Modeling a Character in 3DS Max

Rating:
Summary: Review of "Modeling a Character in 3DS Max"
Review: "Modeling a Character in 3DS Max" by Paul Steed is by far the best book I've ever read on low poly modeling. I recommend this book to any newbie to low poly modeling. It is easy to follow and Paul Steed explores just about every way to model from using primitives, to using the booleen operation effectively. Go ahead and give it a try!

Rating:
Summary: Review of "Modeling a Character in 3DS Max"
Review: "Modeling a Character in 3DS Max" by Paul Steed is by far the best book I've ever read on low poly modeling. I recommend this book to any newbie to low poly modeling. It is easy to follow and Paul Steed explores just about every way to model from using primitives, to using the booleen operation effectively. Go ahead and give it a try!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reference for All
Review: As a professional character animator, I bought this book mostly to learn any little tricks that Paul may have garnered over the years. Little did I know though, that I'd end up reading the whole book, cover to cover, and learning a lot more than I originally thought. If you have no experience making low-poly characters, or even if you do, this book is a must for every Max user. Even though his examples are based in Max3, if you have any experience with Max4, you should have no problems making his examples work quite nicely.

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Summary: best book ever!! :) Paul Steed, modelling Genious
Review: buy this book! im telling you,.. :) very awsome book, soo many tricks tips, once you have read it, you will look at character modelling being easy to do, and you will love it

You will just look at the 3d Max in a whole new concept witch you never knew, im an experianced modeller but now im even better! buy the book, you wont be dissapointed

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Summary: Best tutorial written
Review: I gave this book 5 tars because I couldn't give it 6 or more
Big kudos for Paul Steed. Every tutorial on any subject should be written like this one. This book takes you by the hand and guides you through the process of creatig a low poly character leaving no stone unturned. Each page is loaded with visuals to illustrate exactly what your result should be at each phase.
In terms of writing style, if you closed your eyes for a moment you get the sense that Paul is right their with you, guiding you thru each step as a tutor and friend. Paul blends humor and an ability to simply the complicated.
This book and its CD content is "off the rack" and is the standard bearer for any tutorial on any subject that require visual.The only thing that could have possible made this book better is if the illustrations were in color (and that a stretch to find somethiong imperfect)as in the Freak Frank texture book by DAZ, I look forward to seeing something in the future from Paul on rigging and animating characters, character studio etc. I would buy any tutorial produced by Paul Steed without hesitation providing the same style is maintained

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Summary: A begginner's point of view
Review: I have never tried character modeling but found this book easy to read and very helpful. When I saw the pictures, I was thrilled, since most books don't have enough of these to show you exactly what they want and mean.

However, there is one thing that is a bit confusing. For a begginner, if you don't tell me to do something, I won't know to do it. In this book, I noticed that some steps were skipped. And although the pictures are a big help, they are on gray squares, making them hard to see at times, especially when you are getting down to the detials. At those times, it was hard for me to follow along.

The saving grace of this is that the author provides a mesh for every step of the way. So if you mess up yours, you can use his for the next section. This has saved me a lot of frustration! Even if you can't follow along on max, you can still understand the basic concept the author is getting at and move on.

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Summary: Excellent, slightly misleading back cover.
Review: I originally reviewed this title a few months ago and gave it three stars,mainly I felt the turning and dividing edges concept was not adequately explained. At the time I bought the book I was a relative newcomer to Max. The first line of the back cover states "Whether you're new to MAX or an experienced developer this book will prove indispensable." I'm still not sure how beginners will manage to follow the book, I think some will and some will be lost, so I feel maybe this is a little misleading.I am now a much more experienced Max user and I picked this book up again a few weeks ago. It is fantastic. The only reason I have not given a five star review is that some of the screenshots are a little hard to see due to being printed in black and white, which unfortunately seems to be the case with most all 3d graphic texts.Provided you have a basic knowledge of Max ( I would recommend 3d Max In Depth by Rob Polevoi for this, it really helped me a great deal ) you will really get a great deal of invaluable information from an obviously extremely talented modeler and author. Paul Steed gives a real insight into the world of low poly modeling and the book is an enjoyable and interesting read at the same time.The best compliment I can pay it is to say when your reading along it almost feels like you have a top class games modeler sat next to you guiding you along. Great stuff !

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Summary: Bad Book
Review: I purchased this book after skimming it over in a local store. I wish I had taken a closer look at it. I just came off a 2 week break from work and school. During my break I decided to work on a new model and following along with Mr. Steed's book. This turned out to be frustration hell. The methods in his book are fine if you are into wasting alot of time. Boolean and splines to make a simple character like the one in his book actually doubles your work. You wind up wasting more time cleaning up the errors from following his tutorial. Why he didn't demonstrate the way MOST people in the industry model, which is box modeling, is beyond me. He basicly tries to reinvent the wheel. I found much better tutorials for FREE on the web. Save yourself from learning bad modeling techniques. I happen to also know that Paul Steed DOES NOT model the way presented in the book. This should raise a red flag or two.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Work
Review: I purchased this book due to the overwhelming number of posative reviews it recieved... and boy, I wasn't disappointed. Quite frankly, it's *best* book I've encountered on the subject of modeling low-mid poly figures for use in Games. The technique lessons therein are invaluable to someone new to the software... and veterans will pick up a few nifty things too.

I find the best books to be those that will take the reader by the hand, and explicitly lead him/her through the entire life cycle of a 3D project... Paul Steed did a WONDERFUL job with this book!

In reference to one of the negative reviews above: This book was not designed specifically to cater to only 3D Studio Max 3.0... I'm not exactly sure how he arrived at that conclusion. It sounds more like either his units are calibrated differently, or he made a misstep through the project. I encountered no such difficulties.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I received this book 2 days ago and I can't stop reading. The book is strait forward and clearly written. I found the first chapter to be extremely helpful. Being a former long time truespace user much of it came easily. The extra tips placed in the chapters are a lifesaver. The only problem with the book is the turning edges portion; the dotted lines for the turned edges are almost impossible to see. After a few minutes of experimenting I was able to figure it out. Iv read other Max books like "A Visual Quick start Guide to 3dstudio max" but found the books unclear and poorly structured. This book actually teaches techniques unlike most.