Editorial Review

NewTek's sixth version of LightWave provides some powerful tools for the animator who needs to create objects that walk and talk and sing and dance--objects with character. Read more

Reviews (9)

Don't buy this!It's NOT about Character Animation!
I have many LW books, and too was excited to see this one available (I actually bought it a yr ago and wanted to write a review as I was here).However this book does absolutely *nothing* in terms of teaching the necessities of Character Animation.NOTHING essential - No Character Rigging or techniques on Modelling for rigging, No Layout Setups of Rigs - NOTHING!Just a self indulgent chapter or two on how cool the author is for getting his own head scanned. And I can't believe the completely LAME and stupid waste of pages this guys goes to when he shows how to make a "Monster Eye" color map by stitching together 10 digital photos of closeups of his eye looking different directions in Photoshop. With the 2 CDs that come with this book you'd think he'd get something right. This Author has too much time on his hands and not enough LW chops - either that or he just has No idea as to what's important for Char Anim...- only LW 5 techniques. Skip this book!!!

Screenshots are LW[6] but techniques are LW5
When I upgraded from Lightwave 5.6 to Lightwave 6.x, I did so fully understanding that there would be a learning curve.Consequently, I did so armed to the teeth with all the publications I could get ahold of.I had read Doug Kelly's earlier Lightwave 5 book and found it helpful, so I purchased it along with Dan Ablan's "Inside LW[6]" and "Lightwave 6.5 Magic". Screenshots are LW[6] but techniques are LW5
When I upgraded from Lightwave 5.6 to Lightwave 6.x, I did so fully understanding that there would be a learning curve.Consequently, I did so armed to the teeth with all the publications I could get ahold of.I had read Doug Kelly's earlier Lightwave 5 book and found it helpful, so I purchased it along with Dan Ablan's "Inside LW[6]" and "Lightwave 6.5 Magic".Read more

Subjects:  1. Animation    2. Computer Bks - Desktop Publishing    3. Computer Books And Software    4. Computer Graphics - General    5. Computer animation    6. Computers    7. Film & Video - General    8. Interactive & Multimedia    9. Internet - Web Site Design    10. LightWave 3D    11. Multi-Media Hardware & Software    12. Computer graphics software    13. Image processing: computer animation   

Editorial Review

This book targets users who are intent on mastering the art of creating 3-D graphics and animations in this versatile, cross-platform program. There's a good combination of explanation of features and specific task instructions; for the latter, you use the project files on the included CD-ROM. The book starts off with advice on interface configuration and takes you all the way to sophisticated effects and animations. The authors explain the concepts of lighting, color, and motion and help you plan your project according to its purpose and intended audience. Next you learn about modeler, layout, and animation techniques such as physical, computer, and scanned models and polygons, layers, MetaNURBS, scenes, keyframing, virtual cameras, lenses, angles, and plug-ins. Part 2 teaches you to build 3-D scenes using the LightWave modeler. Part 3 has you create animation scenes and familiarizes you with Bones and Character animations and facial animation. The last part of the book focuses on rendering and postproduction processes. You learn compositing and output techniques, add video and sound effects, use the Super Cel Shader plug-in for cel animation, and learn the basics of Lscript. An appendix describes various Objects and Tools plug-ins. Besides project files, the CD-ROM also has demonstration versions of freeware and shareware plug-ins and sample models, tiles, and textures. Read more

Reviews (29)

Doesn't get to the point - not for the beginner
I've used Lightwave for a couple of small projects and learnt it a couple of years ago with a good teacher in a Multimedia course. Frustrating
The book fails to fully explain some minor steps that a beginner might wish to understand in more detail. Information such as "feel free to look at this image closer by pulling it off this Book's CD-ROM" doesnot help if you don't know the name of the image, nor in which folder itmay be. Also some of the captions don't correspond with the images (e.g.page 68). If you have a lot of time on your hands you may well be able toguess the missing links, but you will probably find yourself doing thelessons over in the belief that you missed an important step, only todiscover that it is missing from the book.

