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Originally Posted by hansn
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The sample-chapter one is allowed to read online is "Understanding Architectural Drawings", therefore does not reveal any information of what quality the technical and theoretical information in the book is - or does it  |
If you want an idea of the technical nature or the quality of the tutorials, please see the 'Free Tutorials' section of our website.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hansn
-Looking at the table of contents I see that out of 20 chapters ONE is about mental ray and the rendering progress.
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I don't know what table of contents you're referring to, because the one posted on our site shows 4 dedicated mental ray chapters, which are about 100 pages total.
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Originally Posted by hansn
But I am not sure if a book that takes up more chapters to explain how to model a house (which is rather the 101 of modeling compared to vehicles or character-modeling) than to explain light, color, general approaches, etc. is really what aspiring viz-masters are looking for.
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This book does not teach you how to use a loft or a boolean or the edit poly modifier. The beginner book does that. It simply teaches techniques with which those features are best used. Techniques for modeling a building are one of the most requested, if not the most requested types of information asked on this site and asked by the students that we teach. Modeling is a very time consuming stage of a visualization project and if you do not put a building or a site together efficiently, then there is a lot more time to be saved in this stage than in the material, lighting or rendering stage. Modeling a building is no less an intermediate skill than any other phase.
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Originally Posted by hansn
I personally would rather have the opportunity to sit down for a coffee with most of the people posting in the gallery and having them tell me what's really interesting: What's the missing magic between a so-so rendering and a great one. What are common mistakes? What are secret tricks?
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If you look at the table of contents again, you will see Appendix A - Top 30 Production Tips, Appendix D - Common 3D Mistakes, and so on. The entire book is filled with personal experiences and reflection on our past projects.
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Originally Posted by hansn
A lot of people don't need another explanation of the modeling tools, the arch-and-design-shader or the mental-ray settings. They spent years to learn to understand and use the tools. They need help how to put their knowledge of a tool-set to better or great use.
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This book is not just an explanation of the tools...it's 100% practical application. Every part of the design process is covered from start to finish. You may not need help modeling a building or learning mental ray shaders, but a lot of people do.
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Originally Posted by hansn
Maybe I am wrong because I only could read the table of contents and one chapter of that book. If anybody can confirm that I am wrong, I would be more than happy to buy that book. Until that happens all masters here at cgarchitect have my open invitation for a coffee |
This book is the work of myself and 7 other authors. We spent an ungodly amount of time discussing what should and shouldn't go in it. It has been reworked and reworked more times than I can recall. No book will ever meet everyone's perfect appetite but we tried to find the best material for the intermediate user to take them to the advanced level.
Cheers