Hello, This is Mike de la Flor, the main author of The Carrara 5 Pro Handbook. I have been working on new projects so I have not had a chance to visit the groups lately. So you can imagine my surprise at all of the commotion about the new The Carrara 5 Pro Handbook. I am not going to address the negative comments in or the "review" of the book as that would just be a waste of time. Instead let me tell you about The Carrara 5 Pro Handbook and what it covers and you can make up your own mind. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are an introduction to 3D concepts. These chapters help to explain the basic concepts and terminology in modeling, texturing and animation. In my experience I have found that many people, even those who have experience in 3D, still have nagging questions about how things work. These chapters help to answer those questions. Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8 help the reader get to know Carrara and its new interface and feature preliminary tutorials in texturing and animation. Chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 feature no less that 5 in-depth, modeling tutorials. Chapter 9 has the reader model a complete NASA Delta rocket in the Carrara Spline Modeler. Chapter 10 guides the reader through box modeling and entire character from head to toe. Chapter 11 focuses on the Vertex Modeler's new surfacing tools to model a complete Piper Cherokee airplane. Chapter 11 and 12 focus on Hexagon 1. Chapter 11 written by Jack Whitney has the reader use a combination of line and box modeling techniques to model a character head. And Chapter 12 written by Patrick Tuten, covers line and surfacing modeling in Hexagon to complete a detailed and very cool concept car. The modeling tutorials in this chapters 9 through 12 are unique, complete, in-depth, step-by-step guides to modeling with the new features of the Vertex Modeler and many of the features of Hexagon. Outside of this book there is no other source that covers the modeling tools so completely. Chapters 12 and 13 cover the texturing tools in Carrara. Chapter 12 features three tutorials on working with shaders, shading domains and the UV Editor. Chapter 13 deals with Subsurface Scattering and Displacement Mapping. Chapter 14 and 15 tackle the complex world of animation. In chapter 14 you will learn to create morph targets to make a character speak. Chapter 14 not only covers the tools you will use to make a character speak but also the lip-synching concepts. In chapter 15 Peter MacDougall painstakingly walks the reader (no pun intended) through rigging a character for walking. Peter's walk cycle tutorial is one of the best and most thorough I have ever seen. And you get to learn how to do it in Carrara no less. Chapter 16 features 5 complete tutorials on rendering with Carrara. The topics covered are: Global Illumination, HDRI, Caustics, Motion Blur, and NPR. Again each tutorial is a step-by-step tutorial with nothing left out and no guessing required. Chapter 17 has two very good tutorials that cover working with VectorStyle 2. You will learn to output to Flash and get tips on what works when outputting a 3D scene to Illustrator. Chapter 18, written by Andrea Newton, is almost a Poser "how-to" manual by itself. Andrea's tutorial on integrating Poser content into Carrara is very thorough and fun to boot. Chapter 19 written by experts David Bell and Lisa Yimm features an exciting tutorial on compositing Carrara renders in After Effects. Now you will know what to do with those renders after you are done working in Carrara. Finally, chapter 20 covers the very useful and fun plug-ins from Digital Carvers Guild. Written by Eric Winemiller (the developer of Digital Cavers Guild plug-ins) chapter 20 features three thorough tutorials on Anything Grows, Anything Goos, and my favorite Cognito. The book's CD-ROM is stuffed with hundreds of incremental and supports files that will help you get through even the most complex tutorial. An inspirational gallery full of Carrara animations and illustrations are also in the CD-ROM. This book took eight expert Carrara users over six months to write. I personally consulted with Eovia to iron out the content in the book. I also worked closely with Eovia during development to get as much as possible into the book. However, it is impossible to write a third party book that covers everything. Three planned chapters had to be cut due to time constrains and one of the contributing authors sadly experienced a sudden death in the family. This book is a PROJECT BASED book which takes a different approach to instruction than your standard software book. This book guides you through each unique tutorial in step-by-step increments, leaving nothing to the imagination. As such this book lives up to the advertisement on the cover. Admittedly, there were some timing issues with software development and the publishing schedule that made it impossible to include the last minute new tools. As anyone who has every worked on a beta team knows a program is developed right up the night before the final CD is burned (known as the golden master). To those that have been posting negative and nasty comments about the bookthanks for your comments. They are very valuable to me and I will take your input into consideration for future editions. If you have any questions about the book please feel free to contact me directly at mike@.... Many thanks, Mike de la Flor