Customer Reviews

3ds Max Animation with Biped

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

 

 

I had a little biped experience before reading this book and have learnt nothing new from it. Only buy if you are a complete beginner. Nicely laid out, clear and well explained.

Like other reviewers say, a lot of the 3ds Max books leave a lot to be desired.. but this one is truly exceptional. The lessons are well articulated and the tutorials have all the steps explained. The only cautionary points i would make are 1) the book was written for 3ds Max 8 so it is aging a little and 2) to follow along you will need to know the 3ds Max interface already.. the book assumes a basic knowledge of Max... so if you are a total Max beginner, you should start with something else.

This book was exactly what I was looking for. It had detailed instructions for how to perform nearly every task in Character Studio (now just called the biped system in 3DS MAX). It's not going to have anything conceptual in it.

If you want a comprehensive animation guide, you need to get the animation bible (The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion, and Internet Animators) in addition to this. Make sure you know everything about squash and stretch, anticipation, etc. Come to think of it, start with the book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation (you can find a lot of this info online, because it's so old, but it's good to have it when you're not on the interwebs as well).

Actually, you can start with whatever excites you most, but you won't get anywhere interesting without the foundational concepts in these two other books. They apply to even the realistic kinds of animation you see in action movies. In fact if you're going to Mo-Cap everything you ever do, you should still know them.

This is by far the best book covering Biped. 3ds Max Animation with Biped is for the beginner who wants to learn how to use Biped. Few books cover the Biped in any detail.

The examples are straight forward and well explained. The authors know "How to Teach". Very few books about 3ds Max are well written. Most leave details out and confuse the reader. I have purchased almost all the books written about 3ds Max and have been greatly disappointed by most. Michele Bousquet and Michale McCarthy have done an excellent job in writing this book.

If you've looked around for books on learning Character Studio, you've undoubtedly noticed there's not much of a selection. 3ds Max Animation with Biped is probably as good a book on the basics as you're going to find. Also addresses some of the more advanced features of CS including combining mo cap files in Motion Mixer and building multiple Biped crowds. Michele Bousquet does a good job breaking things down into easy to understand terms. If you're wanting to learn a few things about Max's 'other' Bone system...get the book.