Building a Digital Human (Graphics Series) (Charles River Media Graphics) [Paperback]

Ken Brilliant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2003 | Series: Charles River Media Graphics

In the universe of 3D animation and graphics, the final frontier isn't the vast unknown depths of outer space but rather the intimately familiar human form. Replicating this body is by far the most challenging journey to undertake as a digital artist. Why? Because everyone knows what a human looks like. Digital humans are in our midst. They are stuntmen and background extras in movies such as Titanic. They are your favorite hero or heroine in video games like Tomb Raider. They are the main characters in Saturday morning children's shows such as Max Steel. And now, they have even taken center stage as full fledged, photorealistic actors in such feature films as Final Fantasy. It is clear that digital humans are here to stay; and that artists need to know how to create them. To help artists learn how to master today's powerful 3D tools and improve their skills, Building a Digital Human explores the entire modeling process from head to toe. Beginning with the fundamentals of assembling reference material (photos, anatomy books, etc.) through the details of texturing and refining the skin and hair, a complete human model is built. Once the model is complete, a female and fantasy troll are created to illustrate how easy it is to transform the basic model. Building A Digital Human teaches modelers and artists the texturing and modeling skills needed to create 3D digital humans. It also provides fundamental skills that can be used for a variety of other 3D projects. The models in the book were built using NewTek's LightWave 3D, however, the techniques can be applied to just about any 3D package on the market. The ideas covered utilize a relatively small toolset, so transferring the steps to your program of choice isn't difficult. To make the transition between programs as easy as possible, a quick list of corresponding tool names from Maya, 3ds max, and LightWave 3D is included.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ken Brilliant is an award-winning artist, sculptor, 3D character modeler, and instructor. He works in Hollywood in the film and television industry, and his work can be seen in a variety of movies and television series, including Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World, X-Files: The Movie, Interview With A Vampire, Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles, and a variety of other films. He is also the author of the popular, Modeling Digital Dinosaurs.

Product Details

• Paperback: 380 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 1 edition (April 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584502851
• ISBN-13: 978-1584502852
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,307,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book if..., April 21, 2005

By 

erik turchin (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building a Digital Human (Graphics Series) (Charles River Media Graphics) (Paperback)

This book is ideal for someone like me who has built a few human models before, but is looking for details in how to work smarter and better, but not harder and longer. This book truly covers every aspect of this process. Everything, that is except sexual organs. Minor details as tedious as eyelashes are covered if you need them. This book is advanced however, so your are best to know your 3d program well, your paint program well, and perhaps have modeled a few figures already in your past. If you meet those 3 requirements, then you should certainly get a wealth of information out of this manual. The whole book is quality, but the last 75 pages or so are gold in that they explain powerful methods for manufacturing a wide variety of characters based souly on the model you build in the first 2/3 of the book. Using these techniques allows an artist to spend their time building one quality base model, and in turn, spawn numerous unique variations off of it essentially allowing you to build 10 distinct models in the time it would take you to model 2-3 from scratch. Use the tools wisely, change some textures here and there, and you can quickly build a stable of wildly different characters in hours or days compared to weeks or even months. Finally, and probably the most important, is the anatomy lessons you learn along the way of building the model named Frank. This is probably a 3d book that will stand the test of time for a while. Many of the anatomy and concept lessons will not change that much any time soon if ever, so after you read it, using it as a reference for the next many years is probably a wise move. If you are just starting out in 3d, then your better off with something else because you will probably get lost and confused. If you are at least intermediate with 3d, then you should get this book no matter which of the more well known 3d programs you use!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, April 28, 2005

By 

Flatline "RS" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building a Digital Human (Graphics Series) (Charles River Media Graphics) (Paperback)

If you are in organic modeling this book is for you. This is really great book. It's not for begginers it's more advanced. Here you have very nice tutorial how to model head, body (with hand, fingers etc.), hair and here you have one amazing thing "how to transform you male model to female".
Very very good book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Good., August 2, 2006

By 

S. Washington (Chico, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Building a Digital Human (Graphics Series) (Charles River Media Graphics) (Paperback)

I used this as a class textbook and it worked fairly well. This is not a single program book so this will work well with whatever program you model with. Although, depending on what you model with, depends on if you need to go out and find plug-ins that will do what he does. The book is really good going through step by step. Although there are some occasions where he leaps forwards ahead with really telling you what to do. Also, sometimes when he gives instructions, there aren't any images to go along with them, so you have to end up guessing what to do.
This is modeling for realism/cinematics and if you want to use this book to model in-game characters, you are out of luck. The was he teaches you to model is extremely high poly (especially in the head). The CD doesn't do much for you, it mainly just has naked pictures of the guy he models on it so you can copy exactly what he does. The book does give good information on the differences between modeling men and women, although it is fairly brief. He does go into UV mapping pretty good as well as modeling hair. The book doesn't, however, go into modeling clothing fairly well, just a short chapter. The book also doesn't even mention rigging, which I think is a crucial part in character modeling.