Inside lightwave
Inside lightwave 3d is a must for anyone using lightwave. It is a superb well rounded book covering many aspect of the software that you just will not find any where else. Dan ablan book will help you if your new tolightwave or a seasoned professional.Read more

Subjects:  1. Animation    2. Computer Books: Desktop Publish    3. Computer Graphics - General    4. Computer animation    5. Computer graphics    6. Computers    7. Computers - Desktop Publishing    8. LightWave 3D    9. Microcomputer Graphics    10. Computer graphics software    11. Image processing: computer animation   

Reviews (26)

Great Lightwave "Cookbook"
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. Lightwave 6.5 Magic
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.

almost good enough
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.Read more

Subjects:  1. Animation    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer Graphics - General    4. Computer animation    5. Computers    6. Computers - Desktop Publishing    7. Film & Video - General    8. LightWave 3D    9. Microcomputer Graphics   

Reviews (20)

Truly Disappointed
"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.)
Execrable
One look at the cover should have told me everything I needed to know. If the inept rendering of two triceratops and a pickup truck on top of a giant cantelope doesn't scream "DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK! THE AUTHOR IS AN INCOMPETENT HACK!!" then I don't know what does. The worst book I ever purchase in amazon
Don?t waste your money on this book.Read more

Subjects:  1. Color Computer Graphics    2. Computer Bks - Desktop Publishing    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computer Graphics - General    5. Computer animation    6. Computer graphics    7. Computers    8. Computers - Desktop Publishing    9. LightWave 3D    10. Art / Graphic Arts    11. Computer graphics software   

Subjects:  1. Application Software    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer Graphics    4. Computer Graphics - General    5. Computers    6. Computers - Other Applications    7. Business & Economics / General    8. Image processing: computer animation   

Reviews (2)

Exactly what I was expecting from a peachpit book.
Let me start off by saying that there is no quick way to learn Lightwave. I have been using lightwave for more than two years and i finally feel like I have explored all of the program. The fastest way to learn 3D is by following online project tutorials. Having this book around is a nice little reference for beginners. I would not suggest it for the intermediate or advanced user since it just covers the basics.

There might be useful information hidden in here some place
I am fairly new to 3d, and brand new to Lightwave.I am not new to computer art nor technical books. Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Animation    2. Computer Bks - Desktop Publishing    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computer Graphics - General    5. Computers    6. Computers - Desktop Publishing    7. Desktop Publishing - General    8. Microcomputer Graphics    9. Multi-Media Hardware & Software    10. Computer graphics software    11. Computers / Computer Graphics / General   

Reviews (20)

Excellent collection of Lightwave tutorials
First off, this book is worth the price alone for the massive coverage of the surface editor.Two full chapters are devoted to surfacing and the author includes some very useful tips involving the surface editor.The chapter on architecture is excellent, you will truly become a master of beveling after completing the tutorials in this chapter. Lightwave Applied, Version 6.5 & 7
I am a totally new user to Lightwave so this may help some newbies. This book is excellent for getting your feet wet and exploring a lot of what Lightwave is capable of. The reason I did not rate it five stars is because I would have like the authors to provide more instruction on the more advanced modeling tools like subpatching and metaforming. But, in all, Good tutorials, but it's missing too much!
The book is divided into 10 tutorials.Each tutorial covers its section well, but I felt that there is A LOT of important topics it doesn't discuss AT ALL! Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Desktop Publish    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer Graphics - Game Programming    4. Computer Graphics - General    5. Computer animation    6. Computer graphics    7. Computers    8. Computers - Desktop Publishing    9. LightWave 3D    10. Image processing   

