Director's Third Dimension: Fundamentals of 3D Programming in Director 8.5 [Paperback]

Paul Catanese (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2001

Director's Third Dimension has been designed with the Director developer with little or no 3D experience in mind. The purpose is threefold: To explain the fundamental concepts necessary to begin working with 3D; To demonstrate how these concepts manifest themselves in Director; To demonstrate strategies for the application of these concepts in terms of specific projects, including building charts, creating interfaces, and controlling characters in a 3D environment.

The book has and abundance of demos (more than 140). At the end of every chapter, there is a collection of Frequently Asked Questions and supplemental resources that will help the reader expand their learning.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Director's Third Dimension has been designed with the Director developer with little or no 3D experience in mind. The purpose is threefold: To explain the fundamental concepts necessary to begin working with 3D; To demonstrate how these concepts manifest themselves in Director; To demonstrate strategies for the application of these concepts in terms of specific projects, including building charts, creating interfaces, and controlling characters in a 3D environment.

The book has and abundance of demos (more than 140). At the end of every chapter, there is a collection of Frequently Asked Questions and supplemental resources that will help the reader expand their learning.

About the Author

Paul Catanese is an experimental animator and interactive media artist residing in Chicago, Illinois. Paul has been working with interactive multimedia for over eight years. During that time he has used Director as well as many other interactive authoring solutions, including Hypercard, Oracle Media Objects, mTropolis, and Visual Basic. He has also worked with VRML, Java3D, and OpenGL. In addition, Paul has extensive experience with 3D modeling and animation, primarily with various versions of 3D Studio, AutoCAD, and LightScape.

Paul received his MFA in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where he now teaches digital animation and experimental imaging. Paul teaches methods that blend 3D, stop-motion, and traditional animation with experimental techniques that he uses in his own work. He also teaches how to create electronic input and output devices for building custom interfaces with computers. Paul is currently developing a class for SAIC to focus on the creation of physical objects that control or are controlled by virtual counterparts by combining the topics of 3D scanning, custom electronics, and Director 3D. In addition to his work at SAIC, Paul recently received a Technology Fellowship from Columbia College to develop a curriculum for a multipart class teaching 3D programming.

His animation has been screened internationally, notably at Animac99 in Barcelona, the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Enter Multimediale in Prague, and the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, Washington. Currently, his animations are distributed through Blackchair productions in Seattle as well as Offline Networks in Ithaca, New York. Other credits include consulting on various commercial projects, such as the Director 7 and 8 certification tests at Brainbench.com, onsite and offsite Director training for three years at Mac University, and the creation of the interactive multimedia consulting company skeletonmoon.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 915 pages
• Publisher: Sams (October 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672322285
• ISBN-13: 978-0672322280
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,119,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Picks up right where I need to start learning 3D, November 23, 2001

By 

Diana L. Kerman "Epona" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Director's Third Dimension: Fundamentals of 3D Programming in Director 8.5 (Paperback)

It's obvious this book is well structured and comprehensive. It stays focused on its topic too. In addition, the target reader (one who has pretty decent Director and Lingo experience) should find this book really "talks" to them. That is, you won't need to step through basics of Director--it assumes you know Director and then takes you deep into 3D.

I feel this book also covers the material in the right manner. Everything is built from scratch, every topic is focused and isn't muddied with gratuitous special effects... I know that every thing I've read I've retained. Even if there were a better Director 3D reference (which, I don't believe there is) this book has great value in teaching the topic.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN AMAZING BOOK, June 3, 2002

By 

Nmuta Jones (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Director's Third Dimension: Fundamentals of 3D Programming in Director 8.5 (Paperback)

This is the best multimedia book I have ever read. I am a multimedia/web graphics programmer, and I have read at least 5 books on Director and a few good Flash books, but this one has taken me further than any other single book I own.

You will need a good foundation in Lingo to really benefit from this book, and if you have that, this book will pay for itself several times over. Paul Catanese's style is very easy to follow, and it is peppered with a lot of other general knowledge regarding aesthetics, mathematics, and the general world of multimedia. I spent 20 hours of my vacation time reading this book last week and I feel comfortable with things in Director 3D that only a month ago seemed so far away in terms of my programming abilities.

Paul's chapters on download and file optimization are excellent, and he teaches not only how to work in 3D, but how to be mindful of how well your projects will work on various client machines, which is no small issue. In fact, Paul touches on so many other relevant issues such as building custom schedulers to create timeout objects that run independent of the main time line, bones animation, advancing texturing techniques, using alpha channels to create very nice texture effects, collision detection without using Havok, and many other important topics in the context of Director 3D.

Paul has also put together several "labs" on the CD to help you understand various utilities: particle systems, fog, bones animation, etc.

He really sets himself apart from so many other authors (we won't mention names) who put out quick books about Director 3D to make a quick buck that really don't do justice to the subject matter.

Paul takes the time to teach you Director 3d they way you would want to learn it in a college or university setting. It makes sense; according to the book, when it was published, he was teaching Digital Imaging at a University in Chicago.

Get the book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Its Excellent!!.. Its worth!..., January 24, 2002

By 

Muhammad Anis Ur Rehman (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Director's Third Dimension: Fundamentals of 3D Programming in Director 8.5 (Paperback)

Finally, this is the book that has made me understand about advance Director's 3D concepts and techniques. I have been looking through all Director 8.5 Books released to dates, and this is the only book i am happy to worked with. Its excellent in its contents, well structures, really understanding examples & very good concepts to work in 3D environment. I am developing a 3D Kiosk with walkthroughs in 3D environment. I will recommend this book to everyone who want to develop 3D content in Director for games, Multimedia application or Business application.
Thanks Paul Catanese!.. I will look forward for more advance techniques in 3D world from him!...