Why a Second Edition?
After meeting so many readers of the original book on the forum that supports this book (www.3D-For-Games.com/forum), as well as a lot of them in person, we came to the decision that a bit of an update to 3ds Max Modeling for Games was in order. Not only had the software moved on but so had the expectations from employers looking to hire staff. With lots of companies closing down and it becoming harder than ever to break into the industry, we decided that it would be a good idea to bring the book up to the present day and to include more of the essential skills that every professional 3D artist must master.
I worked with Anthony O’Donnell to bring you all of the new content, which we believe is worthy of buying this book again if you have the original. About 60% of the content is new, and focuses a lot more on professional skills, which we believe will really give you the helping hand to stand out from the crowd.
Why This Book Was Originally Written
This book was written with one single goal in mind: to teach people who are relatively new to 3ds Max how to produce great results in the smallest amount of time possible.
The idea of writing a book came about when I had purchased yet another How to Use 3ds Max book online without flicking through it first. I purchased the book because I was keen to start researching training for 3ds Max and how people are currently going about learning Max. I started to read through the book and was amazed at what they were teaching but also overwhelmingly shocked at what they were getting the readers to produce—the end results were shocking, even laughable. I thought to myself, “If that’s the way they are teaching how to use 3ds Max, I don’t want to learn it.”
It’s great to know how to do something, but if what you ultimately produce is unusable, then what’s the point?
So, I managed to get in touch with Laura Lewin at Focal Press, and she just happened to be looking for writers. After pitching a few ideas, this was the one that was accepted.
As you become more experienced in modeling, you’ll discover that there are many different methods of producing the same piece of work. All that I am offering in this book is one particular method for each tutorial: the one that I believe is either the fastest or the easiest or the one that I think produces the best results for the least amount of time.