Book Description
What could be more placid amid noise and haste than a cat staring quietly out into a dramatic skyscape, her soft fur reflecting the light? Or more peaceful than sleeping kittens cuddled up together in a pile? Does anything illustrate the idea of “being on good terms with all persons” more than a sweet, small feline sitting atop a large, calm dog? From photos of a meowing kitty (“speak your truth quietly and clearly”) to another happily licking her paw (“beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself”), this Desiderata will charm every cat lover and provide spiritual sustenance, too.
Average customer rating:
- Truly Exceptional! The only book which makes it, well, easy
- Mistakes Mistakes and More Mistakes.
- Teacher's Highest Recommendation
- Challenging for Beginners, but Great Overall
- As close to perfect as a 3dsMax book is likely to get
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Mastering 3ds max 4
Cat Woods , and
Jason Wiener
Manufacturer: Sybex
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Web Graphics
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Similar Items:
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3ds max 4 Bible
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Inside 3ds max 4
ASIN: 0782129382 |
Book Description
Make the Most of Today's Leading Animation Package
With release 4, max further establishes itself as today's dominant modeling, animation, and rendering package. And with its fully revised and updated coverage, Mastering 3ds max 4 further establishes itself as the definitive max resource--just the book you need to master all the techniques supported by this powerful product. Inside, you'll learn all about sculpting and texturing your characters, setting them in motion, lighting the scene, and producing the final animation--for movies, games, television, and the Web. You also get in-depth instruction in MAXScript, including detailed explanations of all that's new to this release. Coverage includes:
* Understanding basic 3D concepts
* Modeling in polygons, patches, and NURBS
* Creating detailed models
* Optimizing models for low-poly environments
* Applying textures for real-time and pre-rendered output
* Animating using parametric animation, forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, and character studio
* Fine-tuning animation by editing keys and transitions
* Creating drama with lighting
* Applying post-process effects
* Cutting and cross-fading between shots
* Compositing in Video Post and combustion
* Exporting to Web 3D with Pulse
* Getting started with MAXScript
* Using scripting for scene manipulation
* Using scripting for animation
* Customizing the user interface
* Defining autostart scripts
* Creating your own plug-ins using MAXScript
Customer Reviews:
Truly Exceptional! The only book which makes it, well, easy.......2003-04-24
I thought I'd never learn to use this program. It's HARD. Not impossible... but not easy, either. I'd almost given up when a friend told me he'd found this one book which made Max4 seem pretty tame; I was, frankly, skeptical. But, I've gone through the *entire* book (with the exception of small parts of the final chapters), and feel I have the measure of the program.
It seems that some others who've used the book claim to have had certain problems with it. All I can say is that this is the clearest documentation I've seen and, as for problems: zero. Although no MAX book is going to make the program trivial, this comes as close as possible, with no stumbling blocks.
Mistakes Mistakes and More Mistakes........2002-10-25
That's what this book should be called.
Trust me , you don't wanna own this book, you'll just be
wasting your money.
I'm well beyond disappointed w/ this book.
But hey, what do you expect when you're writing a book
about a version of software that you're obviously not even
using. How else could I be getting errors about obsolete files?
If the files that come w/ the book are obsolete, then the software that made them was an earlier version of max.
Thus the reason for the mistakes, max 4 is slightly different.
What do all these mistakes mean to the person trying to learn
max 4 ? It means you'll be misguided most of the time and you'll
end up pulling out all your hair.
I highly recommend not even going near this book! You'll only
be sorry , like I am. I should've bought the max bible.
Shame on me. :(
Teacher's Highest Recommendation.......2002-08-13
As a college instructor of MAX modeling, texturing, and animation, I both recommend this book to my students and use it myself as a resource. I had the pleasure of contributing to this work in a few sections, and so had the opportunity to examine this work closely as it was written. In addition to providing comprehensive instruction on all areas of MAX, Cat Woods discusses the principles of 3D space and the creation of 3D art with greater elegance and clarity than any book I have encountered on the subject. Those struggling with the tools will find help here. A must-have for beginners, and a strong resource for experienced users.
Challenging for Beginners, but Great Overall.......2002-08-11
Unlike a lot of people using MAX, I was close to a beginner, and was trying to learn it along with a graduate course in animation and design. A friend recommended this book to me, after I had trouble with another...book which was our course text. I can't say whether "Mastering 3ds max 4" is the best MAX book on the market, but it's light years ahead of what our instructor chose.
If you were to open the book, you might get the impression -- the wrong impression -- that it was 'dumbed down', because there are so many illustrations. In fact, I almost didn't buy it for that reason. Only later it hit me that this is a book *about* graphics, so of course it would be graphical, and not like some book teaching you about, say, databases. Once I got used to the way the material was presented, I found the book really easy to follow, and was able to create real animations, from scratch, on my own. I think almost anyone can learn to do it from this book, if they stick with it.
