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First let me say that I got the book as soon as it was available and
have read the entire thing. I am a moderate level user of Ldraw and
MLCad. I also had experience with L3P, but I was used to using L3PAO for
that. I have done POV Ray as well, but I had 0 experience with Lpub,
Lsynth, MegaPOV and any of the fractal stuff.
Having said that, I'll tell you that the best thing I have gotten out of
the book to date was getting the install right off the disk. I have
been able to successfully install most of the tools in the past
manually, but I never got Lpub working right...until I got the book.
The reason was that I always install the latest and greatest. I have
always installed POV-Ray 3.5 and Lpub would choke on that. With the
book, I started on a fresh computer (since I own 5 computers and
regularly rebuild them, it's easy to find a clean box at my house) and
chose to use the POV-Ray 3.1g that came with the disk. Everything
worked. I went back to my main system, ripped out POV-Ray 3.5 and
installed 3.1g and again, everything started to work.
Then I jumped into the book. I am at this point going to mix both
positive and negative feedback together so I can walk through my
experience with the book. I thought the first and third chapters (while
necessary) were a little too slow. I read through them and was intrigued
by the story, but I guess I was chomping at the bit to get cracking
(this may be due to my previous exposure to Ldraw). Jumping into the
MLCAD 101 chapter was slow at first because I knew most of it.......or
so I thought. As I started going through it, I realized there were a lot
of subtle things I had not known. My next model input after reading this
was much faster and easier. The same for Chapter 5. These chapters will
definitely benefit people of moderate skill level as well as all
beginners. Well Done.
Chapter 6 was especially interesting to me since I get into file formats
and manual edits, as well as just knowing what's going on behind the
scenes. It may be a bit much for a beginner, but it has its place in
this book. Chapter 7 showed me a tool that will now be a regular part
of my arsenal (Lsynth). I love it. I have not had a chance to play
with all of the samples in the chapter yet, but if the rest of it is
anything like the first part, I'll be good to go in short order.
Wonderful tool.
Chapter 8 (POV-Ray and L3P) was one of the chapters I was most looking
forward to, but it was a little thin to me. I'd love to see more meat
on the use of POV-Ray, as well as camera and light info. Like many
aspiring ray-tracers in the world, my ability with a camera and lighting
is sub-par. I have the darndest time trying to reset the view when I
change to orthographic view (which is the way I prefer to render most of
my models). I end up just guessing at coordinates and so on. I'm not
sure what the best way to cover stuff in more depth, but I think another
chapter in the book that is POV-Ray "beyond the L3P settings" would be
nice. Also, give us some rendering tips and tricks.
The Lpub section was a decent starting point and the program absolutely
rocks. I think that maybe from an organization standpoint, the L3P and
Lpub stuff could be put together and the POV-Ray stuff could be drawn
out (I'm simply thinking out loud here).
The last two chapters were worth it also. Good to know about the online
community and I love the AT-ST instructions. Overall, I'd give the book
a 4 out of 5 and I would definitely recommend it to all who are
interested in Ldraw and Lego CAD.
Thanks again for a great book.
Geoff Gray (LugNET member #1223)
-----Original Message-----
From: news-gateway@lugnet.com [mailto:news-gateway@lugnet.com] On Behalf
Of Lan Tse
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 1:27 PM
To: lugnet.cad@lugnet.com; lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw@lugnet.com
Subject: Re: New LDraw.org Books Page
> Hi Lan,
>
> Thank you very much for the review. I would also like to hear opinions
> from experienced users. However, I don't think the book has been out
> more than a month and I do expect more reviews of this kind to come up
> in the next few weeks. There is a lengthy one in Amazon from a
> knowledgeable fan which goes into quite a bit of detail.
>
> One thing that I would like to ask is what did you *not* like. You keep
> praising the book yet gave it 3 stars out of a possible 5. Don't get me
> wrong -I cherish sincere feedback, even if it is not entirely positive.
> What I am interested is learning where, in your view, we failed or
> could have done better. Maybe we can find a fix or at least prevent
> future mistakes.
>
> Thanks again!
Cool--talking w/the author. Seen some of yourp osts miguel--i'm familiar
with your owrk as well. My 3 star rating was not meant to be bad--i
actually have no problems with the book. it is meant ot reflect how
useful i find the book. Thats why i wondered what other people thought
of the book. Basically i know everything in here for the most part. I
found the sections on lsynt and lpub good, which were the newest stuff
as far as im concerned. Im going to pas the book along to some of my
little bros friends who have never used mlcad before--im sure they would
think it was great.
soooo 3 stars for someone like me who knows most of this stuff. Id say
probably 4 or 5 stars if they were new to this stuff.
oh your coverage of the fractal gnrtr and rotation model and meta
commands were good and fairly new otme but i rarely ever use them myself
(fracta lgenerator was completely new ot me. gotto run-myspelling is no
good--moving too fast.
Lan
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Message has 1 Reply:
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| (...) Cool--talking w/the author. Seen some of yourp osts miguel--i'm familiar with your owrk as well. My 3 star rating was not meant to be bad--i actually have no problems with the book. it is meant ot reflect how useful i find the book. Thats why (...) (22 years ago, 23-Jan-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
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