Animation Tips and Tricks for Windows and Mac [Paperback]

Don Foley (Author), Melora Foley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1997

"How'd they do that?" Go behind the scenes to see how professional animators create special effects on desktop computers. This book covers everything from blowing things up and creating fog effects, to web animations, adding sound tracks, and lighting effects. Includes a gallery of professional work with hints for setting up your own studio on Windows or Macintosh. The CD-ROM supplies textures, sounds, and 3D models in the book.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This 3-D-animation guide is a good choice for aspiring animators who need help producing seamless, sophisticated work. The large-format book pays attention to a variety of software, hardware, and hands-on techniques. Full-color illustrations are featured along with discussion, step-by-step instruction, and tips that are both general and specific to software. The authors start off with a gallery of projects produced by various artists, along with explanations of the software and techniques the artists used. Next the authors explain the hardware and software concerns for both Windows and Macintosh users, such as RAM, sound boards, high-end and low-end animation tools, image editors, and file formats. They include a list of available software--3-D and 2-D animation programs, multimedia-creation tools, image editors, and utilities and plug-ins--along with the purpose of each program and its strengths, platforms, and who needs it.

By chapter 3, you're ready to delve into the book's plentiful tips and tricks, which show you how to create camera fly-throughs, 3-D still art for the Web, see-through x-ray effects, explosions, animated GIF files, precise texture maps, building façades, liquid and fog motion, human-face maps, 3-D forests, and more. The companion CD-ROM has textures, sound effects, models, and backgrounds for Macintosh and Windows users. --Kathleen Caster

From Library Journal

This is a great book on doing animation on both Macs and Windows machines. The Foleys take up where their last book, Animation & 3D Modeling on the Macintosh (Peachpit, 1995), left off, and this might be considered a mid-level book. They discuss the sort of people who will want to do the tricks and the hardware and software needed and then get on to the tricks themselves, which range from fly throughs to animated gifs, 3D forests, facades, midi files, texture maps, motion blurs, and more. Best of all, they advocate that most animating needs can be met with basic graphic arts software. For medium and large collections in both public and academic libraries.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 143 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Pr (January 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201696436
• ISBN-13: 978-0201696431
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,260,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book for Starters!, June 13, 2000

By 

Eric Fisk - See all my reviews

This review is from: Animation Tips and Tricks for Windows and Mac (Paperback)

Three years ago, my father gave me this book on Christmas Eve when I told him that at the age of 27 I was already for a career change. I was already a CAD-man and I wanted to do more then just industrial wire frames. I was ready to take my work to new levels and other worlds. Someone in the know suggested this book to him.

This book goes through everything a new comer to Computer Animation and world building needs to know when starting out: What to look for when buying a computer, how software packages stack up against each other, and how functions work.

I read this book that Christmas Day and agian the following weekend there after and have referred back to it ever since. It's one of my most treasured possessions, reminding me the enormous faith my father has in me. And, it's a nice resource...

This is a good book to get someone started and a refresher for 'old timers' like myself. This book in invaluable!