The writing is (for a book like this) almost entirely free of jargon and always clear, even if sometimes, due to my lack of experience, I had to go over things a few times to get the knack of them. I can't say whether this would be the optimal guide for a professional animator, but it seems ideal for people with a good general background in using graphics software, and for 'advanced beginners' like me (and a bunch of other people in the class who borrowed it from me... and didn't want to give it back).
As close to perfect as a 3dsMax book is likely to get.......2002-07-29
Because I needed to learn the program thoroughly for my dissertation work, this is the fifth 3dsMax book I've bought, and it's the first that's not been overtly disappointing. If someone wants to have every little feature laid out in boring detail, there are the official materials and release notes for that. This book is the literal opposite (others suggesting otherwise have clearly not read the book in much detail).
What is most impressive here is that the book is NOT a systematic, unstructured tour of the program, dutifully covering each minor feature. Rather, it is results-oriented: if you want to accomplish X, here is how you go about it. Although it is graphically-rich and amazingly clear, it is most certainly not a comic book version of a Max book, and is clearly targeted to the sophisticated user. Even though a beginner would find the book quite useful, it should probably be bought in conjunction with a primer or a book "introducing" 3dsMax.
The writing is sprightly and, although there are spots where the editing might have been tightened, it is well above average even in that regard. In fact, if anything, the book has a crisp literary feel to it that will appeal to most readers, but may not be the style of choice for really hard-core users. Still, this is preferable to the studied dessication of nearly all the other books I've seen on the topic.
Finally, the graphical illustrations are uniformly excellent, leaving little to the imagination. I'm hoping that this team sees fit to write such a guide for the next, inevitable incarnation of the program. I for one will be advance ordering it.
Average customer rating:
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Perspectives from the Past: Primary Sources in Western Civilizations, Second Edition, Volume 1: From the Ancient Near East through the Age of Absolutism
Steven Epstein ,
Cat Nilan ,
John Robertson , and
Thomas Max Safley
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
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Similar Items:
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Western Civilizations, Volume 1, Fourteenth Edition
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Western Civilizations, Single Volume Edition, Fourteenth Edition
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Western Civilizations, Volume 2, Fourteenth Edition
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Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel
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On Dreams
ASIN: 0393978214 |
Book Description
From the ancient near east to contemporary times, Perspectives from the Past offers a rich variety of sources both familiar and fresh. The reader contains excerpts from classic texts by Plato, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Descartes, Marx, and Mill and includes substantive representation of women writers, such as Anna Comnena, Hildegard of Bingen, Madame Roland, Flora Tristan, Emmeline Pankurst, Vera Brittain, and Elizabeth Robbins.
Perspectives from the Past offers a wide selection of readings from all regions of Europe, including Venetian ambassadors' reports; excerpts from Mickiewic's Books of a Polish Nation and Its Pilgrimage; Czar Alexander II's Edict of Emancipation of 1861 freeing the serfs; the Constitution of the Black Hand, the Serbian nationalist group instrumental in the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand; and In Search of Splendor, Constance de la Mora's account of the Spanish Civil War.
Also included are non-European writers whose works have made an impact on Western thought, among them Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Battutah, Luiz Vaz de Camoes, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, and Mahatma Gandhi.
Product Description
The Face Painting Book of Cats is an inspirational book overflowing with creative and unique Cat Face Painting designs. This book features over 20 Step by Step Cat designs and cat designs contributed by some of the world's best Face and Body Painters.
Book Description
Max and his sidekick, Gordy, try various get-rich-quick schemes only to be outdone each time by smart-aleck Austin Healy. Peppy dialogue and a fast-moving plot make this easy chapter book a reassuring choice for newly independent readers.
Customer Reviews:
Max Malone Makes a Million.......2006-04-07
I teach 3rd grade and purchased this book to introduce the students to starting a business of their own for a writing prompt. The reading specialist reads this book to the third grade classes because it also goes along with two of the stories in one of our reading themes.
Very entertaining!.......2000-05-21
The perfect book for my 6 year old, who dreams of becoming rich himself.
Book Description
Max Schmidt grew up in the stockroom of his father's fur store, cloaked among the foxes, minks, and leopards, hiding from the glaring eyes of a stuffed tiger atop the wardrobe. It is here he dreams of traveling to distant lands; and here, as a young man, he begins an affair with the store's married clerk.
Forced to flee when his lover's husband discovers the affair and denounces Max to the Nazi secret police, Max steals away to Hamburg, where he takes passage on a freighter destined for disaster. When the ship founders somewhere off the coast of South America, Max is trapped in a dinghy with a hungry jaguar. Max believes his days are numbered-until he washes ashore on the coast of tiny Porto Alegre, Brazil, prepared to begin anew in the tropical clime.
