Customer Reviews

3D Studio MAX 3(r) Professional Animation

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The entire book is a well-conceived construction of diverse and interesting approaches to the sometimes frustrating world of graphics animation. In particular, and most helpful to me, has been the film references. This has been an eye-opening development in my own thoughts on gaming. The mediums of film and gaming are so close and mirror one another in ways I hadn't considered before, for they are both cinematic, kinetic visual forces. The techniques described in the chapter on camera movements and lighting have been tremendously helpful. And the hand-drawn illustrations of film scenes by Mr. Bonney (in particular one of my all-time favorites, PLANET OF THE APES) are wonderful. It helps to have a book like this that makes it clear just what can be accomplished with imagination and the technical know-how to back it up.

I want to express my gratitude toward the authors of 3dStudio Max Professional Animation. This is the first book I have found that truly enhanced my skills and knowledge--not only of 3d Studio Max, but of 3d animation in general. As a teacher of 3d animation, I am always looking for information that gives me the skills to answer any questions my students can throw at me. While I haven't really noticed any errors or typos in particular, I find that because the book is not simply a list of steps to follow, and because it explains in detail WHY the steps are to be taken, this helps to clear up any misunderstanding of the steps themselves. These lengthy explanations are packed with helpful information and are essential for understanding the material. This is not a book for those who like to blindly follow tutorials. Finally, I must say that I trust the information in the book. This is not only because of the authors' qualifications and experience, but because my own work has improved significantly. Once again, this book is an invaluable addition to any professional animator's library.

I must say that I was really excited when I got this book since learning MAX character animation has been a goal for a long time. Imagine my frustration when I started doing the exercises and I could make nothing in the first two chapters behave as described when following the instructions to the letter. There are so many glaring mistakes in the first two chapters I dont even have the patience to hammer through it. While New Riders books have been satsifying in the past, this one is a failure and I wish to express my extreme dissatisfaction to the authors and New Riders for not even bothering to issue an errata list to help people out who are having problems following the examples.

This is not a cheap book, and the extreme technicality of the subject requires accuracy in writing and proofing. I am sure that nobody in the proofing team ever tried these exercises since as written they are impossible to execute.

This is a truly awsome book for Max character animators. At last we can share some of the secret techniques of the profesionals. I was particularly impressed with the info on IK and how to get the best out of it, plus the chapters on Biped and Physique are very welcome. On a sour note, this book suffers from the same problem that a lot of New Riders books suffer from - poorly written tutorials, sometimes its very difficult to finish a task because the description is obscure or a stage is missed out. Sometimes I wonder if they actually test these tutorials on ordinary users. Overall, it's a great book with loads of essential information but the poorly written tuts loses it a star.

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I've only had this book for a week, and it's well on it'sway to becoming the most referenced book on my shelf. Excellent readand, if you're prepared to do a little work, outstanding tutorials.The facial animation section alone has given me several 'eureka'moments, which is what books like this are supposed toelicit.

Simply wonderful.

Since I began work in MAX, modelling has always been second nature to me. However, my animation technique has never been up to par with my modelling; until I read this book! I must confess, I am a video game freak, and what originally drew me to this book was the fact that the author had created and animated many of my favorite characters. When Pro Animation came to my door, I was more won over by the fact that it covers all of the fine details of animation; from bones to Character Studio. The companion CD has many video examples of the projects that Angie Jones works through with you so that you can compare your work with her work and see where you need improvement. I can't say enough about how much this book has helped me, but I can say that if you need help in animation, it's not far away. Buy it...

This book is detailed. It will talk you through a lot of the different techniques you can use to animate, but it's examples are terrible. I am not a professional animator, but even I could do better example material than this. The animation of a slug/worm type thing is terrible, both in terms of it's main movement and its secondary motion. The walk cycles are abysmal with no obvious signs of reference material being used. The Lion animation is laughable. The environment animations look extremely amateur. This book is NOT for professional animators. At best it is a fair resource for finding different techniques to animate. Why they'd release this book for any reason other than to make money is beyond me. It certainly doesn't show MAX up as being a good animation tool.

I bought other CG books before and usually got something out of it. But this is my first one that instantly helped me with my problems. Within the first 2 hours of reading I got more hints to traps and good advices than I got from reading whole books and doing dozens of tutorials before. I really recommend this book for all who want to improve their animation skills with 3D Studio MAX.

This is the first Max book I got that covers the finer points of character animation in detail. It gives you good background info, but doesn't skimp on the "how to" and gives plenty of examples. Great chapters on facial animation with morph and a jawbone, and informative character studio tutorials. Saiko da!

After reading positive reviews of this book from Amazon.com, I bought it with high hopes... This book could be worth reading if there would not be so many errors everywhere! I can't believe how many typos & missing steps & steps told in wrong order there is in this book! Buy some other more professional book.