CompuServe Thread

Hi Mei-Tien, << I browsed it in the bookstore yesterday and found it rather limited in its discussion of the R4 features……. and …. The tutorials are practically motivated, introducing simple (but VERY useful) physics (attraction, explosion,gravity, fireworks) and using Keyscript for data import. >> Well, I was responsible for several of the script examples in "Inside 3DS 4" so I can only address that part of the book's contents. I'm looking forward to Nancy's physics examples too. The scripts I was involved in, upon your review of the Keyscript section, focus' on creating advanced dialogs and custom interaction with the dialog, creating a valid rotation key for many objects based on relationships of scene geometry (planar objects staying perpendicular to a moving camera), and exposing the relationships of the local/world coordinate systems of (Slice) objects linked to a hierarchy and through analysis/modification of the hierarchy as well as the angles between the linked objects and taking into account their transformation matrices for local/world coordinates create scale keys and position keys fo create controlable bulges of Skined objects. These 2 books sound complimentary to me. I want physics in my scene as well as complex dialogs to control/represent the effect as well as an understanding of transformation matrices, nested hierarchies and the ability to create valid rotation keys…Both will be beneficial to the script aficionado. jonas[adesk]

>> Have you seen Inside 3DS R4? I browsed it in the bookstore yesterday >> and found it rather limited in its discussion of the R4 features. >> Sounds Nancy's R4 book is a better choice. Correct? I'm not familiar with Inside 3DS R4, nor, I must confess, with very many of the other books available for 3DS. (I've been using the software for a very long time, see?) I did acquire the Release 4 Supplement specifically because of my inherent interest in Keyscript. You will not find in this Supplement an introduction to 3D Studio, or much discussion of the core software whatsoever. The Supplement just covers the inverse kinematics module, Keyscript, and techniques for matching perspective. On the plus side, it's really cheap, very concise (i.e. quick to complete), and well written.