Rating: 
Summary: Truly Disappointed
Review: "One and a half stars." I thought to myself that a book can't possibly be that bad. An award-winning application mixed with questionable information can't possibly be printed. I was wrong, ... dead wrong! The book is worst than 1 1/2 stars. More like 1/2 a star, but I can only rate it a one. (No half stars here, sorry.)
This book isn't very practical for those who desire to learn how to model within Lightwave. I found the book lacking in projects that would appeal to most readers entering into the 3D world. This book takes a distorted perspective on oddball projects that leaves you scratching your head as to what planet the author resides.
There is a focus on organic modeling. Anything that requires precision has fallen by the wayside. I am usually very generous with comments and I rarely verbalize a disappointment, but I feel I have been cheated even though I paid a measely $7.75 for this book. Can you imagine the outrage if I paid full price? The manuscript should have seen the bottom of a trash can before allowing innocent trees to be sacrificed for publication!
Dan Ablan has many fine publications in his name. (The Inside Lightwave series is excellent.) For those searching for modeling information, your answers will not be addressed in this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Newtek manuals are better than this.
Review: After reveiving this book, I was disappointed. A third of it's
contents is on plug ins which is fine except most of the information is available on the net for free! Why bother learning functions of tools already covered in Newtek's manuals.
Sorry Mr. Mortier try again. I am sure it is not easy to write a book on Lightwave and idea of brief tutorials is fine, but not at this price. Leave off the Plug ins, lower the price and rate the book strictly Beginner, then change the title to "Intro to Lightwave Modeler". Good luck on the next one.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Lightwave book ever written
Review: And yet another review that underlines that this book excels in one discipline only: the worst book on Lightwave that has ever been written. In this respect, the book deserves 5 stars. Those who are interested in non-trivial tutorials or tricks on modeling in LW will be deeply disappointed. Half of this book can be summerised as an aerial view of some controls in LW Modeler. The other half of the book is devoted to a description of third party plug-ins. Virtually all of this 'information' can be found on the vendors' web sites. There are quite a few tutorials on modeling with LW on the web. There are few tutorials, however, that are as trivial as those printed in the book. For instance, you will learn that you can "use the Cone command to create any cone like object" and very little more. Most tutorials simply show you how to load an object into Modeler and apply one (yes, just one) of Modeler's functions to it. The objects and tasks involved are as thrilling as bevelling the upper half of a sphere. The very few tutorials that at least pretend to tackle what can be called a 'project' only strengthen the impression that this author hasn't much insight into Lightwave to share. The very low level of this book is a missed opportunity as there is demand for such a book on modeling with LW. I sometimes felt that the manual that ships with LW could be a bit more detailed and instructive. Fortunately, there are books such as 'Inside Lightwave' that will teach you much, much more about modeling apart from many other things (the latest edition of 'Inside LW' is simply amazing). To sum up, Mr Mortier's book contains just 412 scantily printed pages (and not 450 pages as stated in the description). As mentioned above, half of these pages are a shallow description of third party plug-ins. Virtually all of the meagre first part is much better in the Lightwave manual. Think twice before you buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: The worst book I ever purchase in amazon
Review: Don't waste your money on this book.I have been purchased at least 3 books on lightwave and this is the only I regret.
Rating:
Summary: The worst book I ever purchase in amazon
Review: Don?t waste your money on this book. I have been purchased at least 3 books on lightwave and this is the only I regret.
Rating:
Summary: Choose Dan Ablan's Titles and steer clear of this one!
Review: I am a lightwave 6.5 newbie user and bought this book hoping to be walked through the modeling process, as the title "Modeling in Lightwave" may inadvertantly lead you to beleive that this book will do. While there is a good introduction to Amapi 3D, if you have purchased this excellent piece of software you will already have the well written manual that accompanies it, and will find tutorials and explanations in there. I bought "Modeling in Lightwave" to learn how to model in Lightwave and would prefer to repeatedly review the documentation than to assume that this book will walk me through any of the steps to model in Lightwave in any way that is representative of this software's first class capabilities. I gave it one star because it includes a copy of an older version of Amapi.I simply didn't feel that there was alot of effort put int this book. For the time required to learn this program, spend it with "Inside Lightwave".
Rating:
Summary: Sad. Simply Sad.
Review: I thought this would be a good book to compliment the other books on the market at the moment. In reality, it doesn't teach you how to model at ALL! It does show you functions of modeler, but this nothing more than the manual or what you could figure out on your own. The examples are horrific. I mean, the bending and warping of an airplane to show how to use the magnet tool? Why would anyone do this? What pisses me off more is that this book has two halfs - the first being nothing more than a poor demo of Lightwave modeler's tools (only some of them) and the second half is advertising for third party plug-ins.
Rating:
Summary: Don't even waste your time...
