Page 47 - Kitab3DsMax

I
have a host of people to thank for their involvement in this major work. The order in which they are
mentioned doesn’t necessarily represent the amount of work they did.
Thanks as always to my dear wife, Angela, and my sons, Eric and Thomas, without whose support I
wouldn’t get very far. They are my QA team and my brainstorming team who always provide honest
feedback on my latest example. We have had many family sessions to think of good tutorial examples,
and I’m always amazed with what they come up with. One of my favorites that hasn’t been implemented
yet is a tutorial of a group of bicycles chasing an ice cream truck.
In the first edition, the task at hand was too big for just me, so I shared the pain with two co-authors —
Dave Brueck and Sanford Kennedy (both of whom have gone on to write books of their own). I still
thank them for their work, which, although overhauled, retains their spirits. In a later edition, I again
asked for help, a request that was answered by Sue Blackman. Sue provided several excellent examples
that show off the power of the Track View interface. Thanks for your help, Sue.

Major thanks to the editors and personnel at Wiley. I’d like to specifically thank Stephanie McComb,
who has stepped into an established team and done a great job. Her encouragement, dedication, and
positive attitude have made a big difference as I’ve faced some tough deadlines. Huge thanks to Marty
Minner (the double M), who has once again managed the entire editing process, and to Gwenette Gaddis
for her excellent copy-editing input. Marty’s comments during the review cycle always crack me up.
I’d also like to thank Chase Mitchell for taking on the technical editing in a crunched schedule. Additional
thanks go out to Jenny Swisher and her co-workers in the Media Development department for chasing
down the required permissions and for compiling the resources for the DVD, and finally, to the entire
staff at Wiley who helped me on this journey. Of particular note are the cover designers who have been
delightfully stuck on reptiles and amphibians for the covers to the last several editions. I’m starting to
refer to the titles by their cover creature; that is, “hand me the frog book next to the lizard book.”
The various people who work in the graphics industry are amazing in their willingness to help and sup-
port. I’d like to thank first of all Rob Hoffman, Brittany Bonhomme, and the entire Autodesk team for
their timely support and help. I’d also like to thank the talented people at Zygote Media, Curious Labs,
and Viewpoint Digital Media for many of their models, which make the examples much more interesting.
(You can only do so much with the teapot after all.) Thanks to Michael Valentine at Zygote Media and
Tom Avikigos at Digimation for help in securing a new set of Viewpoint models. Additional thanks go out
to David Mathis, Sue Blackman, and Chris Murdock for completing models used in some of the tutorials.
Finally, I’d like to thank the many artists who contributed images for the color insert pages for sharing
their talent, knowledge, and vision with us. They are an inspiration to me.

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