LightWave 6.5 Effects Magic - Softcover

Ablan, Dan

9780735709966: LightWave 6.5 Effects Magic

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0735709963 ISBN 13: 9780735709966

Publisher: New Riders, 2000

LightWave is one of the leaders in the 3D graphics and design industry. LightWave has set the standard in the industry with its modeling interface and capabilities, and is considered a must-have tool by the major movie and effect houses in the industry. In LightWave 6 Effects Magic, the contributors present two dozen effects (minimum) created with New Tek's LightWave 6, all designed to show off the considerable power and flexibility of the program. Effects are categorized logically and cross-referenced to make finding particular components of any effect easy to access later ("where did I see how to do X?"). Each effect is from 5 to 12 pages in length, and consists of a 2-column layout, with step-by-step instructions to the left, and corresponding graphics (or coded) to the right. Any effect, tip or technique in this book can be extrapolated and customized to suit the your own project needs.

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Review:

New Riders' Magic series has three things that most other application tutorials lack. First there's the approach. Lightwave 6.5 Magic contains 21 practical, customisable projects each designed to demonstrate one aspect of LightWave's featureset.

As you'd expect, lighting and surfacing techniques get the lion's share covering land, sea, air and further afield with projects ranging from Building a Campfire, Under the Ocean and Ocean surf to Smoke plumes and Space lighting.

Second is layout. Some books, despite running to many hundreds of pages, find it necessary to cram the page with text and screengrabs. The two-column landscape layout of the Magic series allows you to take things in easy, measured steps. Colour illustrations and screengrabs are included surrounded by enough white space to let you see what's going on and easily find the text to which they refer. They've even found room for a pertinent quotation at the beginning of each chapter.

Lastly there are the contributors. Given the depth and complexity of modern software--and LightWave 6.5 is certainly no exception--it's increasingly difficult for individual authors to master every aspect of an application. Between them, the six authors have got LightWave well covered and their individual specialisations ensure that every chapter pulls its weight.

For intermediate and advanced LightWave users looking to extend their repertoire and gain an in-depth working knowledge of specific techniques this book takes some beating. --Ken McMahon

About the Author:

Authors Julian Kain is a student and artist. He practices both traditional and digital art, and believes that a perfect mix the two will someday create theLeonardo of the new millennium. He began working in 3D with LightWave 3D 5.5 in 1998. Julian has been a regular writer for Keyframe Magazine since May 1999, where he reviews graphics chips and their performance in LightWave. In his spare time, he writes photorealistic gold surfacing tutorials for great new LightWave 6 Effects books. You may e-mail him at julian@juliankain.com and visit his web site at http://www.juliankain.com. Jason Goodman lives in New York City and is the CEO of MSD a multimedia production company in Silicon Valley. Jason has been involved with 3D graphics since the days of Videoscape 3D on the Amiga (circa 1986). Contact him via email jason@msd-nyc.com. Michael Ash has been working with Newtek products since the Toaster 2.0 days and has worked as a Tech support specialist for Newtek and also served as Tech support Manager for Newtek. He has written articles and tutorials that have appeared in magazines such as Keyframe, 3d Artist and Newtekniques. Michael also wrote the Aura 2 manual and tutorials for the Lightwave 6 manual.

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