Just finished Digital Lighting and Rendering by Jeremy Birn

Jonstark

After years of seeing this book recommended as a must-read for anyone involved in rendering, I finally picked it up on Kindle, for nearly 30 dollars (!). The hardcover version is much pricier, which is part of why I've waited so long to purchase it.

Initial impression? Hmmm.... eh? Doesn't quite rate a 'meh' but certainly not a 'wow'. Partly because it's a book that was updated in 2006, it provides some good fundamentals, and I *did* learn several things I didn't know, but I'm not sure it's a 'must-read'. Most of what it contained I had already picked up from the forums (and actually in some areas it was deficient, and stuff I'd learned from forum posts or simple googling was more in depth).

At $10, it would be a 'must-read'. As it is now, I think it's overpriced in many ways.

However I did learn several new things, maybe even one or two tips I can use, and got a much better grasp of some of the fundamentals for how render engines work. I'm not *unhappy* about my purchase, in fact I'm generally happy, but honestly from the way I've heard others talk about this book I was expecting to be bowled over with awesomeness, and... well... eh. :)

Oh, one thing I found very valuable, as I am one of the (few I think) people who came to this hobby with no photography background experience, and that was all the details of how cameras work, what mysterious terms like F stop, ISO, frame rates, shutter speed and so forth mean and how these terms apply to rendering software. That was very useful indeed.

Anyway, just thought I would mention :)

Subtropic Pixel

Hi Jon!

I very much want to free up space in my house so I made a vow earlier this year to reduce the size of my paper-based library as much as possible and to instead try to learn more from ebooks, emagazines, and free online YouTube, blog, and wiki resources.

Books can sometimes cost the same or more online, but magazine subscriptions are often cheaper on Amazon and Nook, and if one has a computer or tablet, then the world is an oyster and the abode can be less of a fire hazard, yes?

Anyway, I have been watching Carrara 7 tutorials by Mark Bremmer, and basically just soaking as much as possible about the user interface. I would like to find a tutorial series that would give the reader assignments, from small rendering or animation projects to performing a task such as a file conversion, or maybe rendering a preconfigured scene with different lighting, textures, or camera angles so that the reader could begin to understand how "this setting" works, and how the output would look or move differently from "that other setting over there."

Always keep learning!

PhilW

I just noticed (by pure coincidence!) that there will be a newly updated and revised version of this book - version 3 - due to be released in December 2013.