CompuServe Messages

Regarding the books and R3: Thanks for asking as I am sure many other people have similar questions. First I will describe the book contents. Glass & Reflection This book tells you how to create glass materials that will look like glass and not plastic by manipulating reflection maps and transparency for the best effect. You will also learn principles of reflection, as they apply to way flat mirror and autoreflection work in 3DS, so you can get both kinds of reflection to reflect what you want every time. Regarding R3: R3 has a much more comprehensive materials editor so there are many more possibilities for glass and reflection. However the basic concepts are still the same. The book is meant to give you the basics by showing a some models and how to make them look perfect, but on your own models you would have to play around with the materials to get them to look right with your scene. The book is meant to give you a springboard from which to experiment. R3 means you have more ways to experiment once you know the basics, but the basics are still the basics. Shaping & Lofting This book tells you how to use the Fit tool in the Lofter, and how to determine the shapes needed to make a particular object. With the book you make a Microsoft Mouse and a fancy perfume bottle to learn the concepts, but you can use the techniques to look at any real object, determine the shapes for the Shaper, make them "fittable", and loft them painlessly. It also shows you how to manipulate the path in the Lofter so your lofted objects will land perfectly sized and placed in the 3D Editor so you are not doing a whole lot of moving and scaling in the 3D Editor. Also a lot of miscellaneous tips on shaping and lofting. [continued]