3D Lighting: History, Concepts & Techniques: Amazon.ca: Arnold Gallardo: Books

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The majority of computer graphics books are either too application-specific or too general. The field of 3-D computer graphics possesses tremendous depth, and any aspect of it is worthy of a focused career. In large studios, artists concentrate on just one phase of production, be it modelling, texturing, animation or rendering. If you are interested in learning about the field from this perspective, read 3D Lighting: History, Concepts, & Techniques. It's a pleasure to peruse, because it shares the large-studio focus.

The book does feature examples, project files, and some instructions for specific applications, but it is mostly about concept and theory in computer imaging. For the most part, it avoids application-specific discussion. This is a good thing--any experienced artist uses more than one application, and can easily port this information from one app to another.

There are eight chapters in all, starting with "The Nature of Light" (how light works) and "The Physiology of Seeing and Perception" (how we see light), and moving on to "Fundamentals of Photography and Cinematography" and "Colour and Materials". But it isn't until chapter 5, "Computer Graphics", that the book gets into the specifics of how 3-D applications treat light and colour.

The only real drawback of this book is its lack of colour images. While there is an eight-page colour plate section in the middle, it is hardly enough to sustain a book devoted to lighting and colour theory. And although the accompanying CD-ROM includes most, if not all, of the pictures used in the book, it is hardly the same as a colour picture in the text. The liberal use of black and white images throughout the book is almost an insult to a book about colour and light.

While application-specific reference books have their place, there are far too few that focus on specific concepts. Lighting is as important as texturing, animation and rendering, and 3D Lighting: History, Concepts, & Techniques is thoroughly important to the field. --Mike Caputo

Review

"...the ultimate reference guide for learning the why's and how's of lighting scenes in your 3D application...[A] must-have book..." -- Richard H. Schrand, Technical Reviewer

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THROW IT IN THE WASTE BASKET Nov 26 2003

By Louna

Format:Hardcover

This book should be thrown in the waste basket. I have no doubt that Mr. Gallardo knows his stuff, but he really can't explain it to an average MAX user. Majority of book was full of run-on sentences and prepositional phrases strung together. His writing style was so distracting, I had to throw the book in the waste basket to calm me down. I have the feeling that Mr. Gallardo had to fill those pages so the book will look more impressive. Don't impress me. Stop printing this book and save the forest.

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MAX r4 Simbiont update info Nov 10 2001

By A Customer

Darkling Simulations now have their updated Max r4 plugin (Simbiont) as well as the updates for LW 6.5/7.0b and trueSpace 5.1 and are available online as a demo if you do not have Darktree 2.0. This update will make it possible to use the tutorial scenes with MAX r4.

Great insights but a caution to 3d Max 4 users Oct 3 2001

By DJM

I found Mr Gallardo's book extremely informative on the history, theories and science of light. Also, the light array models used in the tutorials gave me some nice insights for my own work.
Unfortunatley when I went to use the tutorials I found that the required plug-ins of the third party texture creator (Dark Tree) didn't work with 3D Max 4. The demo for the upgrade of this product wasn't available and I had to try to simulate the tutorial using Max's on material editor. I'm dissappointed that the author did not use these materials in the first place. I would also caution anyone utilizing these tutorials to have a decent computer to run them on. Some of the exercises use a lot of grouped lights along with raytracing and it can take some time to see the results.