Rating: 
Summary: Not a good book
Review: I was very disappointed with this one. Lots of grammatical errors (which points to a greater underlying problem with the editing and quality of this book), and the turtorials are horrible. It's as if they expect you to be able to read their minds on what the next step is (as the next step is usually left out).You would seriously have to be on the same professional level as the guys who wrote this to complete a single one of the tutorials. And if that were the case, you'd be so busy working why would you buy it? The fact that this book has got the rating it has (4 stars as of this review) shows that Amazon book reviews are now subject to the same user ratings "pumping" as the user movie reviews have suffered on other website sites in the past years. This type of guerrilla marketing/deception on the part of the distributors makes it difficult to trust this kind of user feedback. RR
Rating:
Summary: Not a good book
Review: I was very disappointed with this one. Lots of grammatical errors (which points to a greater underlying problem with the editing and quality of this book), and the turtorials are horrible. It's as if they expect you to be able to read their minds on what the next step is (as the next step is usually left out). You would seriously have to be on the same professional level as the guys who wrote this to complete a single one of the tutorials. And if that were the case, you'd be so busy working why would you buy it? The fact that this book has got the rating it has (4 stars as of this review) shows that Amazon book reviews are now subject to the same user ratings "pumping" as the user movie reviews have suffered on other website sites in the past years. This type of guerrilla marketing/deception on the part of the distributors makes it difficult to trust this kind of user feedback. RR
Rating: 
Summary: A Slamdunk in 3D Software Publishing
Review: I've been a 3D professional for many years, using 3d Max and it's predecessor, 3d Studio(DOS). This book is the most practical, production specific tool, I have ever seen. I can remember ALOT of late nights, pulling my hair out, trying to figure out what some, vaguely described tool actually did. A book like this would have made life WAY more livable. If you're in production with Max 4, and this isn't on your desk, you're just asking for trouble. Kudos to the authors.
Rating:
Summary: Buy another book...
Review: I've never seen a review so accurate as the one by Joshua Burkholder. He is so accurate, and so closely resembles how I feel, that it's as if I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote a review under a different name, without me even knowing it. Missing steps are abundant! And he's right, Mike O'Rourke is the only author worth reading and the topics by Jerrill Yoo are atrocious at best. I was kindof torn writing this review. On one hand I want to sell my copy (I feel badly for my wife who bought it as a birthday present, and wasted her money) and I know that a bad review will limit my chances of getting rid of it but I don't want anyone else to make the same mistake as I did-I'm sacrificing myself for all of you! Don't think that I couldn't follow it because I'm a new max user who's thinking he was up to the challenge, but wasn't. I've worked with Max at a hobby level for 2 years, and even done some small paying projects, this book was horrible and that's just all there is to it! I hope Kim Lee enjoy's spending the money he got from my wife on this one, because I'm certainly not enjoying what I recieved from him.
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing - at best!
Review: I've never seen a review so accurate as the one by Joshua Burkholder. He is so accurate, and so closely resembles how I feel, that it's as if I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote a review under a different name, without me even knowing it. Missing steps are abundant! And he's right, Mike O'Rourke is the only author worth reading and the topics by Jerrill Yoo are atrocious at best. I was kindof torn writing this review. On one hand I want to sell my copy (I feel badly for my wife who bought it as a birthday present, and wasted her money) and I know that a bad review will limit my chances of getting rid of it but I don't want anyone else to make the same mistake as I did-I'm sacrificing myself for all of you! Don't think that I couldn't follow it because I'm a new max user who's thinking he was up to the challenge, but wasn't. I've worked with Max at a hobby level for 2 years, and even done some small paying projects, this book was horrible and that's just all there is to it! I hope Kim Lee enjoy's spending the money he got from my wife on this one, because I'm certainly not enjoying what I recieved from him.
Rating:
Summary: Horrid.
Review: In a word this book is ... This book is nothing more than a waste of both your time and trees, if you are thinking of buying this book don't. What this book is chock full of is errors and don't plan on following the tutorials because you will soon find that you can't as complete steps are missing, not explained or just plain wrong. I really regret having wasted my money on this poor title -- didn't anyone at New Riders bother to edit it?
My copy is now being used as a door stop in my office, don't make the same mistake. Avoid buying this book at all costs.
Rating: 
Summary: Not so good
Review: In my consideration this book is badly written. Why?!
Well, the main reason is the fact that it has almost 900 pages and only one solid example of work?! On 900 pages, no way...
For example "The Bible" learns you from beggining to expert, and it's only one book. I am not any begginer neither and expert, however I consider that if I cannot read this book, who can?
But if I would be a begginer y should buy a whole collection of books, one just for understanding the interface, other for basics of modeling, another for starting animation, etc...
The filosophy of writting books is to put more information in less content, not to make it so complicated. Even if I am advanced in many things y preffer to buy one book that starts repasing from the beggining...
Rating:
Summary: Its Awesome its a hard to come book you should not miss!
Review: Its started catching my glimp on th ebook.A beginner on MAX 4.Just started to go through few on the tutorial its unbeliveable easy to follow step by step.Not to be miss by 3D hobbyist or pro who are trying new wonders.A++++ go for it or you regret.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT PAY MONEY FOR THIS BOOK - READ IT SOMEWHERE FOR FREE
Review: My purchase of this book marks the last time I will spend money on a New Riders' 3D Studio Max book. This book is a compilation of the (persumably) best 3d minds that have the absolute worst sense of technical writing. Except for the chapters by Mike O'Rourke, the book consists largely of chapters that were NOT reviewed by a Quality Assurance team . . . sometimes it seems that the authors started writing, put down the projects for a couple weeks, and then started writing again without reviewing what they previously had written. The absolute worst chapters are the ones written by Joseph Yoo. The chapters by Joseph Yoo are more of a Kubrick film than a tutorial . . . you'll be wondering for months what he was trying to express (though Kubrick is more readily understood). Question: Will you learn something from this book? Answer: If you never read any other 3ds max 4 intermediate/advanced books, then yes. Solution: Go to your local ...book store with your laptop and learn the chapters that you feel you need to learn (like IK's - HI Solvers), but . . . . DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON THIS BOOK . . . if you do, you will be contributing to the publication of sub-standard 3ds max texts . . . I would suggest stealing this book, before I would suggest buying it!!! A HORRIBLE BOOK,
Joshua Burkholder
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT PAY MONEY FOR THIS BOOK - READ IT SOMEWHERE FOR FREE
Review: My purchase of this book marks the last time I will spend money on a New Riders' 3D Studio Max book. This book is a compilation of the (persumably) best 3d minds that have the absolute worst sense of technical writing. Except for the chapters by Mike O'Rourke, the book consists largely of chapters that were NOT reviewed by a Quality Assurance team . . . sometimes it seems that the authors started writing, put down the projects for a couple weeks, and then started writing again without reviewing what they previously had written. The absolute worst chapters are the ones written by Joseph Yoo. The chapters by Joseph Yoo are more of a Kubrick film than a tutorial . . . you'll be wondering for months what he was trying to express (though Kubrick is more readily understood). Question: Will you learn something from this book? Answer: If you never read any other 3ds max 4 intermediate/advanced books, then yes. Solution: Go to your local ...book store with your laptop and learn the chapters that you feel you need to learn (like IK's - HI Solvers), but . . . . DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON THIS BOOK . . . if you do, you will be contributing to the publication of sub-standard 3ds max texts . . . I would suggest stealing this book, before I would suggest buying it!!! A HORRIBLE BOOK,
Joshua Burkholder
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