But when Max discovers his next-door neighbor is a Nazi hiding from persecution, he finds that for the first time in his life, he is the master of his own destiny, ready to take matters into his own hands...
Customer Reviews:
Max and the Cats.......2006-02-28
I read this book to write an essay for Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi. I read life of pi fist. Max and the Cats was inspiration for Life of Pi. actually life of pi was the worst book i ever read. beacuse of this i liked Max and the cats. it was fresh, serious, and not wierd. One regrettable thing is that the story goes too fast...
One of the worst books I've ever read.......2004-05-04
How can a book with such a beautiful alluring cover be so horrible? I'm sorry to say it, but this book was one of the worst books I've ever read. When I finished reading it, I had this sick upset feeling in my stomach. I wasn't sure whether I should scream or cry. Although I did neither, reading this book, I'm sorry to say, was a dreadful experience. The part about the jaguar in the dinghy was cool but the ending was terrible. I was disgusted that the main character was mean enough to split an innocent dog's head open for absolutely no reason. I also hate the name Max. You could have picked a better name. Although, you have taught me one lesson; don't judge a book a by its cover. Even a book with a great cover could be awful.
Another fine novel by one of Brazil's best writers.......2001-05-04
"Max and the Cats" is a surreal comic novel by Moacyr Scliar, a great writer from Brazil. "Max" has been translated from Portuguese into English by Eloah F. Giacomelli (who also translated Scliar's monumental "Collected Stories"). "Max" tells the story of Max Schmidt, who is born in Germany in 1912, the son of a furrier. The novel tells of Max's coming of age and his emigration to Brazil.
Max's life story is structured around his encounters with three big felines: a stuffed tiger in his father's shop, a jaguar, and an onca (a Brazilian wildcat). I don't want to reveal too much about the novel's quirky plot. I will just say that Max gets into many remarkable situations: comic, frightening, erotic, and/or absurd.
Much of the story takes place under the specter of World War II and the Nazis, and other elements of the novel tap into the myth of the Americas as a new world of opportunity. Scliar also refers more than once to the work of Jose de Alencar, the 19th century Brazilian writer who created a romantic, idealized portrait of the relationship between Native Americans and Europeans. Scliar seems to be ironically commenting on the work of this literary predecessor.
"Max and the Cats" is a weird, wonderful triumph for Moacyr Scliar. Combining elements of mystery, realism, and the fantastic, this novel is an excellent example of Scliar's uniquely delightful voice.
Average customer rating:
- try something else
- Absolutely the worst book ever
- Kidnapings
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Kidnap at the Catfish Cafe (The Adventures of Minnie and Max)
Patricia Reilly Giff
Manufacturer: Viking Juvenile
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Fiction
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| Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery & Horror
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Sarah, Plain and Tall
ASIN: 0670881805 |
Book Description
From the creator of the best-selling Polk Street School series--and winner of the Newbery Honor--comes The Adventures of Minnie and Max, a new series of chapter books about a plucky female detective and her trusty feline sidekick, Max. Minnie's brother, Orlando --owner of the Catfish Cafe--may not be sure of Minnie's detective work, but her new friend Cash and police officer Kitty the Klutz, are right behind her, helping her all the way. None of Minnie's money-making ideas have worked yet, but now she has a really brilliant idea--a detective agency. Her first case: to find Max's owner and to identify the e
Customer Reviews:
try something else.......2003-03-31
i read this book for a child lit class. It was a poorly written book. The plot of this story should be suspenseful because it is a mystery. Unfortunately I found this story too confusing and poorly worded to be suspenseful. The plot line makes little sense. Children readers especially will have a hard time following the illogical story line and the many characters. There are many turns of plot in the story that are explained very poorly. For example, Minnie is at one point pushed into a shack by a small boy. Then an off duty police officer falls into the shack as well. Later this situation is quickly explained, but the situation still makes no logical sense. I liked the idea the seaside setting of this book, but it was explained in so little detail that it was not interesting. The characters should be interesting, but it seems that the author was trying to hard to make the characters quirky. For example, the main character's brother owns a restaurant where he serves peaches and walnut shells as his main ingredients. The author includes many of these types of off the wall descriptions, but not of them seems believable. These sorts of details may work in a book that is better written. Riff is not able to pull this off. I think Riff also was trying to make this book funny, but it was not.
Absolutely the worst book ever.......2002-04-19
this book is a desperate one. made for children maybe up to 6 yrs. old this book was boring and not planned out.
