Archive for February, 2010
Final DVD burned, and another book?
I got the DVD image from Wiley’s production group late last week, and went through the files and checked them again for accuracy. Autodesk changed a few minor things in the latest build so I changed a few files so they will open correctly and find the files they need.
Wiley moved all the book files into a sub-folder to work with their Flash menus, so people will hopefully figure out to go to the “Lesson Files” folder for the folders mentioned in the book. They also moved the IPF files for Irradiance Particles into a separate folder, and again I’m sure people will figure out where the pre-computed files are located.
A friend of mine at NVIDIA asked me if I would be interested in writing a book about the new iray application, which would be great I’m sure, so I’m starting to put together some ideas for what to cover. The book would not be specific to 3ds Max/Design and would potentially cover products from Autodesk and other developers like Dassault. Interesting? Is that something you would like to see?
Jenni
Book development winding down, and more content
At this stage of the game I am busy editing PDFs from the typesetter and making a few changes here and there in wording and also in the images provided with the book. The images, when large and/or viewed on the computer, are clear and understandable. However once they are shrunk to fit on the page sometimes the details you need to see in order to understand my point are blended away. Chapter 3, in particular, I went through and re-rendered a number of images to blow up regions and also boosted the brightness and contrast on some to make the point and display the effect I desired.
I’m also working on additional materials for educators – PowerPoint presentations on each chapter, videos, and additional exercises. There were a lot of things that didn’t make it into the book, despite the generous page count, and I’ll be working through those examples in the coming months. I’m not sure how much will be available free and what may be available in another format, perhaps a DVD ‘extras’. Chapter video introductions/overviews are planned to be made available free on the web site once they are completed. I’m providing these as I believe that some things will be easier to grasp as videos, and being able to hear, see, and do are important to learning and memory.
If you have specific training materials you would find valuable, please let me know. I appreciate feedback as I work to develop the materials.
Jenni
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