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Designed for educators

Since I've begun teaching at the local university, I've begun to rethink how the book is organized. Previous editions presented all the information on specific topics like animation together. This is a fine approach for experienced users who are getting up to speed with Max, but for students just starting out, this comprehensive approach easily overloads beginners before they even get out of the starting gate.

The new approach splits the book into beginning-level topics that cover modeling, animation, and rendering before moving on to the advanced features in each topic. This allows the first half of the book to be used for beginning students as an introduction to the software without digging too deep into the advanced, trickier features.

How this book is organized

Many different aspects of 3D graphics exist, and in some larger production houses, you might be focused on only one specific area. However, for smaller organizations or the general hobbyist, you end up wearing all the hats—from modeler and lighting director to animator and post-production compositor. This book is organized to cover all the various aspects of 3D graphics, regardless of the hat on your head.

If you're so excited to be working with Max that you can't decide where to start, then head straight for the Quick Start. The Quick Start is a single chapter-long tutorial that takes you through the creation and animation of an entire scene. This Quick Start was included in response to some feedback from readers of the first edition who complained that they didn't know where to start. For those of you who were too anxious to wade through a mountain of material before you could create something, this Quick Start is for you.

The book is divided into the following parts:

• Quick Start—This single chapter (which is actually a chapter in Part I) is an entire animation project presented in several focused tutorials. It is designed to whet your appetite and get you up to speed and producing animations immediately.

• Part I: Getting Started with 3ds Max—Whether it's understanding the interface, working with the viewports, dealing with files, or customizing the interface, the chapters in this part get you comfortable with the interface so you won't get lost moving about this mammoth package.

• Part II: Working with Objects—Max objects can include meshes, cameras, lights, Space Warps, and anything that can be viewed in a viewport. This part starts by introducing the various primitive objects and also includes chapters on how to reference, select, clone, group, link, transform, and modify these various objects.

• Part III: Modeling Basics—Max includes several different ways to model objects. This part includes chapters covering the basic modeling methods and constructs including working with spline shapes, meshes, and polys. It also introduces modifiers and the Modifier Stack.

• Part IV: Materials, Cameras, and Lighting Basics—This part shows how to apply basic materials to objects including maps. It then delves into using cameras and lights, but it focuses on the basics of these topics while avoiding the advanced features.

• Part V: Animation and Rendering Basics—The simplest animation features include keyframing, constraints, and controllers. With these topics, you'll be able to animate scenes. This part also covers the basics of rendering scenes.

• Part VI: Advanced Modeling—This part continues the modeling features with coverage of XRefs, the Schematic View, mesh modifiers, compound objects, NURBS, patches, hair, fur, and cloth.

• Part VII: Advanced Materials—The Advanced Materials part includes coverage of unwrapping, UV coordinates, pelt mapping, the Render to Texture interface, and Normal maps.

• Part VIII: Advanced Animation Techniques—After users are comfortable with the basics of animation, they can move on to advanced techniques, including animation modifiers, the expression controller,