Reviews (8)

looking for the books that come with Lightwave [6]
I'm a lightwave, animation student going for my BA Degree in Computer animation. I've been using Lightwave 6.5 and the books that I know about are "Lightwave Magic" which is great for learning the effects and hypervoxels lighting and camera tecniques. Then I've also used "Inside Ligtwave" which is great if you have the program yourself and you have the 3 books/manuals that come with the program. I'm learning the program in a school setting so I don't have the 3 manuals that come with the Lightwave Prgrm. Thats what brought me to this site in the 1st place. Does anybody out there know where a student can get the 3 books that come with Lightwave. 1)- Motion: animate and render. 2)- Shape: Model, Surface & Light. 3)- tips and tutorials There red and orange books with the lightwave logo on the cover & they say "Lightwave [6]" with the titles I mentioned on the covers as well. When you want to use alotta the books out there or the tutorials that come with the books or on line they almost all say. "Well since you have the program then you have the manuals and you know about such-n-such" or "refer to your manuals for the basics on the begining of this tutorial" Well I'm learning the program through a school and I don't have the manuals so I don't know about "such-n-such". Please let me know where I can get these books/manuals. I've heard people say that they've seen them in bookstores. I for one haven't. I askd Newtek for the books and they said NO "we only sell them to people who pay the $2800 for the program to cut down on illicit copies of the program". Whats a student to do? Please help. I'm sure that the book I'm supposed to be reviewing is good to, if you already have the 3 books that I'm asking about. All books and tutorials seem to expect you to have these manuals. they go on from that assumption, %75 of the time. briamor@hotmail.com

jump
this book is quite good in the way that it teaches you many advanced and useful things. But it does not have all the ready made objects it claims to have. it is very poorly written.

A great book acting as an introduction to LightWave 3D!
I highly recommend this book to both beginners and pros. Nicely written, with multiple viewpoints,detailed descriptions and how-to's. *A MUST HAVE* ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Graphics - General    3. Computers    4. Computers - Desktop Publishing    5. Desktop Publishing - General    6. Microcomputer Graphics    7. Computer graphics software    8. Computer modelling & simulation    9. Image processing: computer animation    10. Television   

Editorial Review

NewTek's LightWave 3D 5 is a complicated, high-end 3D animationpackage, and Read more

Reviews (1)

Gobuldygook.
I suppose if you like flipping through 100 pages to find something that could be explaned in one paragraph, it's a great book!The book goes into a fair amount of depth, but not on a lot ofthings. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Desktop Publishing    2. Computer Books And Software    3. Computer Graphics - General    4. Computer animation    5. Computer graphics    6. Computers    7. LightWave 3D    8. Microcomputer Graphics    9. Computer graphics software    10. High level programming languages    11. Image processing: computer animation   

Reviews (8)

got this used, still relevant
I got this book used out of curiosity and it's great.If the author is writing a new book, I would definitely pick it up.

seems a little thin
When I first got this book, I was a little disappointed on how thin it was....computer books are supposed to be inches thick normally aren't they? But when I actually got into it, I was mildly surprised. The tutorials areprobably some of the clearest that I have read in any of the lightwavebooks - clear and to the point without any excess waffle. And yes, they aregoing to be useful. Real world lighting for example will give you someinsight on how to place lights properly for scenes if you haven't beendoing so in the past. Oceans - again, a subject that beginner modellersseem to model badly all the time - is covered in this book. I just expectedthere to be more of it....

Learn how to write!
The information is helpful, if you can get to it through the misspellings, punctuation errors, and constant and annoying personal dialogue.I just want to know about lightwave without chit chat.The style of writing isunprofessional and disruptive to learning. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Graphics - General    2. Computer animation    3. Computer graphics    4. Computers / Computer Graphics / General    5. Handbooks, manuals, etc    6. LightWave 3D   

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computer Programming    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Non-Classifiable    6. Nonfiction    7. Programming Languages - General    8. Computers / Programming Languages / General   

Subjects:  1. Computer Graphics - Game Programming    2. Computers    3. Spanish: Adult Nonfiction   

Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    2. Computer Graphics - Game Programming    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Programming - Visual Basic - VBA (Visual Basic for Applicati    6. Spanish: Adult Nonfiction