3-D Human Modeling and Animation, Second Edition

Book Description

All the tools and know-how to create digital characters that can move, express emotions, and talk

3-D Human Modeling and Animation demonstrates how you can use your artistic skills in figure drawing, painting, and sculpture to create animated human figures using the latest computer technology. This easy-to-follow book guides you through all the necessary steps to create and animate digital humans. Students and professional 3-D artists will find this book to be an invaluable resource.

This Second Edition combines detailed, practical information about creating and animating 3-D human models. More than 400 images, interactive files, and exciting animations included on the CD-ROM detail the modeling and animation processes for both male and female figures. Chapter objectives and exercises are tied to the CD-ROM, which also provides color example images, sample models, modeling templates, textures, lesson plans, and relevant animation movies that allow you to start modeling and animating right away!

Customer Reviews:

very nice book.......2007-01-15

Think this book is very good written. Specially useful for people who wanna fast introduction to 3D-modeling.

Everything starts from simple and goes to very difficult models. Author simply wanna give a reader the most simple explanation of everything.
How, what to use, how else you can do it...

Think very nice book... it a bit reminds a lessons in school. Every small part of book - is one lesson. But at the same time it's not boring lessons, so think this book have pretty much right for existing.

Below average modelling - bad anatomy.......2006-03-29

All Modelling concerns with this book aside, the biggest problem I have with 3-D Human Modeling and Animation is simply that the author's models are terrible examples of the human form.
Not very impressive. If you see this book - just skip to the human face blend shapes section and see what I mean: ugly, anatomically incorrect shapes. This problem permiates through the whole publication. Don't let the cover image fool you (not the authors.)

If you are new to character/organic modelling, I do not recommend this book. If your'e a little more experienced, there's a few chapters here that inspire especially later in the book. I found the reference section on hair shader variations quite handy.

Great modeling guide!.......2006-02-17

It is friendly and understandable. I needed to model a human character using Maya without my instructor being there with me. So I totally did it using the book. It made everything to go smooth and FORWARD.

Five of the pages in this book were worth reading.......2005-03-28

When this book first came out, I was fooled by the true believers into thinking it was a "must have" book. I was totally new to human modeling and was debating whether to go with polygon or with NURBS for making my figures (I use Amapi Pro 7.5 for modeling which does both).

I saw plenty of people on the web making figures using triangles and/or quads. I decided (for cleaner meshes) that quads should be the way to go and not use triangles at all. I was a newbie and didn't know what topology was or what looping was. But I learned on my own through trial and error what modeling techniques worked best and how smoothing my figures worked best.

It was later, when I had a good grasp of how I wanted to model humans, that I thought I should get a 3D human modeling book so I could see how the professionals really did it. I wanted to improve to make my figures more real (like "pelvis and elbow bones hidden under wrinkled skin" type details). I was excited about getting this book.

I skipped over the three non-human modeling overviews at the start of the book and went right to the human modeling section. I didn't have Maya (and I wasn't about to use the included Learning Edition of it on CD).

I noticed right away that the book showed both methods of modeling (polygon and NURBS) with both of them resulting in the same 3D human model. Technically, it looked like the author first made his human using polygons (triangles and all which resulted in some messy looking meshes). Then converted the meshes to NURBS. Then deconstructed the NURBS meshes (which he then printed in the book in reverse order to make it look like he was modeling a human figure from scratch using NURBS).

Argh. How is anyone supposed to follow along in the book while making human figures of their own?

I didn't bother reading the texturing or animation sections of the book because the author's resulting work (both in the book and on the CD) looked just as bad as what I could already do. The other figure images (like on the cover of the book) were done by 3D professionals who obviously used much better techniques not described in the book to get their realism, which was what I was hoping to learn from the book.

I gave this book a rating of one star because the only useful information I could find in it were the human figure and skeleton photos for references.

A much better book that I later found and am highly recommending is called BUILDING A DIGITAL HUMAN, by Ken Brilliant.

There are better books than this one.......2005-01-06

If you want to learn how to model the human form, I defitnely won't recommend this book. I bought this book as a newbie modeller. But it didn't help me a bit. I learned more from reading about modeling and topology on diferent forums. And now I can say that about 90% of Peter Ratner's modeling theories are plain incorrect. He doesn't even mention edge loops. Even if it is mentioned because I missed it, still edge loops is a term that should have been mentioned 10 times or more on every page. It is one of the very pillars of modeling theory. Instead Peter Ratner tells us to extrude a polygon, cut it a few times and move the vertices around until you get the nose shape, or the ear shape or whatever. My grandmother could have told me that for free.
Anyway, the second half of the book was helpful though. But I must say that the second half (that's about animation and lighting and texturing) is standard knowledge that is explained far better in other books. The CD has a few nice artwork on it. Nothing I could have downloaded from various sites on my own. What could have been more useful was tutorials on how the authors of those images made those images.
If you are a beginner, skip this one! There are better books like "Stop starring", all the books from the [DIGITAL:] series from the top of my head.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent gathering of Piper's stained glass.......1997-12-09

