Product Description

Just add talent!

Award-winning animator Tony White brings you the ultimate book for digital animation. Here you will find the classic knowledge of many legendary techniques revealed, paired with information relevant to today's capable, state-of-the-art technologies.

White leaves nothing out. What contemporary digital animators most need to know can be found between this book's covers - from conceptions to creation and through the many stages of the production pipeline to distribution. This book is intended to serve as your one-stop how-to animation guide. Whether you're new to animation or a very experienced digital animator, here you'll find fundamentals, key classical techniques, and professional advice that will strengthen your work and well-roundedness as an animator.

Speaking from experience, White presents time-honored secrets of professional animaton with a warm, masterly, and knowledgeable approach that has evolved from over 30 years as an award-winning animator/director.

The book's enclosed CD-Rom presents classic moments from animation's history through White's personal homage to traditional drawn animation, "Endangered Species." Using movie clips and still images from the film, White shares the 'making of' journal of the film, detailing each step, with scene-by-scene descriptions, technique by technique. Look for the repetitive stress disorder guide on the CD-Rom, called, "Mega-hurts." Watch the many movie clips for insights into the versatility that a traditional, pencil-drawn approach to animaton can offer.

* Valuable CD-ROM contains a complete animated film made by the author and teaches how to apply the techniques in this book!
* Chock full of tips and secrets from this award-winning animation veteran
* The glossary of animation-related terms is worth its weight in gold

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #193661 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Review
"From traditional to computer animation, from film to gaming, a great text for all who teach."
- Robert Adams, Walt Disney Productions/Warner Bros

"All encompassing"
- Brian Martin, FOX NET Animator

". this book is . a well-written, smart tomes that makes you wish the author was one of your teachers in school. Because the book resonates with wisdom that comes with spending years in the trenches of Toon Town, it should be a must-read for anyone who wants to brave the waters of digital animation. Overall, it's a handsome companion to White's earlier primer, The animator's Workbook." Animation, Nov. 2006

From the Back Cover
Just add talent!

Award-winning animator Tony White brings you the ultimate book for digital animation. Here you will find the classic knowledge of many legendary techniques revealed, paired with information relevant to today's capable, state-of-the-art technologies.

White leaves nothing out. What contemporary digital animators most need to know can be found between this book's covers - from conceptions to creation and through the many stages of the production pipeline to distribution. This book is intended to serve as your one-stop how-to animation guide. Whether you're new to animation or a very experienced digital animator, here you'll find fundamentals, key classical techniques, and professional advice that will strengthen your work and well-roundedness as an animator.

Speaking from experience, White presents time-honored secrets of professional animaton with a warm, masterly, and knowledgeable approach that has evolved from over 30 years as an award-winning animator/director.

The book's enclosed CD-Rom presents classic moments from animation's history through White's personal homage to traditional drawn animation, "Endangered Species." Using movie clips and still images from the film, White shares the 'making of' journal of the film, detailing each step, with scene-by-scene descriptions, technique by technique. Look for the repetitive stress disorder guide on the CD-Rom, called, "Mega-hurts." Watch the many movie clips for insights into the versatility that a traditional, pencil-drawn approach to animaton can offer.

* Valuable CD-ROM contains a complete animated film made by the author and teaches how to apply the techniques in this book!
* Chock full of tips and secrets from this award-winning animation veteran
* The glossary of animation-related terms is worth its weight in gold

About the Author
Tony White, renowned animator, director, professor, lecturer, and author, has been in the animation industry for over 30 years, and currently teaches 2D animation and oversees principal animation production classes at DigiPen Institute of Technology. White began his career working with legendary industry professionals like award-winning illustrator Ralph Steadman, animation gurus Ken Harris, Art Babbit (original lead animator on Pinocchio, Fantasia, and others at Disney). He also personally assisted, then directed/animated for Richard Williams (3-time Oscar winner and author of The Animator's Survival Kit). In addition to being the Dean of Fine Art and Animation at DigiPen, White founded and presides over The Animaticus Foundation, which he formed to preserve, teach and evolve the art form of traditional 2D animation.

Customer Reviews

An excellent overview by an excellent author.
The long-awaited sequel to Tony White's ANIMATOR'S WORKBOOK is worth the wait.
ANIMATION FROM PENCILS TO PIXELS is unique among animation books since artwork from White's short film ENDANGERED SPECIES is used to illustrate most of the sections of the book, though some student work is also included. Some material from THE ANIMATOR'S WORKBOOK is repeated, mainly in the sections that deal with action analysis. White has included valuable chapters on Flash and vector-based 2D animation. While drawing is clearly his first love there are also chapters on CGI '3D' animation written from the perspective of a professional animator.
The massive book (over 500 pages long) is readable and easy to navigate. Images are large and well-placed (this has been a notable failing in many animation how-to books.)
It's quite ambitious to incorporate preproduction, production, and post in two media into one volume. If you want a good, well written overview of animation production in the 21st century, this is the book to get.
I would like to see ENDANGERED SPECIES on a full DVD copy; the PDF format in the original edition is a bit hard to play on this computer.

Great for Students!
Students of animation! This book is essential for your home or studio shelf. Animation From Pencils to Pixels is a comprehensive overview of animation production for the digital animator. As a text book it covers the lot - the mechanics of animation, funding your projects, the traditional aspects (yes, they're still important), new tools and methods, the business and copyright of your work, getting the concept and where to go with it. It is a classy tome well laid out and encourages you to read on easily. Other books on animation go into more depth concerning the specifics in animation but for an overall appreciation of the art and industry you can't go past this one. It is a good companion book to The Animator's Survival Kit (can I mention that?) which has more depth on the nitty-gritties of animated movement. My only criticism is the "I, I, I...." stance of the author. But with the profile and experience that Tony has there is a lot here to learn from, while in the early years of discovering the art of animating.

No need for this book though
The Animator's Workbook will do you just fine.
This book does go over the tried and true traditional principles and how they are implemented in the digital animation environment.
Let's face it there are hundreds of Animation Software Suites to choose from. I doubt this book will cover them all only the most well know and popular Animation Software packages.

You are better off Just buying a user's manual if you already own the software mentioned in this book and get a more thorough book on Animation. The few software suites this book mentions are Toonboom Studio,Adobe Flash(formerly known as Macromedia Flash). I don't remember all the details.

However if you are an absolute newbie to digital animation this book is a nice start in the right direction.

Don't get me wrong Tony White knows his stuff I just don't think this book will reveal much of anything new about animation if you are experienced with Animation Software and the logic behind it's interface.

I recommend you borrow this book from a library before you decide to buy it.