Rating: 
Summary: If you are realy interested in
Review: If you are serious about using Lightwave as your 3D software package, you should love this book. The first time I explored Lightwave 6 and couldn't do annything, I know I should read a lot. The author carries you to every aspect on this tool and stops in every part it deserves more atention. This book is from an user manual to a hintbook. Sometimes I think 896 pages are not enought to cover all aspects of Lightwave, but you will appreciate all the help this book gives.This book is for everyone from beginers to advanced users.
Rating:
Summary: Buy the book. Now.
Review: In the process of teaching myself Lightwave 6, I have found Dan Ablan's book invaluable. His step-by-step tutorials teach you techniques as well as tool use. You'll go far beyond the bland and near-useless descriptions of the tools that your Lightwave manual will teach you, and really explore the way the program's features will affect your models. Reading the book gives you a firm sense of texturing, surfacing, modeling, organic modeling, character animation , and more. On top of all that, when I had problems with completing the tutorials (due to my own lack of experience), I emailed the author and got a personal response within the day! A worthwhile purchase that no Lightwave user should be without. Dan is a Lightwave God.
Rating:
Summary: Bread and Butter
Review: Lightwave 6 could very well be the most signficant upgrade in the history of the program, so it's hard to imagine that one book could do such a comprehensive job of introducing/explaining this new package. With two previous Lightwave books to his credit, Dan was definitely the author to take on this task. He writes in an interesting and informative manner, injecting personality in to the material and making it so much more than a traditional "how to" book, but a really great read. The human head modeling/mapping/lighting tutorials alone are worth the price of the book. This book is the bread and butter for Lightwave enthusiasts!
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Brilliant!
Review: Mr. Ablan has created the best LightWave books in the past few years - but this one sets a new standard. The first 6 chapters introduce you to LightWave [6]. This is a welcomed addition, as there are SO many new and cool features in this 3D program. I'm a seasoned veteran with LightWave, and was at a stand still until I got this book. The other 16 chapters in this 900 page monster cover just about everything to help you learn the software and make money! Broadcast Animations is great for me, since it teaches how to create an entire project, not just a simple beveled logo. I often do architectural animations, and while the book doesn't really cover CAD conversions, it does demonstrate how to build from real world sketches and concepts, which is often how much 3D work is done. I don't use expressions, but it's covered extensively, as is LScript. When I began doing character work in LightWave 6, I was at a loss. This book helped me understand modeling (like the pretty cover girl) and inverse kinematics. I'm now on the skelegons, bones, and bone weight section. Overall, I can't believe there is this much information in one book for $50. The tips and notes throughout the book alone can be a book in and of themselves! BUY THIS BOOK before they're all gone!
Rating:
Summary: The Best Lightwave Book Yet!
Review: My company Click Grafix www.clickgrafix.com is NewTek distributor in Malaysia. We are passionate about what we do from selling to animating. Two weeks ago I bought two copies of Inside LW6. I took one home to read it. The last time I used LW when it was version 5.0. I then concentrated in selling it, and I let the younger generation have all the fun. I know that LW6.0 is a major re-write and redesign. The manuals that came with LW 6 do very little justice to otherwise a wonderful demonstration of art and science. After reading the first few chapters in Inside LW6, I felt the urge to do what I used to do before, animating when I have to. It is almost like being young again. Needless to say when I knew that our local book store have stock, I rushed and bought every copy. The total is 30 copies of Inside LW6. What will I do with 30 copies? I passed it to every customer who bought LW6 from us for FREE. And I sold it for almost half the price for those who upgraded from 5.6 to 6.0. Why, the book does a very good job at explaining what SIX can do for you, or what you can do with SIX. My background, I spent the best years of my life teaching animation, graphics and multimedia, since 1986. Needless to say, we buy every book that is relevant to NewTek products, which means that I bought both books, Inside LW and LW Power Guide. But I must admit, Inside LW 6 is way above anything that has been written about LW. As an ex-teacher (although still teach sometimes), I found this book so well written that it should be bundled with every LW6. I did it here in Malaysia, and I hope other dealers around the world do it. I hope that whoever going to write another book about LW should follow your formula. I am 38 years, old to be an animator, but Inside LW6 is my Viagra for SIX.
