Customer Reviews

3-D Human Modeling and Animation, First Edition

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Our Computer Animation students use this book to create stunning character animations. As a result, our alumni have been very successful in finding jobs at major studios such as PIXAR, MetroLight Studios, ABC Interactive, Encore Productions, etc.

Peter Ratner's book outlines the process of modeling and animating male and female human models in easy to follow steps. His illustrative directions guide one through every aspect of the human anatomy; all the way down to minute details such as modeling the fingernails. The author assumes nothing of the reader and therefore goes to great lengths to explain everything as clearly as possible. There are hundreds of illustrations that show each step in the modeling and animation process. In fact, there isn't one page in the book that doesn't have at least one illustration in it.

Professor Ratner's exquisite 3D illustrations are his own and exemplify the fact that he is an accomplished artist as well as author. As a 3D artist he understands the problems that face 3D modelers and animators. Unlike other authors who depend on outside artists to supply illustrations and techniques for their books, Professor Ratner is able to create his own. The numerous color illustrations from his former students are a significant testimonial to the effectiveness of his teaching methodology.

Our department has found it very easy to adapt this book to the various software packages that we are using. For example, even though the book is geared toward spline and NURBS based software, the students who are using LightWave have successfully adapted it for polygon modeling, boning and animating. The book is geared toward mid-level to high-end modeling software packages. Animators using low-end modeling and animation packages that do not have deformation tools might find it difficult to work with this book due to the limitations of their software. In any event, this type of software most likely lacks the tools for any kind of character modeling and animation.

This book's descriptive instructions, brilliant color and black and white illustrations and easy to follow layout practically guarantee improved results for the 3D artist. It has played an important role in our computer animation curriculum. I highly recommend this book to any student or professional interested in learning more about the exciting field of 3D character modeling and animation.

Professor Gary Chatelain, Design Department, James Madison University

3-D Human Modeling and Animation is a great book for beginners starting in the 3-D field. It gives step by step instructions to model every body part, even down to the finger nail. This book involves spline modeling which is a great tool for modeling organic objects, especially humans. Best is the generality of the book; the book is not software dependant and is very usefull with any software that uses spline modeling.

A word of warning. . .computer graphics books age like milk, not wine. The graphics here are considerably _worse_ than what you'd get out of a consumer grade product like Metacreations Poser-- not to mention 3D Studio or Softimage.

At the time this was written, it may have been useful, but you can spend your time and money more productively now.

Great for most 3D Modeling and Animation software! I found this book to be very versatile and great for organic modeling. Our studio uses LightWave 3D, which functioned quite well with the book. His setup for a human skeleton worked perfectly with this software. As far as features that my software package didn't support yet, such as lofting, it was easy to find replacement or equivalent techniques, such as rail extrude, to accomplish the tasks. I could see that this book would work exceptionally well with programs that are spline or NURBS based, such as Maya, SoftImage, Rhino, Form Z, Strata Studio Pro, Presenter 3D, etc. He outlines unique methods for modeling with NURBS, splines, and MetaNURBS. His techniques for constructing models are very original. I learned a lot from them. There are so many color and black and white illustrations that you could just follow these without even reading the text! I was impressed by the quality of the student work, which obviously proves that his methods are effective. I found it easy to adapt this book to the software that I'm using, Lightwave 3D. It's an amazing book!

Mike Rich, Success Media, Los Angeles, California

On the instruction side of this book, it is very strong and very detailed. Visually, this artist leaves MUCH to be desired. Ratner provides excellent instructions, with great suggestions for creating human models, and his chapter on animation is really good.
But something that confuses me is, he has the knowledge to do it well, but why doesn't he? His models are limited and ugly, he has not seemed to fully study the human body and it's anatomy, thereby creating hideous models.
A big part of my buying a book is the graphical detail, and while his abilities were very limited, the examples of his students works were VERY WELL DONE.
If you wish to learn how to model big, bulky, clumsy looking characters, this book is for you, or if you are just getting started, it will help you get your first foot on the ground... But if you are an advanced or Experienced user, may I suggest that you pass this book up.

I enjoyed this book immensely. I sincerely feel that this bookis the only 3d modeling book that is worth buying. This is so becausethe book is flexible for many softwares, and also discusses about the pros and cons about the different approaches. So far all the books in New York are software dependent and no author touches on the subject of human modeling as deeply as he has. I have been modeling 3d works for about half a year now, and this book definitely inspired me to go on making more difficult objects such as the human body. Thank you so much, Mr. Ratner, for your book. I hope you are considering on publishing another book. By the way, your tutorial on the European Maya site really helped me to model humans using Lightwave. I learned how to build spline cages and then use the Auto Patcher plug-in to make the polygon model. This works much better than MetaNURB modeling.

Christian Liang, Senior student in Hofstra College, NY

Good source for the beginner or advanced student involved in 3D Animation -- b-spline, rendering, etc. Comes with clear illustrations of every anatomical configuration used in modeling.

3d Human Modeling and animation is definitely a great resource for beginners, although it lacks any type of truly in depth study. It touches on virtually all aspects of character animation and modeling, but very lightly, often times with only a few paragraphs and pictures dedicated to some very important topics. Support for polygon modelers and nurbs based packages is limited, modeling techniques are geared towards splines. Though most techniques demonstrated are universally applicable in any modeling system, many of the finer points are lost.

This book is an excellent step-by-step guide for creating digital humans. It covers all aspects of modeling, animation, and lighting. I think it would be very beneficial in a teaching environment where students could follow the entire process and try the exercises at the end of each chapter.

Jerry Weil, Senior Animator, Metrolight Studios, Hollywood, CA

A great well written book that demystifies the process of creating 3D characters. The techniques in this book are easy to understand and apply with many different 3D packages. The techniques described in the book also allow full artistic freedom and amazing flexibility. Highly recommended for anyone serious about 3D character modeling and animation. Ryan Cramer