This book has helped my Lightwave skills tremendously. I would give it 5 stars except for the DVD wasn't checked before shipping and contains a few corrupted files (new files can be downloaded from website) and I don't like all the poor illustrations. I know it lowers the cost of the book to do the illustrations in black/white but I would be willing to pay more for colored illustrations. Even though the DVD contains the digital illustrations it's a pain to boot up the PC whenever I want to see them. That being said this is the best book to learn Lightwave because it contains beginner, intermediate and advanced topics.

I have purchased Lightwave books in the past and I am most happy with this one. It is well written informative with clear details. The pictures in the book and the video tutorials make for very clear learning. Lightwave Essentials is great. This book is money well spent.

The product was a great buy and in excellent condition. It was packaged well and sent quickly. Thanks so much for your wonderful service.
Sincerely,
G.K. New York

great book to learn basics of LW but also an excellent reference which comes in handy with the given task.

After reading Dan Ablan's "Inside Lightwave 8" - more or less THE standard in Lightwave - there were more questions raised than answered. Not that Ablans approach is a bad one, it's just that he picks up so many different aspects of the program along the thread of the book, that at times it can be confusing. This isn't the fact with "Essential Lightwave v9". Although the whole covering of every aspect from the absolute beginning seems a bit cumbersome, it's worth it at the end. This over 900 pages issue helps you get into nearly every detail of Lightwave and handle the program like some kind of 3D Photoshop.
Add the companion DVD with hours of live modeling and animating, plug-ins and illustration fotos and you surely got something to start your way into 3D via Lightwave.