Good balance of theory and practice for 3D animators.
594498
Michael O'Rourke, a former colleague at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, has helped mold some of the finest young animators in America for years. It's good to see that the latest edition of his book, a distillation of his long standing and far reaching expertise in both teaching and practice of 3D animation, has been so well received. Deservedly so.
4745041
Nice book for anyone wanting to create/develop animation.
This book covers everything using step by step tutorials.
This is not a beginner book because it hits the ground running!  Covers Fireworks and ACID also. The CD samples are great. The only thing I did not like about this book was the first two chapters.  These chapters are not really needed ( just basic info on what a webisode is and fact and figureson internet usage...). The rest of the book is very useful.  The CD is worth the purchase alone!
674585
3D Art Essentials by Ami Chopine is a 260-page introduction to 3D computer modeling, texturing, and animation.

It assumes that you do not know anything about this field, and it deals with the terminology and concepts of 3D art, and not specific to any software application. It does list the various packages used today in Chapter 19. It also discuss careers in this field in Chapter 20.

The graphics and images in this book are all in black & white (grey scale). The use of color, while not absolutely necessary, tends to make reading and understanding more visually exciting.

What make this book more useful and special are the author's two websites that offer video tutorials, models, reference tables, and links to additional information.

They are:

[...]

[...] 3dartessentials.com

Indeed, the book teaches you the core concepts and the why's and how's, and the two website offer a wealth of information on 3D art that extend and complement what you learned.
3699065
This book is definitely at the top of my list as one of the most useful 3D texts that I have reviewed. It is so jam packed with information and illustrations that it will probably take me 3 years to go through it. It must have taken the author twice that long to study the complexity involved with computer animation.
I found that Mr. Ratner covers the most popular modeling techniques such as subdivision surface, NURBS, and
spline modeling. He has the reader start modeling simple objects and gradually builds up to humans. After learning how to model, he shows how to rig up humans for animation. Lighting and texturing is also covered.
Details such as making hair, teeth, eyes, etc. are also in the book and make it complete for the beginner and advanced illustrator to take note of his advice. He even includes an anatomy chapter. He must have been a med student at one time or had one of those plastic see through human figure models where you can take out individual organs.  Another chapter tells how to make morph targets for facial expressions and dialogue. He tells readers which basic facial morphs are made (about 50) that lets them create thousands of others by blending variations of them. There is a lot of information about animation techniques and principles. The color insert has human model illustrations from well-known artist around the world. This book
has too much in it to do it justice in one little review.
3546184
This slim volume has some nice features that make up for a lack of illustrations and model photos, including a clever pentagon template, tips for cutting equilateral triangles & hexagons, and suggestions for cutting multiple pieces for the projects. I especially enjoyed working with the triangle, simple square, and the spike ball modules, which I used to make solid, satisfying models.  The "triangle edge module" can be used to make a nice tetrahedron or an icosahedron (which helped me see the relationship between that shape and a dodecahedron).  I skipped a couple of spiky models that required glue, but  I was generally very pleased with the book.
1413300
its amazing how the information of the multiple process to make an animation are show in this book; have a lot of pictures with phrases and comentaries very helpful to have inspiration and a complete understanding of the several topics.
i love it
100574
Great book.

Since no one else has bothered to do a chapter breakdown, heres my stab at one:

- Intro: A love letter to motion design (the books term for animation)
- Chapter 1: Walkthrough of why youd use JavaScript instead of CSS for animation
- Chapter 2: A technical overview of how to perform animation in JavaScript
- Chapter 3: analysis of what constitutes great animation, along with practical examples
- Chapter 4: A fascinating, original take on how to implement animation into a professional web development workflow (my favorite chapter)
- Chapter 5: How to animate text (quite interesting)
- Chapter 6: Quick introduction to animating SVG elements
- Chapter 7: Extensive deep-dive into how to ensure animations run smoothly
- Chapter 8: A nice animation demo that ties together the knowledge from the previous chapters
2893367
If you're looking for a solid in depth demonstration of the various modeling techniques inside 3ds Max, you should give this video training DVD serious consideration.  At over 13 hours in length, 3ds Max 9 Modeling offers insights and techniques that most books on the subject don't cover, and information that would many times take hours in the Help files to find.  The Chapters are well organized and the topics are addressed in plenty of detail.  If you're into watching someone demonstrate something as opposed to having to read how to do it, get this DVD.  The pace moves quickly at times, but the author is very easy to follow (plus you can always rewind and watch it again).  A great addition to any modeling enthusiast's video library!
4790209
Hollywood 2D Digital Animation does a great job of breaking down the entire process of creating 2d animations with flash.  The included flash movies and exercises within the cd makes for good supplemental material as well. Although, if there were more exercises and follow along tutorials I would have given this book a five star rating.  The examples in the book are excellent and inspires the flash animator to keep practicing in order to strive and recreate what's show in their own way. Although this book is for a newbie attempting their first digital animation, I suggest for a new artist to learn how to animate traditionally first,  it's a great overview and provides great on the shelf reference.
158355
I'm an old hand at 3D modeling and texture mapping - even have taught both 3D CAD and 3D animation classes. But I've never really got into participating in the Second Life world experience. That's mainly due to the bandwidth issues I have where I live (kind of hard to do things when you're limited to the speed of dial-up). I recently watched the independent film&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Life-2-0/dp/B00A2KJG3A/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Life 2.0</a>, which chronicles the lives and experiences of several people who spend a lot of time in the virtual reality world that is Second Life. One of those people was someone who actually custom designed houses and character accessories and had a retail shop where she marketed her creations in Second Life. The idea of learning to do something like that appealed to me. What I needed was a good textbook on doing that. So when I was offered to try out this new book by Ann Latham Cudworth I readily accepted it.

Like I mentioned I have a lot of 3D & 2D experience, but mainly using 3D packages such as 3D Studio Max, Poser, DAZ Studio, Carrara Pro, Bryce, and E-on's Vue Esprit. About the only interactive 3D work that I've attempted has been with packages such as the CryEngine Sandbox 2 level editor for the Far Cry video game series and maybe the NoLimits roller coaster simulator. I did some experimentation back in the day with VRML X3D using a design package called Flux. But that has been awhile.

I found this new book to be mostly a project based textbook, and as such it's more than a comprehensive text on the subject. I recommend either downloading the Kindle sample or opening the Look Inside feature and examining the Table of Contents - which covers 11  pages and seeing just how far this book drills down. I'm finding it a wealth of information on both the OpenSim package and Second Life itself, and not only for the mechanics of the creation of content - but also for how this 3D environment can be used. Everything from building classrooms to games is explored.

I mentioned that this book is project based - there are about a dozen projects that you can work on to build understanding of the key concepts. To do some of these projects, you need to download some content from the author's website. It's not hard to find - you can either find information on the site in the book, or just Google the title. One thing I will note - the Zip file for Chapter Six seems to be empty of content. That chapter is a basic primer on 3D primitives and texture mapping, so I'm not sure that whatever was suppose to be in that project folder is really needed.

And as an additional note - there is a lot of reference in the book on the SketchUp CAD package. The  book covers some basics but you might want to get a good tutorial book for that software too (I know I need one, I know AutoCAD - but not SketchUp).

I'm still slowly working my way through the book and doing the projects (have about 20+ days invested so far), I would imagine that to cover this content would take at least the length of a semester or so. I think this is an excellent textbook for the subject.
1306549
Bill does a great job explaining Core Animation in this book.  I initially picked up this book to get a better understanding of animation for iPhone development and have not been disappointed.  While there is only one chapter specifically about iPhone animation, the balance of the book provides a strong foundation for understanding and applying the Core Animation concepts to iPhone development.