Kidnapings.......2001-12-01
Kidnap at the Catfish Cafe is a must read for those who like cliffhangers. Minnie, a soon to be ten girl has a new detective agency.Her first case is find a home for a cat and stop a thief that will steel anything. Minnie with the help of her two friends will try to stop the thief. When Minnie's boat and cat get stolen, Minnie follows to find out who it is or will she get cought in the act? Find out when you read this book.
Average customer rating:
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A Thump From Upstairs: Starring Mr. Boo And Max
Manufacturer: Peachtree Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Fiction
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Humorous
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ASIN: 156145348X |
Book Description
A delightful mystery for young children featuring appealing characters, bold digital illustrations, and a surprise ending! AFTER DINNER, mild-mannered collector Mr. Boo and his wise cat, Max, settle down together in a big comfy chair to watch a scary movie. Suddenly they hear a loud THUMP! from upstairs. Mr. Boo b-bravely sets out alone to investigate. As Mr. Boo searches room by room, he hears more bumps and thumps and even a creak. He finds the balcony doors wide open. Then WHIZZ! ZIPP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Something furry with many eyes and many tails flies past Mr. Boo. Meanwhile, Max is up to something downstairs in the kitchen_and Mr. Boo is in for another surprise! Author-illustrator Richard Keep's fascinating, brightly-colored illustrations perfectly complement this lighthearted story. Young children will particularly enjoy the special elements of mystery and surprise as they follow Mr. Boo through his extraordinary, curio-packed Victorian abode.
Customer Reviews:
Exceptional.......2005-08-09
This is a book that the kids will want you to read over and over again, and each time find a new discovery on the wonderful decorated walls and shelves of Boo and Max's warm little house.
A real pleasurable read and journey for the kids - and for the kid inside all of us. I highly recommend it - looks like a series to me.
Average customer rating:
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Too Many Tomcats and Other Feline Tales of Suspense (Five Star First Edition Mystery Series)
Barbara Collins
Manufacturer: Five Star (ME)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
United States
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Collins, Max Allan
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ASIN: 0786228997 |
Book Description
In Eileanan, the sea-dwelling Fairgain have refused to sign the Pact of Peace. Driven by ancient hatreds, they have devoted themselves to destroying all who dwell upon the land. To help bring peace, Iseult's flame-haired twin Isabeau must face her most difficult challenge yet.
Customer Reviews:
simply the best!.......2007-06-14
I originally purchased this series to read during the summer evenings while the TV shows were all in hiatus. However, from the first chapter of the first book, I could not put them down. I enjoyed this series as much as the Lord of the Rings and I cannot recommend it more highly. From start to finish the 6 books held me enthralled with excellent writing, wonderful characters and great storyline.
Loved it!!!!.......2006-07-22
THis book is GREAT i absoulutely LOVED IT. I couldn't put it down. I lost sleep. OMG it is SO good!!!!!!
Witches of Eileanan is a must read!.......2004-09-27
I love this series. I bought the first book while looking for something to read while I waited for Harry Potter. This isn't just a "while-you-wait" book, this is awesome book in it's own right. Throughout the series the good-people turn into bad-people and vice-versa. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. The ending of this series is wonderful, better than most series I've read. This is real fantasy. Anyone who reads fantasy should read this series.
Does it really have to end?.......2004-04-26
What am going to do now that I will no longer have my friends with me everyday? Mind you, I really hate sequels. I hate it when they keep beating a dead horse. But, this horse is still alive and kicking. I finished this book late last night. I didn't want to ever put the book down. I asked my husband yesterday afternoon "What am I going to do when I finish this series? I hate to say goodbye to all those characters." He told me to read them again. :) What a smart guy! LOL Eventho I lost sleep last night finishing this book, I woke up in the best mood. I had a great dream about the characters. I woke up in such a great mood! That's how well written this book is! You feel like the characters are really part of your life. I've never had a book get into my life and thinking so much. Thank you so much for creating such a great trip for all your readers to take!
A little disappointing.......2003-10-27
I'm sorry to see this series ending. This last addition was a bit disappointing. Everything was closed off just a little too neatly. All potential love interest came together and all potential problems were solved. It just wasn't as interesting since it was completely predictable.
Books:
- Dogwalker: Stories
- Dolphin Key
- East Bay Bike Trails: Road and Mountain Bicycle Rides Through Contra Costa and Alameda Counties
- El Retrato De Dorian Gray / The Picture of Dorian Gray (Clasicos Universales / Universal Classics)
- FANNY AND SUE: A NOVEL
- Far Afield
- Fascination: Stories
- Final Payment: A Posadas County Mystery (Posadas County Mysteries)
- Golden Apples of the Sun, The
- Haiti: A Slave Revolution: 200 Years After 1804
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Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life
The Desiderata of Happiness: A Collection of Philosophical Poems
