CompuServe Thread

Let me start your 3DS doc survey with my humble observations… (I've used 3DS for 6 months now, with a healthy background in microcomputers and useful related interests in photography, art, mathematics and engineering…) I found the 3DS manuals to be VERY good. The tutorials are excellent and the reference manual is well organized and fairly complete. The writing is lucid and easy to read. (No, I don't work for Autodesk and I'm not out to get any favors! <g>) I think many misunderstandings come up when people (including me) fail to read and reread carefully. It is tempting to skim "…I know this, I'll skip ahead…". With 3DS this can be a disaster simply due to the complexity of the material! What works best for me is to do all the tutorials (with the ref manual open), read the manual from cover to cover (whew!), then go back and redo the tutorials as time permits. (The first time thru, there is so much new stuff that some of it leaks out of my brain.) I feel the docs could be improved tremendously by adding an advanced "tips" or ideas manual. The "Things to Try" sections in the new features tutorials and the "TIPS" sections in the IPAS boutique are great. Give me more! What we need after learning the basics are ideas (not step-by-step tutorials) from the experts. What I would REALLY like to see is a copy of that great 3DS video accompanied by a note by each artist with a hint or two on how selected bits of magic were accomplished. Now that's something I'd gladly pay big bucks for! BTW, I'm amazed sometimes… a friend of mine never used the DEFORM/FIT to make things because he said it was two complicated. When I animated the telephone handset (page 6-72 thru 6-89) he was impressed! He had no idea how many great ideas are "buried" in the reference manual. Maybe you shouldn't use the scary title "REFERENCE MANUAL." <g> JKJ (…gotta go read somemore now…)