Product Description

Written by working professionals in the visual effects industry, this book is a guide to building functional characters in the digital environment. You will explore the concepts and theories of creating and maintaining efficient and intuitive skeletal control systems for your 3D Characters. Interwoven within the book are thought provoking and informative interviews with industry heavyweights, stunning visuals and step by step tutorials that allow you to explore and expand your knowledge of the fascinating and challenging world of 3D digital characters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #791016 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
Michael Ford is a Lead Technical Animator at Sony Imageworks and is co-founder of Animation Foundation. He began his career as a digital artist after graduating from UCLA School of Design and has since worked on numerous feature and commercial projects at Industrial Light and Magic, Centropolis FX, and Digital Magic. He has lectured at UCLA School of Design, University of Southern California, DeAnza College, and the San Francisco Academy of Art. He is a certified Level 2 Softimage instructor whose film credits include Stuart Little 1 & 2, The Perfect Storm, The Mummy, Godzilla, Species 2, Mortal Kombat 2, and The Faculty.

Customer Reviews

Beginners beware
I bought Inspired 3D Character Setup hoping to find a smarter workflow for my own character rigs. As a veteran animator, I am always looking for new and more efficient techniques.

I found this book full of great tips and knowledge on character setup, but unfortunately it was also full of errors and missing steps. I managed to find my way around the mistakes and eventually get the desired setup (I think), but it wasn't an easy task. I was pulling my hair out on more than one occasion and I've been doing this for seven years.

Overall, I would not recommend this book to a beginner if you plan to learn from the tutorials. The authors should have taken more time to proofread and test their workflows or at least included a supplementary guide on the website that corrects the obvious errors.

semper gumbi (always flexable)
I have been using Maya extensively now for two years and bought this book to try to take myself into the intermediate level of character rigging.
The first problem I encountered with this book is that I opened it and the spine broke! Not exactly what you would expect from a [$$$] book.
I think it went downhill from there. Yes the pictures are beautiful and the it really showcases what you can do with Maya(or what others have done), but the editing in this book is terrible. Examples include naming of nodes that on the same page have two different names. The downloads don't match the book. e.g. ch13 has the low-res geo download that doesnt include the sphereCTRL or the cubeCTRL but sure has the proxyGEO. Anyone think i'm messed up? send me the right one please..
Otherwise, you are better off with the Art of Maya, or Secrets of the Pros. I think this is one not quite worth the money.

Great setup - from foundation to sophistication
This book leads you from the most important knowledge needed to create a good character setup to the high-end setup demonstrated in the last several chapters. It's very crucial to follow the chapters from the beginning to get an clear understanding of the tools. Honestly, I read and exercised through them very fast and then followed the tutorials. It goes so deep and sophisticated that when I finished the setup, I couldn't fully understand what I was doing. I went back to the first several basic chapters and learned that actually I did a lot mistakes...such as translation and rotation tools and joint orient that you never think it's important. Those chapters are a great help too when you finish the setup and go back to read them again! You'll find new things every time you read the book. Tutorials are worthy of doing them again. They all refer to the concepts described earlier which are very basic but very easy to forget their importance!