Five Stars.  Highly recommended.
2627397
In my 19 years as a professional animator I've never seen a book of facial expression references as extensive and well thought out as Mark Simon's book. I was pleased to see that the expressions portion of the book was organized by character types rather than expressions because the animation thought process works in the same order. The type of character needs to be established first before storyboarding and animation can begin. Gender and Age are typically a great place to start. Another great thing about this book is the uniqueness and diversity of artwork from various artists. It clearly shows how a human facial expression can be applied to a wide range of character types - from animals to mythological creatures.
449289
Very good book for anyone interested in animation, specifically stopmotion. I will let you know that it is very catered toward stop motion, as in almost only.
4492584
I purchased this book with very little knowledge of Maya and 3D animation but really wanted to get into the 3D world. I found this book one of the most user friendly books on the topic. Along with the movies that show you all the basics, they include enough to make you know how experiement or learn more by yourself. The exercises were excellent and speed was great (in most excercises) for taking it all in before trying it myself. I also have Mastering Maya and although Fundamentals seems like it has less material (which i don't think it does) it is many times superior in what i got out of it. Also included are some marking menus that make some short cuts in the UI. The only thing that i found that didn't work for me was the Polygon section. It was a little too fast in places and not as clear. But then again this is a complex topic.
I rarely give compliments like this but this really deserves it.
3198355
I am an animator who has worked in 16mm film and have been an animation instructor for children and adults for many years.  I have been interested in computer animation, but found myself spending most of my time learning new computer programs rather than making animation. Then I would discover that the program I was trying to learn was difficult and not so useful for what I was trying to do.
Finally I have been saved! This book is exactly what I have been waiting for. Steve Subotnick has cut through the unwieldy morass of information to get down to  the basics. His book is easy to hold, clearly and simply written, with pleasant, easy to look at drawings of equipment and procedures by Tim Miller, and some exquisite color pages of animaion stills from animators around the world.
This book takes you all the way through the processes of making an animated work and finishing it to a CD or Video which can be viewed by others. Steve saves you a lot of time by suggesting a limited amount of basic hardware and software which is flexible enough to do different types of animation, and inexpensive enough for many independent animators and schools to afford.
The book is inspirational for students and teachers in that Steve has listed outstanding films and videos, considered works of art by the international animation community. The book includes a CD with samples from these films and the end results of the simple exercises in the book. He starts each chapter with a brief quote from different animators.
The book is very enabling. Steve discusses how he and others get ideas and techniques. He encourages originality and creativity. He recommends that you "be yourself" in your animation work.  I am using the book myself now and would recommend it to teachers, schools and everyone age 13 and up who is interested in learning to make animation on the computer.
4900497
Unity is a robust game engine that offers two versions: a free and  "pro" version. All of the examples in the book can be implemented using the free version, plus some of the downloadable files from the Unity CRC site.

Pros:
* Uses Unity project examples from the CRC press page
* Good examples, covering major and more subtle aspects of game development
* Concept of setting up a framework is good practice and idea
* Excellent explanation of inheritance
* Good strong, concise code that didn't have any obvious errors (I've had problems with other programming books in the past having typos that created havoc!)
* It's really clear that the author knows games, game systems, C#, and Unity.
* Solid solutions for very specific game implementations
* Index contains references for C# commands as well as programming concept

Cons
* Need to be moderately familiar with C# (says "requires some experience" but I think it's written at a higher level than that; the good news is that the code and explanations are clear enough that a decent programmer can muddle their way through)
* Seems to be for a non Unity n00bie too
* It seemed to me to be more focused on specific situations rather than devising the framework the author touts in the beginning chapters.

Overall, it's a thoughtfully written and organized book, although this reader didn't think it quite delivered on the idea of developing a framework.
2541982
This book was a good read that i felt would give a beginner in both animating and storytelling a good head start while using blender to produce their first projects.  Well written with very useful examples and descriptions.