Architectural Rendering with 3ds Max and V-Ray: Photorealistic Visualization 1st Edition

Must have

this book is so useful and easy to read. I recommend this book for architects and designers. excellent rendering book

I agree with the first review.yes it is a good book , but it will tell steps how to do materials ,but not always telling why you do this?another thing , the author should review the book before sending to publisher,1- some options are selected in the figures , but he is not telling to select them in the paragraph.2- some objects and materials are named in figures , differently as compared in the paragraph.3- one main thing , in chapter 4 bedroom at night. to start the project, you will import the scene from autocad file , in return to 3ds max file , you will not find layers( 01_wall_glassblocks_glass, 01_wall_glassblocks_joint) , because these layers in autocad file are empty!! for me I took these layers from the completed exercise , import them back to autocad then to the starting file in 3ds max , to begin the project.Eng.Wahby MoadAutoDesk Certified Trainer & Expert

Good

The book is basic. Too basic, actually. The examples used and their results are far from being photorealistic as the title suggests and some of the techniques are not only outdated but are actually wrong.If you have a basic knowledge on V-Ray stay away from this book. If you don't, stay away all the same.

This is an easy to read book.the author goes through the settings for exterior and interior renderingbut often times does not say why he is using a particular settingthis is the only thing that this book is lackingi highly recommend it for beginners who wants to jump in and produce a good renderright away

Working in the field of architectural visualisation myself, and an avid user of VRay I was looking to extend my knowledge with this book.The book is more of a walkthrough/step by step guide of the accompanied CD than anything else, it will show you how to create the images that are in the book but only a very few times does it explain *WHY* you are doing the things that it's telling you to do.It constantly uses outdated methods/materials when there is no need to; such as the shellac material, thus ruining VRays own energy conserving material and potentially producing unrealistic results - something that this very book is aiming to teach you.I strongly suggest taking a look at "Mastering Mental Ray" by Jennifer O'Connor instead. Yes, I am aware that it is specifically tailored towards Mental Ray and not VRay, but a suprising amount of the information can be ported over to VRay and will certainly give you a far better understanding of the ins & outs of photorealistic rendering than this book.

This is a great book for those who are just starting to play with VRay. You don't have to be just using 3DStudio either. The rendering engine is mostly the same in all applications (SketchUp, Rhino, etc.), so you can use this book for those programs as well. The book is a step-by-step follow-along tutorial book and doesn't go very far into the theory or the 'why', but this book shouldn't do that. It gives you a series of basic typical setups (Interior, Exterior, Studio) and gives you a play-by-play on how to set those scenes up and get nice renders from them. If you are in a crunch and need to learn this program asap for a project, I highly recommend it as a starting point.