The author places John Piper and his work into the historical continuum of stained glass so that we appreciate the great contribution he has made in design, creative advance and the fearless use of modern materials. She does not assume technical knowledge on the reader's part and so gives clear descriptions of processes and materials. The net outcome of the book is to give Piper the recognition he deserves not only as a stained-glass artist but also as one of the leading - if comparatively under-rated - English artists of the 20th century. The book is profusely illustrated in colour the only let-down being the quality of some of the photographs, too many are either not sharp or over-exposed. Thus a rating of 7.

John Piper, Painting in Coloured Light: An Exhibition of Stained Glass and Related Works

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John Piper, Painting in Coloured Light: An Exhibition of Stained Glass and Related Works
John Piper
Manufacturer: Gallery
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Glass & Glassware | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

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Stained Glass: Art or Anit-art
John Piper
Manufacturer: Reinhold/Studio Vista
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Stained Glass in England: 1150-1550
John Piper , and Brian Coe
Manufacturer: London: W. H. Allen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Product Description

This book introduces the reader to the art and craft of the medieval glazier, outlines the methods of manufacture and assembly of the windows and describes the principle changes of style and technique through which the glass of the different periods may be identified. A valuable section of this book has a comprehensive country-to-country guide to those churches where significant remains of medieval glass are to be seen. Information is also given on how to photograph stained glass. 32 fine color plates and many b/w photographs.

Amazon.com

Gigi Levangie Grazer has written one previous novel (Rescue Me), helped pen the screenplay for Stepmom, and, not least, is married to Hollywood uber-producer Brian Grazer (he of the wacky hair and the not-so-wacky partnership with Ron Howard). At first glance, Mrs. Grazer appears to be a complete parvenu as a novelist. Maneater rips off every girl-power/shopaholic source from early Tama Janowitz right up to Sex and the City. Her prose can be ungrammatical, her plot hopelessly predictable, and her characters paper-thin. But Grazer has a secret weapon: her preternaturally acid powers of observation. When she writes about the freaky mores of Hollywood, the book exerts an irresistible pull. Thirtyish LA It girl Clarissa Alpert reflects on her shallow, jobless, mateless (but fabulous!) life, and decides it's high time she was married. She and her four best friends (hello, Sarah Jessica Parker and company) hatch a plan to snag the cutest, hottest young producer in town. What ensues is hardly new territory, but the book is enlivened by Grazer's amazing ability to nail down pop culture ephemera. To wit: "Clarissa was sentimental--she liked saving messages from old friends and C-level celebrities. She had an answering tape collection that dated all the way back to babydoll dresses, sparkle dust and Hole." Her eye for detail--and her refusal ever to make Clarissa lovable, or even likable--make Maneater a hypnotic read. This is fiction-as-gigantic-chocolate-bar. Halfway through, you feel a little off color, but there's no way you're going to stop. --Claire Dederer

Book Description

Gorgeous, funny, and wildly uninhibited, her exes are a veritable Who's Who of Hollywood power players. At 28 (31), she is blessed with a firm (if curvaceous) bod, a designer wardrobe, a Daddy-subsidized apartment, and an A-list speed-dial.

But with her thirty-second birthday looming, our heroine is starting to panic. Who on earth (read: Hollywood) could possibly make Clarissa Alpert an honest woman? Enter Aaron Mason, the latest hottest new producer in town. From the moment Clarissa sees him, she sets her sights on making him the future "Mr. Alpert."

With the eager help of her vivacious (if neurotic) friends, her aerobicized Latina mother, her philandering (but loving) ex-con father, and the most divine gay waiter in Hollywood, Clarissa finds herself phoning the florist to the stars (his private line) and planning the biggest wedding the town has seen in years -- before the couple's first date. Catching Aaron's eye is not a problem. But it seems her intended might have his own agenda. Could it be Clarissa has finally bitten off more than she can chew?

Customer Reviews:

Froget it.......2007-09-15

I read this book after reading "The Started Wife" (which I enjoyed) and threw it out, waste of time.

Maneater by Gigi Levangie Grazer.......2007-06-11

Wonderful Anytime Read...I bought the book because I really enjoyed The Starter Wife. Gigi impressed me with this book and I would highly recommend this book to others. It's a good book that one can talk about with friends, or in my case co-workers.

Soooo Bad.......2007-05-21

Although I think Sex and the City, the book, was just average (unlike the TV series, which was fantastic), by comparison with Maneater, Gigi Levangie Grazer makes Candace Bushnell look like Leo Tolstoy.

