Animation:Master 2002: A Complete Guide (Graphics Series) [Paperback]

David Rogers (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584502363 | ISBN-13: 978-1584502364 | Publication Date: August 19, 2002 | Edition: 1

Whether you are just beginning in 3D or are new to Animation:Master, you'll learn the skills and fundamentals needed to master this incredibly powerful, low-cost program. Beginning with a detailed review of the tools, Animation:Master 2002: A Complete Guide leads you through the important features of the program and explains when and how to use them. Once you're comfortable with the tools, you'll get started with the basics of modeling, bones, and action. From there you'll explore character modeling for animation, and set and environment modeling. With these skills and techniques, you'll be ready to journey through the tutorials and hands-on practice with constraints, relationships, animation, lighting, surfacing, and rendering. In the last section of the book, you'll find more advanced topics to really push your skills to the next level, including special effects, workarounds, and a project case study. This is the one resource you'll need to go beyond the basics with Animation:Master 2002.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Rogers (Chicago, IL) is a professional animator who has been working with Animation:Master since 1995. His demonstration tutorials on A:M have been recorded for inclusion in the Pro training series by Hash, Inc. and many of his animated actions are included in the library that accompanies the software. He also remains involved with short film projects in his spare time.

Product Details

• Paperback: 569 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 1 edition (August 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584502363
• ISBN-13: 978-1584502364
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,333,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars GAH! Horrid!, June 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Animation:Master 2002: A Complete Guide (Graphics Series) (Paperback)

I am writing this review because I am SOOO angry after spending 20 minutes reading the same pages over and over. I had to find a way to make the Author pay for the pain he gave me.

This book said that it is good for a beginner and advanced alike. Well, I don't know about the latter, but it is hardly useful for a beginner. Just look at this line in the first chapter:

"Lock: This tool locks a bone, basically indicating that it is the base to an Inverse Kinematic chain without being at the highest level in that heirarchy."

Inverse Kinematic? Heirarchy? Wha...?

Too much of this book is written in the same way. The author busts out with loads of jargon, but never bothers to define it- via example or analogy. I have been doing Technical Writing for 6 years and, if I didn't know any better, I would think that the author is just pulling the text out of the manual, as he doesn't know enough about it to explain it to a layman.

Further, the text is long and dry. The author/editor doesn't chunk information into easy-to-read pieces, rather choosing to overwhelm the reader with a cascading wall of words on each page, with hardly a breather for indentation or line breaks. This is a naive and frustrating mistake for a software guide, as any author/editor worth his salt should know that the user will be glancing from page to screen and back. With better chunking of information, one wouldn't spend 20 minutes trying to find his spot in the middle of a run-on sentence.

Because the author/editor doesn't know how to properly format text for usibility, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the illustrations are WOEFULLY lacking and misplaced. You'll often find yourself pointed to an illustration on a sepperate page (leading to more lost-my-place frustrations), and too many critical or difficult steps were left out completely.

This book is a great example of how NOT to write a useful refference/learning guide. I cannot stress my frustration more. The only reason I give it 2 stars is that it is one of few references for A:M out there.

Pray for the day when another reference emerges.

GAH!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars About Time, May 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Animation:Master 2002: A Complete Guide (Graphics Series) (Paperback)

It's about time Animation:Master had a book this good to help people learn it. It's just too bad that it had to come from a third party instead of the software company. I have started and stopped with A:M for over three years I read Jeff Praires books. I read the manual. But i made little progress and was frustrated at every turn.
This book has finnaly explained things in a way that I can understand them! I have made my first model and a simple walk cycle, I even remember why I bought this program in the first place again!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential for A:M 2002 Users, August 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Animation:Master 2002: A Complete Guide (Graphics Series) (Paperback)

This book is by far the best publication ever written about Animation: Master (which isn't saying much at all.) It's well written and concise, and has only a few flaws (such as limited information about FX.) If you use A:M, you should consider this book an essential purchase.