Real World modo: The Authorized Guide: In the Trenches with modo 1st Edition

This is an awesome book. It does not tell you anything you don't need to know.I would place it as "Intermediate" in terms of its level. This means he omits the usual 300 pages of "this is how you click a mouse" or what all the menus are, or how to customize every interface option. Those are things that you might read once but probably already know (or in many cases don't care about). So far the bits I've read are concise and useful information that I can see wanting to refer back to repeatedly.If you're a total modo guru, then there may not be much here that's new, but I think for most of us this is *exactly* the right level of presentation.It's more of a reference work than an a hand-holding tutorial or project-based book. It's about 50% illustrations/screenshots in full color, and his do an above average job of illustrating and demonstrating how things work.Yes, it's all 401. Good coverage of Hair, IK, etc.The book has some references to compositing (showing Shake) and Maya users will appreciate the Using modo with Maya chapter. There's a chapter at the end about building real-time assets for use with XNA and similar game development tools.The text is well written, concise, and to the point. Clearly written by someone with extensive real-world experience in using modo for real work.This is just an awesome reference manual and learning resource for the beginning or intermediate modo user. I think this will scratch pretty much all of the itch that makes me want to write my own book about modo.It may not tell you everything you'll ever need to know, but what it does tell you is all stuff you do need to know.G.

I read Dan Ablan's Modo book which does a very good job of making someone quickly comfortable with the Modo UI and was ready for the next step, a book on Modo that helps you get professional quality results once you have a basic understanding of how everything works. Let me quote the author in the preface of this book:"I also know how frustrating it can be when you purchase a book, excited about increasing your skill set, only to find that the book stops short right at the critical moment when the light bulb is about to go off in your brain, and you are left with even more questions than when you started reading". When I read that sentence I went YES!! Finally an author who understands why all 3D graphics books are lacking and who is going to finally show how to get stuff done just as though you got hired on to a big name graphics studio with only minimal knowledge of 3D and are going to get a pulled up to speed quickly as you would when getting trained on the job in any profession. Well this book is NOT the book that will do that. The section on modeling does not show you how to model anything but just gives a brief description of all the modeling tools. The section on lighting and rendering does not give any explanation on how to use the render tree but just gives a general description of different types of lights and render effects. I was going to give this book 3 stars, because maybe Im asking too much from this book, maybe no such 3D book could ever exist that could quickly give you the general knowledge on how to make photoreal art like you see in all the 3D forums without you experimenting on your own. But to counter the three 5 star reviews that are currently up for this book, I have to bring this book back to reality with one star. Over and over the author will only briefly describe a tool or feature in Modo and say "read the documentation to get a more complete understanding on how this tool/feature works". Well I already read the docs and was hoping this book would give me a more complete understanding on how to use this tool/feature.I do want to give credit to Focal Press publishers who printed this book and all their graphics books with full color pics and high quality paper.

I've purchased this book about a month ago and have been using it since. I'm new to Modo but not to 3D. I give a 3 rating because for a beginner in Modo I would like to have a bit more specifics than what we have here. I understand the concepts and approach but it is very difficult to actually guess what was clicked to get to a certain feature. Maybe it is because I'm too beginner for this book. I would like to be given a bit more along the step by step path. Together with this book I had to keep referring back to the Modo help files and reference libraries to understand how a tool was accessed and used.The color pics are great but a bit too small and on this copy a bit blurry so I could not read the menus very well. Overall is a good book to have and go back to but it is not the ultimate reference on Modo.I use a combination of this book, reference and help files from within the application and the tutorial videos to get more in depth knowledge. I wish there was a book out there that would be for the real beginner and explain how the tools actually work for building a real model.I did not finished the book yet so there are a lot more to be learned. My intent with Modo is to do modeling only and export to other applications like zbrush and Vue so the Maya chapter was not helpful. A Modo and zBrush chapter would have been more useful since zbrush now has something called goZ with Modo.

Hi,I bought this book and I must say I'm disappointed. Sure he covers everything. But he does this in a clumsy very unorganized manner. He says in his introduction that he's not a fan of step by step tutorials. How else can you learn software? Don't waste your money on this buy Dan Ablans 3D Garage Modo 401 signature courseware. That guy has proven he can write tutorials and books in a very user friendly step by step way.

Der Autor hat es mit den Schützengräben. Er bietet infolge dessen eine Unterstützung bei dem Kampf mit dem Programm Modo 4.01 an. Das Programm liegt allerdings schon in einer neueren Version (5.01)vor. Das englischsprachige Buch bietet eine Fülle von Anregungen und Tipps zur Modellierung und Texturierung im 3D-Bereich, ersetzt aber nicht das ausführliche Studium der Bedienungsanleitung. Darauf weist der Autor fairerweise hin. Der Schreibstil ist eher unkonventionell, bis zu den ersten wirklichen konkreten Schritten in Modo vergehen doch so einige Seiten, auf denen uns Herr McDermott ausführlich über seine eigene Arbeit und seinen Werdegang informiert. Das er dem lieben Gott für seine Kreativität auch noch dankt, halte ich im Rahmen eines solchen Buches für überflüssig... Die Lektüre setzt gute (Fach-)Englischkenntnisse und auch Vorkenntnisse in 3D-Modellierung voraus. Wer Programme wie 3ds max, Maya oder Cinema 4D kennt, muss trotzdem etwas weiter vorn anfangen, da die Bedienoberfläche des Programmes ungewöhnlich ist und auf einem anderen Konzept aufbaut. Das Buch ist leider eines von wenigen auf dem Markt zu diesem Programm und schon (oder nur?) deshalb eine Kaufempfehlung.

Cet ouvrage s'adresse surtout à des utilisateurs confirmés, ou intermédiaires, du fabuleux logiciel édité par Luxology : MODO 401.Ce livre n'est pas un recueil de tutoriels qui vous dit sur quel bouton appuyer pour réaliser tel exercice. Ce livre ne comporte pas des chapitres consacrés à détailler chacune des lignes de fonction dans le menu. Inutile de rechercher des pas à pas pour réaliser des projets : il n'y en a pas ! Si c'est ce que vous rechercher, je vous recommande de vous reporter vers les ouvrages de Dan ABLAN qui sont plus adaptés.Ce livre n'est pas une compilation de tutoriaux, il beaucoup plus que cela : il recense les problèmes (et les solutions !) que rencontrent tous les Modonautes à chaque étape de le création en 3D (modélisation, UV mapping, texture, animation, rendu, intégration avec des programmes tiers). C'est là que l'expérience de l'auteur est incomparable. Wes Mc DERMOTT partage son quotidien (professionnel 3D chez UPS AIRLINES) avec le lecteur. Si vous voulez adopter la bonne stratégie, avant de partir dans "les tranchées avec Modo", c'est LE LIVRE qu'il faut avoir lu.NB : L'ouvrage mérite la note maximale mais l'absence de DVD (le contenu de 3,4Go de reccources et vidéos supplémentaires doit être téléchargé depuis le site de l'auteur) lui fait perdre une étoile !