Since 3DNY Publishing is an outgrowth of the large 3DNY.ORG creative community, we are obviously very concerned with what 3D and digital artists have to say about our efforts. After reading a sampling of our feedback below, you will understand why we are quite frankly overwhelmed. We began publishing at the end of 2002, so all of the comments you see have come in the brief time since.
The following is representative feedback to a variety of 3DNY products, but most are in reference to our new MediaBook® product lines. Comments are from both the press and consumers. Many came to us as e-mail notes of thanks, others were posted to various online public user-to-user forums.
Please send us your thoughts as well, we love to hear from you.
Read What the Press has to say about 3DNY
Excerpt from John Knoll's Forward for a 3DNY book
"In this book, Lance Evans discusses what the manuals do not. How to use the power to make great-looking images. Where the manual tells you what a given parameter is, this book teaches why you would want to set it to a particular value to get the best results. If you strive to make realistic images, you'll learn why one setting produces a realistic result, and another does not"
—John Knoll
creator of Photoshop and Visual Effects Director at Industrial Light & Magic
Excerpted post from the CG Chat List:
"I just got [3DNY’s MediaBook] discs today, and I must say that they're very well presented - it's a great learning tool. I'm impressed with it, and I think it's great to see this kind of information being presented. I am going to put my partner on it so he will finally learn how to do 3D work."
—Bear Weiter
founder & moderator of The CG Chat Lists
E-Mails we have received:
"Nice job on the MediaBook, just finished going through it all (yes finally). When’s the next one coming out? Great product—keep up the work!"
—Eric Decker
Illustrator/Art Director
"I just started going through the CD-ROM. Holy cow!
I hope you folks made enough money from this training series to keep at it. This is the best training I've ever seen."
—Michael James III
anarkonline.com
"Hello, Australian customer here. Have been meaning to write & praise you guys on the Master series - am enjoying it immensely, helping me to learn the program with much greater ease. Will you be producing (more) similar educational products?"
—Catherine Lowry
Australia
"Hello folks,
A wonderful product. The detail you put into the MediaBook was amazing. What a team you must have, the information and the presentation both extraordinary. Thank you so much. What’s coming next? Please add me to your announcement lists."
—Peter Collier
US Armed Services Dept. Visual Information
"I took a strong look at your Master Disk CDs and they are simply incredible. I'm very impressed. Your interactive approach to learning is well executed and essential when trying to master a program single handedly. You made hundreds of Universe Modeler users extremely grateful. Great job!"
—Brian J. Pohl
Lead Previsualization Artist
and Conceptual Designer - LA, CA
"Please tell me which applications you are creating MediaBooks for next, so I can plan on just learning in the order you plan on teaching! Great job, you have made understanding abstract concepts SO MUCH easier for me. Viewing it on computer makes it all very easy to see what is happening, and your speaker was unusually easy to understand. Other learning products feel like I have to fight with to get their information, yours just put it out in an easy way. Let me know when new products come out."
—Simon K. Phizer
Simon-Says Graphics
"Once again, thank you for a product that is well thought out and executed. I have quickly become a big fan of the educational material you folks produce and look forward to more products to chose from in the near future. Your [MediaBook] has so much material I feel like I have just scratched the surface. The software interface simulations are amazing. I never knew something like that could even be produced."
—Brian Walchiack
Westchester NY
Hi, 3dNY!
I've just got the Universe/Character Animation disk today. These are great tutorials! Easy to follow and understand. It's very clear to set up character animation and Bones. Keep up your good works"
—Jedt Sitthidumrong
Thailand
Excerpt from a thread posted on PostForum.com:
"I just got my MediaBook discs 2 days ago, have been slowly reviewing them as I am very busy right now. But from what I have seen so far this is a great learning tool. I've never seen anything like this before, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more."
—James Langman
I agree. It's organized very well. I recommend it to anyone wanting to learn.
—Tim
Received my MediaBook Disks several days ago, but other work kept me from getting into them right away. I've now been well in there and I must say you've created a quite impressive interface. Very creative. And I've been wanting that level of information since I bought 2.9 a few years ago. Thanks much!