Oh, my God, I can hardly believe how bad this book is. Clarissa is one of the most annoying and shallow characters in publishing history, and there's nothing in the "people" who surround her that's is even slightly interesting. I would criticize the plot for being stupid, but it's more accurate to say that there's no plot--and not a single well-written sentence either.

The only thing Maneater is good for is as proof that today in publishing is not what you know, but who you know. If Gigi weren't the wife of producer Brian Grazer, this ridiculous novel would have never left the slush pile.

not very original.......2007-04-26

Was this book supposed to be funny, humorous, or at least enjoyable?
I don't think it has any of these characteristics. The neurotic nature of the main character Clarissa was not different than other chick lit characters that I have read before. After reading the positive reviews, I really wanted to like this book, but somehow it just fell short. Clarissa was not a like-able character.

I kept looking for some redeeming quality about this novel, but it continued to fall short of expectations. Also, could the plot-line have been anymore predictable? LA Valley girl manages to marry rich guy, it turns out he isn't rich after all, she decides to stay with him anyhow, for love.

To me, that sounds more like something you'd expect from a 1950's Marilyn Monroe movie, not a 21st century novel. Also, do chick lit heroines ever do anything beside be a) novelists, b) columnists for local/alternative newspapers, or c) editor for a magazine? Author alert: it is just plain lazy to think that every character is a writer, if your imagination is so limited, then maybe you shouldn't be one. Write more original characters - it might actually add some much needed character dimension.

I just don't understand..........2007-01-02

I originally picked up this book in an airport bookstore two years ago. After reading the back I thought it sounded like a fun chick-lit read. However, I bought a different book at the time, and after picking this book up multiple times over the course of a couple of years, and after having read some of the reviews on Amazon, I finally bought it.

And now, to the things I just don't understand...
1. Does Grazer have an editor? I mean, really, the number of times she used parenthesis was astounding and only detracted from the already poor writing style.
2. Aren't seriously flawed main characters supposed to have SOME redeeming quality? Clarissa was so over-the-top, so senseless, so atrociously behaved, so manipulative, so...I can't even go on. I can't remember one redeeming quality that Grazer gave her. Clarissa might well be modeled after people Grazer really knows in Hollywood, but she failed to make her "real" for this reader...and I grew up in California, so it's not like I don't understand the culture!
3. Do people really talk that way? I find it unbelievable that anyone could use that many expletives in the course of day-to-day life.
4. Do people really treat other people that badly? While I found Clarissa's mother highly annoying, and her father lacked common sense (at least we see where Clarissa gets it from!), I could not believe Clarissa treated them the way she did, or that Grazer had their characters putting up with it! At least the author did rectify the relationships by the end of the book.
5. How old does Grazer think her audience is? The way she writes, I sometimes felt that she was gossiping with high school girlfriends. Even though I'm only in my twenties, I constantly found myself rolling my eyes at the way things were phrased, unnecessary explanations, and the slang she chose to use.

The only thing that kept me reading, and the only reason that I gave the book 3 stars (instead of the original 2 stars I was going to give it), was that Aaron's character was interesting -- if not just a little bit bizarre. I wanted to find out why in the world he would marry Clarissa. Despite a serious twist in the second half of the book, which somewhat explained his decision, I'm still not sure I understand why he married her.

Despite all of this, I did find myself rooting for Clarissa at the end. However, it wasn't your typical happy-ending that I was rooting for. Instead, I found myself rooting for her to become a better person. In that, I was less disappointed than in the rest of the book.

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Uma Thurman: The Biography
Bryony Sutherland , and Lucy Ellis
Manufacturer: Aurum Press, Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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The first full biography of the intriguing star of Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction.

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Beatrix y Bill arreglan cuentas: Quentin Tarantino.(Kill Bill: Vol. 2)(Reseña de película): An article from: Siempre!

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Beatrix y Bill arreglan cuentas: Quentin Tarantino.(Kill Bill: Vol. 2)(Reseña de película): An article from: Siempre!
Tomás Pérez Turrent
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00082TTZW
Release Date: 2006-10-24

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Thomson Gale on July 4, 2004. The length of the article is 701 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Beatrix y Bill arreglan cuentas: Quentin Tarantino.(Kill Bill: Vol. 2)(Reseña de película)
Author: Tomás Pérez Turrent
Publication: Siempre! (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 4, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 51 Issue: 2664 Page: 72(1)

Article Type: Reseña de película

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Bill y la aventura de Beatrix Kiddo: Quentin Tarantino.(Kill Bill, Vol. 2)(Reseña de película): An article from: Siempre!

