Rating: 
Summary: Lightwave 6.5 Magic
Review: After reading this book , I discovered I hadn't learned a whole lot. Probably a better book for beginners to help them explore new possibilities, but for someone a little more familiar with LW it isn't worth. Just discusses examples of basic expressions, lighting and some animation.
Rating:
Summary: Lightwave 6.5 Magic
Review: As a compositing artist, I have great use for particles and the like. I don't really do much modeling or animation, however I do like to learn it all. I had high hopes for this book, because LW6.5 (and now 7) have such impressive upgrades to their particles that I just had to jump right in.I guess the first big dissapointment was how lame the sample videos were. Nothing makes me lose faith in how good I can do by watching a sad sack video. The quality looked like first year student work. The follower tutorial was great, but a tutorial on how the spider was actually rigged would have made it all the better. Rigging is a real mystery to a great many people, especially multi-legged creatures. The expressions tutorial was probably my biggest letdown. Nothing makes a tutorial more frustrating than printing errors in the text, so suddenly you're up against a brick wall and not completing it. I got halfway through it, and just wanted to learn more about expressions when it stops. Worse, it mentions more interesting things expressions can do, but fails to explain how. The faked fur renderer was a far better tutorial when published in Newtekniques magazine a year or so ago- it looked better and what is going on was well explained... in this book, it comes across as being half done. In defense of the book however, there are many many tutorials in there, and quite a wide variety. The book is in full colour, which is a real bonus, and the format of the book actually allows you to have the pages lay open and flat- quite a nice treat. If only a tutorial book would come out that really explains WHY you do things the way you do, so one can actually LEARN how to apply the techniques, instead of merely doing someone else's project again. In all, the book is pretty good, just lacking completion to tutorials. I think tutorial books should focus on one thing: expressions- particles- modeling- rigging- animation, whatever... just stick to one skill. Having books try to cover it all is not working. I'd rather buy ten really well written books on seperate subjects than buy ten different books and get about 5 pages worth out of each book.
Rating: 
Summary: Lameness Alert!
Review: Catchy title eh? I bought this book recently and even though I am new to both the world of 3D art and animation as well as Lightwave, I found it to be an easy/enjoyable read. The tutorials, while simple gave me an excellent grasp of some techniques I can now employ in other ideas which working through the book has spurred. I highly recommend this book to users of Lightwave at any skill level!
Rating: 
Summary: Great addition to Inside Lightwave 6
Review: I have to disagree with the negative reviews. This book delivers what it promises. It is a cookbook for some neat effects that goes beyond Inside Lightwave 6. The interface concerns are moot as you can easily switch from L6.5 to L6 to L5.6 interface layouts in L6.5, that is stated clearly in the opening of the book. This book is a launchpad for ideas and exploration, not a ticket to Lightwave mastery. It never claims to be anything else. The example scenes on the book are great for tinkering, they can take you beyond the tutorials if you invest some time.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Projects - little explaination
Review: I'm a new user to Lightwave and frustrated by the lack of current documentation with Lightwave (Only PDF manual available for current version and many menus have changed from the version which is the manual they provide in print form.). So I thought this book would be a good learning experience. As of this date, it is the only 6.5 (current version) book I could find. My experience is that you can follow the receipes in this book and create what they show - marching spiders and swirling clouds -- BUT, this book does a poor job at explaining what you are doing. The recepies containe premodled elements (you only learn how to control the spiders legs... not model spiders.) And most of the settings are not explained. So you end up creating the project, but not really learning. As I was setting the numerous controls on the cloud project, I was wondering what, exactly, I was doing. This book was little help. If you are a beginner and are only buying one or two books, I would recommend waiting until Sept/Oct of 2001 to buy real 6.5 version books with more instructional information.
Rating:
Summary: correction of review
Review: In addition of my first review i have to correct my "totally useless". This book seems to be quite useful for beginners in the 3d world and i think it also will give this group some experience of magic. My first review was the sound of highend operators critics which is appropriate in a matrix like production environment, but not in public - sorry.
Rating: 
Summary: Para principiantes
Review: Lamentablemente este libro no tiene absoluamente ningún parceido en la calidad de su antecesor 'Inside Lightwave 6.0'. Estas páginas son una compliación de tutoriales que fácilmente se pueden encontrar en Internet. La única ventaja que este libro ofrece sobre sitios con información sobre Lightwave, es el agrado de tener la información impresa y a color. Sin embargo los 21 tutoriales contenidos en él, son absulutamente recomendados para principiantes en el tema. De todos ellos solo un par valen la pena. Creo que el señor Dan Ablan se aprovechó de su éxito anterior para vender tutoriales de otras personas en un formato atractivo. Contras: todos los anteriores Pros: muy bonito!
Rating:
Summary: Thank God
Review: Thank my lucky stars I [...] got it at the library instead. Your tax dollars put to good use. This book is little more than a collection of exercises in the creation of poor results. The "fur ball" tutorial is laughable! Motion blur? Why would you put motion blur on a stationary ball of fur? Don't waste your time and money.
Rating:
Summary: Great Lightwave "Cookbook"
Review: This book is an excellent collection of 21 "recipes" for Lightwave. Although it is aimed at users of version 6.5, it is still very applicable to version 7.0/7.5. The book has easy to follow tutorials, and the book's format allows the user to work quickly through the tutorials, or leisurely browse through the additional notes and comments that the author(s) have provided with each of the techniques. Definitely not a beginner's book, and the techniques are probably too basic for the seasoned Lightwave pro. This book appears to be targeted towards the intermediate user. Dan Ablan is clearly the leading author in the Lightwave community. This book is a must have. And it is very easy to find it at a fraction of the $45US list price!
Rating:
Summary: Great Lightwave "Cookbook"
Review: This book is an excellent collection of 21 "recipes" for Lightwave. Although it is aimed at users of version 6.5, it is still very applicable to version 7.0/7.5. The book has easy to follow tutorials, and the book's format allows the user to work quickly through the tutorials, or leisurely browse through the additional notes and comments that the author(s) have provided with each of the techniques. Definitely not a beginner's book, and the techniques are probably too basic for the seasoned Lightwave pro. This book appears to be targeted towards the intermediate user. Dan Ablan is clearly the leading author in the Lightwave community. This book is a must have. And it is very easy to find it at a fraction of the $45US list price!
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