It is taking a bit of time to memorize my "keyPass" though ... ;-)
Congratulations Lance, Sara, et al.
—Marshall Hobart
I received my 3DNY MediaBook discs a few days ago (overseas mail) and I wanted to toss in my 2 cents - a great learning resource and a creative achievement in itself. This was definitely worth waiting for.
Thanks!
—M. Scott Mussett
This is the best learning tool I have seen…by a long way. Thanks Lance and team.
As an aside, is that you doing the voice-overs? Good voice, good delivery. Much clearer and less frustrating than a lot of the videos I've seen. Congratulations on what is obviously a huge amount of work!
—Michael
Hi, Lance
…congrats about this great product. It's a wonderful teaching tool.
I will preorder your CA product too!!!
:-)
—FelixCat
WOOHOO!!!
let me know when I can preorder [the next book]... ok?? I can't wait to have those tuts!
—Joel Ruiz
The following are excerpts from Amazon.com reader reviews from the first 3DNY book produced in association with Charles River Media:
Insightful book with excellent examples!, February 10, 2003Reviewer: A reader from Canada
Lance Evans writes this book as if he were speaking directly to you. With wit, he covers topics thoroughly and in a manner easy to understand. I already had some (3D) working knowledge, but no where enough to even create some of his examples. Through this book, Lance Evans has answered so many questions and provided excellent insight into so many issues not resolved by reading the manuals. Actually, it would have been great if he had been the EI Universe manuals writer. Furthermore, the care to detail is just simply superb! Thanks!!!
Graduate Class in 3d, January 24, 2003Reviewer: Brian Walchiack from Westchester NY
I am one of the minority of people in the industry that actually went to school for animation. Mr. Evans book gives us an understanding of how things work better than any professor I ever had in school. I am amazed at how he has taken subjects that ramble on for 50 pages in other books, and made them crystal clear in 10 pages. And even given more information!
This book treats the reader as an intelligent and capable person. It does not try to teach you basic things like how to use a Bezier pen the way some other material we purchased has done. There is so much in this book that as diligent as we have been by working on it every day, there is still so much we have not done yet. I think this book will take us 6 months to carefully make our way through. Mr. Evans has included literally hundreds of tutorial projects on the disk, I have never seen a book like this before. This is why I say it is like a graduate class in animation.
The other two things that I feel should be mentioned is the sheer number of topics that were covered in this tome, and how many of them are techniques I have never seen anywhere else. And I have a at least 40 other 3d books on my shelf. He tells you how to set up your render farm computers with extra TCP/IP addresses, how to manually add extra tessellation to ACIS models (I asked the developer this question and they told me it could not be done!), explains all the mouth positions for lip sync animation, teaches how to create UV data on models that don't have any, and even how to feather deformations. I could go on and on. The book even has a trailer online...I can't recommend this book enough. My company bought a book for our 3d graphics department, but each of the 5 people in it has since gone out and bought their own copy. Even though 2 of the people use other programs.
Lives up to its name, January 4, 2003Reviewer: Mae
The chapters build upon each other to create a comprehensive reference. I was impressed with the advanced subjects, especially those in the deformation and morphing chapters. There are more tutorials than any other 3d book I have read, and the multi-pass tutorial was especially thorough.
The section on the modeler application had tons of tips and works the reader through many different types of projects.
Great Intro to Power Software, November 30, 2002 Reviewer: kfillmore3 from Petaluma
This is a terrific book. Lance Evans has upped my knowledge of Electric Image Universe at least 10 fold. We all know that Universe is powerful software, being used on television and feature films. The folks at Electric Image and dvGarage are doing their best to make it available to animators from hobbyist to professional, but getting into the meat of the program hasn't always been easy. Lance is a teacher, and he has created a well written, well structured book that brings you along in an easy going fashion. Each topic is introduced, explained, and potential pit falls discussed. You get the feeling that Lance knows where beginners make wrong assumptions and need assistance. The only criticism I could offer would be the title. This book is a great introduction to the program, but doesn't really get into advanced topics. So is it Professional grade? You bet! You could make a sweet living using just the techniques in this book, and try your hand at more advanced animations once you've got this material under your belt.