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Bill y la aventura de Beatrix Kiddo: Quentin Tarantino.(Kill Bill, Vol. 2)(Reseña de película): An article from: Siempre!
Tomás Pérez Turrent
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00082T1D2
Release Date: 2006-10-24

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Thomson Gale on June 27, 2004. The length of the article is 765 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Bill y la aventura de Beatrix Kiddo: Quentin Tarantino.(Kill Bill, Vol. 2)(Reseña de película)
Author: Tomás Pérez Turrent
Publication: Siempre! (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 27, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 51 Issue: 2663 Page: 72(1)

Article Type: Reseña de película

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Emmet Ray, la guitarra y las mujeres.(TT: Emmet Ray, the guitar and the womenn.)(Reseña): An article from: Siempre!

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Emmet Ray, la guitarra y las mujeres.(TT: Emmet Ray, the guitar and the womenn.)(Reseña): An article from: Siempre!
Tomás Pérez Turrent
Manufacturer: Edicional Siempre
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008HEYU2
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Edicional Siempre on September 14, 2000. The length of the article is 1331 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Emmet Ray, la guitarra y las mujeres.(TT: Emmet Ray, the guitar and the womenn.)(Reseña)
Author: Tomás Pérez Turrent
Publication: Siempre! (Refereed)
Date: September 14, 2000
Publisher: Edicional Siempre
Volume: 47 Issue: 2465 Page: 74

Article Type: Reseña

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"Kill Bill. Vol. 2".(Reseña de película): An article from: Proceso

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"Kill Bill. Vol. 2".(Reseña de película): An article from: Proceso
Javier Betancourt
Manufacturer: CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00082NLCY
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Proceso, published by CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V. on May 23, 2004. The length of the article is 682 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: "Kill Bill. Vol. 2".(Reseña de película)
Author: Javier Betancourt
Publication: Proceso (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 23, 2004
Publisher: CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V.
Issue: 1438 Page: 86(2)

Article Type: Reseña de película

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Featuring thirteen essays covering different traditions, styles, and instruments, this study is written by influential players, teachers and guitar historians. Its coverage allows the guitarist to learn the analogies and differences between traditions and styles. The genres range from baroque, classical, country, blues and rock to flamenco, African and Celtic.

Customer Reviews:

Essays on history of the guitar.......2007-08-27

The Cambridge Companions series, on various music, in this case, the guitar, are invaluable study aids. The scholarly cachet/authority, of these essayists, who treat the many avenues which guitar playing takes, is very helpful to the student and general reader. Hardly boring, the commentary accompanied by musical notation, allows the reader to know by experience what the writer is saying. Great addition to learning and appreciation for the guitar.

Book Description

A guide to creating treasure hunts that teach and share the special places in your community.

Customer Reviews:

Place based education at its finest..........2005-04-03

This book is an amazing resource that teaches us a way to create learning treasure hunts for our communities. It is the first rung on the ladder of teaching our children the principles of sustainability. By developing a joyous and fun-filled method to experience the history and special attributes of the town or "place" in which you live, you are empowered to re-invest that community with an inate and intrinsic value. This book teaches a powerful antidote to the destructive and destabilizing force of the corporatization of small town America, and shows a deceptively simple and beautiful way to teach your children about resisting the urge to be assimilated and become "Anytown USA". I strongly recommend this book for anyone who has a community they love and a role in the shaping of young minds.

Book Description

This is the first part of a five-volume history of broadcasting in the UK. Together the volumes give an authoritative account of the rise of broadcasting in this country. Though naturally largely concerned with the BBC it does give a general history of broadcasting, not simply an institutional history of the BBC. The Birth of Broadcasting covers early amateur experiments in wireless telephony in America and in England, the pioneer days at Writtle in Essex and elsewhere, and the coming of organized broadcasting and its rapid growth during the first four years of the BBC's existence as a private Company before it became a public Corporation in January 1927. Briggs describes how and why the Company was formed, the scope of its activities and the reasons which led to its conversion from a business enterprise into a national institution. The issues raised between 1923 and 1927 remain pertinent today. The hard bargaining between the Post Office, private wireless interests, and the emergent British Broadcsting Company is discussed in illuminating details, together with the remarkable opposition with which the Company had to contend in its early days. Many sections of the opposition, including a powerful section of the press, seemed able to conceive of broadcasting only as competing with their own interests, never as complementing or enlarging them. One of the main themes of this volume is that of the gradual forging of the instruments of public control, and particular attention is paid to the Crawford Report (1926) from which the Corporation arose. During this period all the characteristics of the Corporation first appeared - particularly its reputation for publc service and impartiality. Briggs also examines the background of wireless as an invention and considers its impact on society. He has much to say about personalities and programmes as well as policies.

History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom : Volume I: The Birth of Broadcasting (History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom)

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History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom : Volume I: The Birth of Broadcasting (History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom)
Asa Briggs
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJP336

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