How to Cheat in 3ds Max 2011

Book excerpt: **How to Cheat in 3ds Max - updated for latest rev of Max** Need to get results with 3ds max fast? Why take months to learn every button in 3ds max when you can create great visuals with just a few key tools? Learn to create quick yet stunning special effects, and animated characters with the fastest techniques possible. Need convincing grass, trees, water, shadows? You can use the memory-hogging methods that choke your display and take forever to render, or you can get it done bing-bang with this book. When you need an animated character you can spend days fiddling with polygons, or you can use this book to put it together in minutes and get the entire project done in a day. How to Cheat in 3ds max includes a host of time-saving techniques as well as little-known tools that will make you look like an expert in no time flat. This book is for busy professionals who need to get it done right, but also need it done fast. This rev of the book will have higher-end cheats (for Intermediate users) and ALL NEW or UPDATED content on: new modelling and material tools, mental ray, special effects, particle systems, and scripting. The web site offers scene files and bitmaps used to illustrate the cheats, also music files, organizational samples, and instructional Camtasia movies of Michele where Michele showing some of the trickier techniques.