Well, due to the reviews here, I was at first not going to purchase this book, but then I found it at the library,looked thru it and found some things I wouldnt have known about, unless I looked thru every bit of Max help....(Thats going to happen!) :-P That, and I do like having the page in front of me due to one screen usage,,If you have multiple screens, the online help may work for you,,,

I give it a 3-1/2..if it was in color, it would be nicer,but the graphics are quite nice,,and it is helping me out quite nicely!! (Already speeding up my animation process! )

I've used Carrera since it was Ray Dream and it was time for me to graduate. I tried Maya and didn't like the interface or maybe it was the books that described how to use the interface, nevertheless, I thought I would look at 3ds Max. The way I learn best is by doing and although the help menu contains the information, it doesn't have it in a form that is useful to me except as an after the fact, hunt and search type of reference.

This was one of the few books that I've used from cover to cover. It was clear, well laid out and error free. It takes you through using 3ds to make 3d scenes in a clear and concise manner. The three reference manuals for 3ds Max are 1358, 1840 and 1128 pages respectively. This book is only a little over 600 pages, so, no, it won't tell you everything there is to know about 3ds Max but as the title suggests, if you want to know the "3ds Max Essentials", and if you learn best by doing, I would highly recommend this book.

This is the kind of book that makes me want to sit down and write my own book, perhaps one that is actually useful to people that are trying to learn something that is not already in the help documents that ship with the software. Page after page of this book was just a summary of 3ds Max's help file. There was no information that was specific to 3ds max 9, this book could just as well been titled "3ds max 6-9 Essentials". No new features, just the same old "So your new to 3d" junk that we have seen published a thousand times. How bout the new Fur/Hair engine, Mental Ray improvements, workflow changes, ANYTHING USEFUL? Save your money and read the help files located at the top of 3ds Max 9...you've already paid for that.