By Aaron Gorden (Conflictsdaily) (24.230.23.251) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 07:36 pm:

I am looking to spend some of my Christmas money on some new Lightwave books. I currently only own Dan Alban's Inside Lightwave 7. Can anyone recommend some MUST HAVE Lightwave books?

By Peter D Hunt (Whylee) (66.162.33.162) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 07:46 pm:

What are your main areas of interest? If you're into DOP work then there's many lighting and camera books that could be recommmended. If you're into character work, same thing. Depending what your interests are the best books for you may have nothing to do with lightwave but traditional film or figure drawing and anatomy books. Just an idea ;)

www.peterdhunt.com

By Aaron Gorden (Conflictsdaily) (24.230.23.251) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 07:51 pm:

I am a 1st year student in college studying modeling and animation.

I ant some GOOD books that focus on character modeling and animation

By Peter D Hunt (Whylee) (66.162.33.162) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 07:57 pm:

Aaron,

Well I'm not a char guy so I don't know of any books off hand. But I do know all my friends or co-workers have tended to study anatomy and more traditional books to understand muscles and form in general verses software specific books. I'm sure someone here will recommend and LW oriented book though.

www.peterdhunt.com

By Dustin D'Amour (Wizcraker) (68.99.218.128) on Friday, December 27, 2002 - 03:17 am:

The Lightwave 3D 7 Character Animation by Timothy Albee is a good cheap starting point for Character rigging and weighting before jumping on to Larry's Cds. Mr Albee also answers his email pretty quickly.

By Burton R. Ogden (Burton) (172.154.98.5) on Saturday, December 28, 2002 - 10:00 pm:

The LightWave 7.5 Primer by Patrik Beck, Charles River Media 2002, 364 pages + CD-ROM, $49.95 is a rather new offering.

LightWave 3D 7.5 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide by Art Howe and Brian Marshall, Peachpit Press, April 2003, 500 pages $21.99 is not published yet.

By Aaron Gorden (Conflictsdaily) (24.230.23.251) on Sunday, December 29, 2002 - 10:46 pm:

I went with inside Lightwave 3d and The Lightwave Project book...

I learn better when I am doing hands on learning

By jimmao (Little_Light) (219.93.197.173) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 12:29 am:

Hi, I'm a newbie here. Are there any Good 3D Magazine, any recommend?

By kevin phillips (Kevman) (210.48.24.135) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 04:01 am:

If you want an invaluable resource for character animation then 'The animators Survival Kit' by Richard Williams is excellent...

No, its not a 3D book, its an animation methods, principles and formulas 'manual' of sorts that I've come to Love after working at a studio for several months. Its a whopping big A4 sized publication full of pictures and notes covering a huge range of animation techniques and examples.

You can apply all its teachings to 3D animation which is where I've made the most use of its wisdom!

By william greenlee (Billyboy) (12.218.128.69) on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 07:54 am:

The manual......

By Tom Burbage (Tburbage) (64.166.23.171) on Friday, January 24, 2003 - 01:31 am:

LightWave Applied has excellent chapters by Dave Jerrard on surfacing using LW's built-in procedural textures -- by far the most in-depth I've ever come across. Also some very good lighting and rendering stuff.

I'm no character rigging expert, but Jen Hachigan's chapter on that subject seemed thorough and up-to-date with the toolset (as of 7.0 -- Hi, Jen! Yes, I did read the whole thing as well as the stuff from the book site).

Not much on modeling.

I thought it was a good complement to Ablan's book.

By riki (Suture) (203.109.249.131) on Friday, January 24, 2003 - 06:03 pm:

I posted a list of LW and 3D related books, DVD and videos here http://www.suture.net/tutorials/books_videos/index.htm

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 07:20 am:

not lightwave specific, but this is apparently a bit of a 'bible' for becoming better at texturing and lighting . . .

Digital Lighting & Rendering, by Jeremy Birn