Review: I'd waste time telling you all the reasons not to get this book, but apparently that would be redundant. Suffice it to say that this 'seasoned graphics professional' should SERIOUSLY consider throwing in the towel given the examples displayed- which have to represent the most god-awful modelling and renders I have seen to date. Sadly, this is not even close to an exaggeration. As with many other titles this author has written on Bryce, Poser, etc., it's impossible to take his writing seriously when his examples and sample art are so painfully and blatantly bad. Seasoned professional? Hah! Judging by what I see in this book, Mr. Mortier would do himself (not to mention anyone hoodwinked into buying ANY of his books) service by putting down the pen and actually learning his craft *as a professional* before referring to himself as such. I cannot believe he's ever been employed as a creative professional in this field outside of writing on topics he clearly has no mastery of whatsoever. Even a moderately experienced hobbyist could provide more insight and creative examples than are displayed in this 412 pages of nonsense that mostly echo the Lightwave manual and tool descriptions. The 'tutorials' (if you can call them that) largely consist of editing existing models (questionably at that) with single-function tools with no real-world application whatsoever, and the best 'intro' work I could find in this book covered Amapi, not Lightwave Modeler. If your goal is randomly tweaking points and deforming the Lightwave example cow or models downloaded off Avalon or TurboSquid, you don't have a copy of the Lightwave manual, and you don't have to worry about clients actually paying you for creative results, you might find value in these pages outside of pressing flowers. If you expect to use this book to become a real professional at your craft and expand your mastery of the truly deep and powerful tool that is Lighwave Modeler, just move on now with a clear conscience. There's nothing for you here. If you're truly insterested in learning Lightwave however, check out Dan Ablan's 'Inside Lightwave' book instead. You'll be incredibly glad you did, and not just for the excellent organic modelling chapter (courtesy of Lightwave god Stuart Aitken), but the incredibly deep and thick coverage of rendering, IK, animation, expressions, et al. It's everything this book is not. Unfortunately Shamms Mortier's waste-of-paper 'Modeling in Lightwave' is a painful reminder of that often maligned quote: 'those who can't do- teach'. The publishers of this book should be ashamed at themselves for allowing this piece of trash to be published at all.
Rating:
Summary: Don't even waste your time...
Review: I'd waste time telling you all the reasons not to get this book, but apparently that would be redundant. Suffice it to say that this 'seasoned graphics professional' should SERIOUSLY consider throwing in the towel given the examples displayed- which have to represent the most god-awful modelling and renders I have seen to date. Sadly, this is not even close to an exaggeration. As with many other titles this author has written on Bryce, Poser, etc., it's impossible to take his writing seriously when his examples and sample art are so painfully and blatantly bad. Seasoned professional? Hah! Judging by what I see in this book, Mr. Mortier would do himself (not to mention anyone hoodwinked into buying ANY of his books) service by putting down the pen and actually learning his craft *as a professional* before referring to himself as such. I cannot believe he's ever been employed as a creative professional in this field outside of writing on topics he clearly has no mastery of whatsoever. Even a moderately experienced hobbyist could provide more insight and creative examples than are displayed in this 412 pages of nonsense that mostly echo the Lightwave manual and tool descriptions. The 'tutorials' (if you can call them that) largely consist of editing existing models (questionably at that) with single-function tools with no real-world application whatsoever, and the best 'intro' work I could find in this book covered Amapi, not Lightwave Modeler. If your goal is randomly tweaking points and deforming the Lightwave example cow or models downloaded off Avalon or TurboSquid, you don't have a copy of the Lightwave manual, and you don't have to worry about clients actually paying you for creative results, you might find value in these pages outside of pressing flowers. If you expect to use this book to become a real professional at your craft and expand your mastery of the truly deep and powerful tool that is Lighwave Modeler, just move on now with a clear conscience. There's nothing for you here. If you're truly insterested in learning Lightwave however, check out Dan Ablan's 'Inside Lightwave' book instead. You'll be incredibly glad you did, and not just for the excellent organic modelling chapter (courtesy of Lightwave god Stuart Aitken), but the incredibly deep and thick coverage of rendering, IK, animation, expressions, et al. It's everything this book is not. Unfortunately Shamms Mortier's waste-of-paper 'Modeling in Lightwave' is a painful reminder of that often maligned quote: 'those who can't do- teach'. The publishers of this book should be ashamed at themselves for allowing this piece of trash to be published at all.
Rating: 
Summary: A thorough guide and deftly written
Review: Modeling In LightWave by expert graphics professional Shamms Mortier is a comprehensive, completely user-friendly manual focused specifically on LightWave, a favorite 3D application software of film and television industries. Individual chapters cover the basics of LightWave modeling, backdrops, displacement mapping, modeling with particles, using FireMouth for pyrotechnics and much, much more. A thorough guide and deftly written to be of use to readers of all experience levels, Modeling In LightWave is filled with black-and-white screen shots to help convey its step-by-step instructions. Modeling in LightWave is a superb reference for everyone who works with this widely used software. A bonus Windows/Mac CD-ROM with LightWave animations, images, models, projects, scenes, textures, and demos is included.
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