Morphed Letters
Gary,
I think the the 3DS docs are probably the best manuals I've ever worked
with — far superior to most others in layout and very well written (and a
great binding).
I believe that all manuals have inherent limitations and because 3DS is
such an enormously complex program those inherent limitations become more
apparent with 3DS than with other programs. One problem arises because 3DS
is really four different programs each with different menus, concepts, and
procedures. The total amount of information one needs to keep active in his
or her brain ram while working in 3DS is substantial. I often forget how to
do something I've done a few days or weeks ago. And sometimes when I sit
and read through the manual while rendering, I find all sorts of
interesting and valuable information which I'm sure I've read before but
have either totally forgotten or they are items which had no meaning to me
when I first read them because I was still then struggling with some
simpler concept or procedure and wasn't yet ready for that advanced
information.
I really like the short suggestions you have throughout the manual and I
think the little "how to's" you provide (like the "This is how to clone a
selection set of objects" on page 7-98) are very, very valuable. I would
like to see more of such features. One section which badly needs such a
feature is in the chapter on batch rendering. In addition to the long list
of parameters, it would be so helpful to have had several examples of
typical command lines using many of the parameter switches. A simple line
stating, "If you wanted to render a file named "horse.3ds" at 640 x 480
with low anti-aliasing and using a custom palette (etc) your command line
should look like this . . . " would have saved me hours of frustration.
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