Rating:
Summary: The Lightwave Bible
Review: Over the last decade, I have seen Lightwave grow from a mysterious program attached to the Video Toaster system, to a full-blown Ferrari that takes no prisoners. Most of us were intimidated by the new fangled concepts and modus operandi of this secretive beast. The manuals were detailed, the learning curve steep, but, if you just jumped in, you could actually create a box, or a building, and with supplied objects, voyage into space - all this on an Amiga computer with 16 megs of ram. Then Lightwave grew into an enormous tool of the Hollywood young guns. They went ballistic - took Lightwave into Quantum Leap, Babylon V, Star Trek, games and MTV. So the learning curve got steeper as new tools were demanded by the trade to do cooler tricks. It was easy to get lost in Lightwave, on many levels. Dan Ablan loves to teach - I took a seminar with him years ago in California next to Universal Studios at the Newtek Convention. Thankfully, he has written down many words of wisdom in various books. I think this one really takes the cake. I can honestly say I take instructions and suggestions to heart from the in-depth chapters and throw them into commercials and my show on Fox Sports Net [MuscleSport USA]. This is serious training with an honest teacher who knows whereof he speaketh. He is a Lightwave prophet, and has many friends in the business that collaborate with him to bring the best to the forefront of his writings. Don't know how the book ends yet, as I am savoring every page every chance I get, to learn the details and techniques and remember them as I work with Lightwave on my own projects.
Rating: 
Summary: What a disappointment....
Review: Please, do not get me wrong, this is a great book....for someone
who actually masters the modeler. Camera setups, lighting, motion - it is all very helpfull. Also very thorough explanation on Scene and Graph Editors. But I actually prefer to model vehicles and weapons - not people.
When I do decide to "go organic" - I will probably refer to the book. It also seems that Dan did not have any plan or structure when writing the book. Which audience did you target Dan, if I might ask? Advanced users do not need any introduction to Layout and Modeler, and beginners sure would be interested in modeling basics. This gives very chaotic impression And please, no more tutorials on architectural designs or image composition - instead, this could be a nice addition in the end of the book. Also, do not pretend that you know a lot about Lightwave on Amiga. Saying that it was a "cute little program" is an insult to NewTek.
That "cute little program" created Babylon5 and Terminator II production team estimated that if they used Lwave on Toaster4000 they would have been finished 2 months ahead of schedule! So I am sitting here without a clue on how to use layers, map a label on a can, or create a barrell. No idea on why my SubPatched objects look hideous in layout or why my supposed-to-be chrome logo is completely black! Can I ask you - what use has this book to me? Just to conclude my review - I will probably "Inside Lightwave 7". But I am sure already that it will be a waste of money.
Rating: 
Summary: Esta muy bien enfocado!
Review: Si alguien desea aprender Lightwave por su propia cuenta le va a costar un mundo, ya que el programa es muy profesional y uno tiende a perderse con tantos conceptos nuevos. Este libro en particular ayuda muchisimo, su lenguaje es muy sencillo y especifico si no hablas muy bien el ingles, los erjercicios se entienden claros, y aprendes muy rapido. El unico contra que le consegui es que a cada momento suponen que ya conoces las versiones anteriores.
Rating:
Summary: El mejor libro para infografistas
Review: Sin lugar a dudas el libro base para enterder el diseño dela nueva interfase para L.W. 6.0 es este. Dan Ablan penso bastante bien como meterse en la mente del infografista y llevarnos a conocer las bases y los trucos de L.W. 6. Es mas que obvio reconocer las grandes diferencias entre las versiones anteriores, pero principalmente el libro se enfoca en darnos pistas para que generemos nuevos diseños basados en la idea base de lo aplicado en cada capitulo. OJO este no es un recetario donde solo usaremoslos ejercicios para copiar nuevas ideas,este libro en verdad da pie para ampliar nuestras perspectivas de diseño y empezar a ganar dinero de lo que inventemos.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for beginners IMO....
Review: Since this is the first published book for LW 6, I guess LW newbies don't have much options here. I am a new user to LW, and purchased the book because the manuals are a bit confusing. This book is pretty good, but some details in the tutorials were wrong or left out and can confuse new users(like me) who's not familar in the LW environment. For example, the marble texture tutorial in chapter 2 stated to input 5.0 for texture amplitude value, but it didn;t come out the way it should as the pictures in the book. Going to author's completed version of the same project and I found out the value is 2.0. Is this a test to see how smart we are or something? Also, the camera placement of the scene wasn't mentioned at all, so even if you follow the instruction correctly, your file will not look like the ones in the book due to the missing information. MAC USERS BEWARE, quite a few files on this book will crash when you open on you system, some can be fixed by drivers update and assigning more ram, but most bugs will not be fixed til the 6.1 patch comes out. New Riders book have always favored the PC users, and this one is no exception. I purchased the Flash 4 Magic and the files were supposedly cross-platform, but it was so bad for the Mac that they need to redo files and print a new master CD for Mac users. I would have given this book a higher score, but the lack of care for Mac users(If only they test the files on Mac before they dupe the CDs..) made it hard for me.
| 
