Advanced Lighting and Materials with Shaders

This book is all about extremes. It describes lighting and materials in very simple terms and then proceeds to list the complex equations involved. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground. I understand that metal is shiny and that tree bark is rough and bumpy. But going from that to the complex equations is quite a leap. I was hoping for a book that explained objects in relation to the settings that 3d programs like 3ds Max use to create their materials...Diffuse, Specular, Glossiness, etc. etc. I would only recommend this book to you if you can make use of the complex equations used to produce realistic lighting.