learn the software using only the manual. If you are a beginner and hope to have any sort of luck with lighwave, you should really buy this book. It lays out all of the fundamentals you will need on a silver platter. Clear, concise and reasonably priced (considering a lightwave manual can cost even more than this). Even advance users will be able to benifit from this book. It explains the process of modelling and animating with such clarity that you may come across things you hadn't before. The real highlights have to be the facial animation section (using bones - just like pixar!) and the second appendix which explains every single plug in in detail. Now you'll know what a Hyper Voxel Drawing really is! Just buy it. You'll thank me one day.
Rating:
Summary: INCREDIBLE !...
Review: Only 3 words: Bigger, better & powerful. Dan did it again. This book is a absolute recommendation for everyone having Lightwave7. It's a book written exclusively for V7, so expect major features explained here - and a organic modelling tutorial that's worth the price alone. Included are high quality color scans of the book's screen grabs, a bonus set from Marlin Textures and of course a DEMO version of LW7 (Mac & PC). I forgot to mention the Demoversion of Poser4, and a full set of custom images (texturing & compositing). Buy this book. You won't regret it.
| 
