Customer Reviews

Game Character Modeling and Animation with 3ds Max

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I have this book and enjoy parts of it. The book actually covers almost the entire process from conception (concept art) to the finished rigged (biped) character. It also shows you how to bring the charcter into UNREAL 2003 if you want to play as the Pirate. If you are still learning this book can definately help you expand your skills. It goes indepth explaining why you want to do certain things and how to do it. The explainations are a huge plus, for people that are still trying to understand the process.

The example is where this book lacks it's potential. The concept art used to model from is weak. It is a basic line drawing you would expect from a 14 year old. And from this reference art you can go through the process of creating inproportional character. I believe realism is what many people shoot for and the example is missing some of that realism.

This book I would recommend for someone that is struggling with the process but would just need to preface it, saying the techniques that the book is trying to get across are important, but do not rely on the examples to get a job.

I looked forward a great deal to the release of this book as I know of no other book out there aimed primarily at game character modelling in 3D Studio Max for UT2004 but I have to say I was generally appalled by the techniques covered in this book and the ignorance of the author (i.e. from a cursory glance of it at least - I've seen enough) and this is why:

Modelling:
The author seems to have very little in the way of artistic ability in that the anatomy of the model is ridiculous and this stems from his bizarre, convoluted and laborious technique of developing a character mesh by `drawing' individual vertices then connecting them together (utter nonsense - most established 3D artists start with approximate primary forms as in fine art; and then work into them with low poly tools) this technique is prehistoric and ill advised as it is unnatural, time consuming and generates an appallingly uneven non-organic mesh I'm open to different ways of doing things; but this is a highly questionable an unintelligible approach to creating a character model and certainly ill advised for those wishing to learn how to model.

Texturing:
The author seems to have very little in the way of artistic ability in that his procedure for generating texture coordinates on his `mutant' anatomical character involves using lots of dated techniques which although are a means to getting the job done with zero finesse are hardly representative of easier, modern cutting edge approaches to organic texture creation in 3D Studio Max (i.e. like using the Pelt mapping gizmo designed purely for this purpose which has been in 3DS for years now - how long ago did the author write this book exactly?). Again I appreciate there are many ways of doing things but surely as this book has just been released it should be representative of what is going on now. All I can presume is that the author is an engineer posing as a 3D artist.

Its not all bad but there are far more useful, current and informed tutorials out there for free on the web; written by talented 3D artists who know what they are talking about from individual experience - no comment.

First of all, I don't own this book. I just have the pdf version of it. All I can say to who is planning to buy it: stay away from this book if you are over 16. In my opinion this book is intended for teens who are giving the first steps on modeling and animation for games with the 3ds Max package.

I'm an experienced 3D modeler and animator. If you are like me, or if you are at least an intermediate 3D modeler/animator and would like to brake into the game art industry, go buy the book '3ds Max Modeling for Games: Insider's Guide to Game Character, Vehicle, and Environment Modeling by Andrew Gahan'. This one I bought from amazon.com and, in my opinion, is a 5 stars book.

However, if your are all about learning modeling and animation for games with 3ds Max, then give it a try on 3ds Max Modeling for Games courses at Game Institute ([..]). They are more expensive than books, but they're much more complete and worth your money!

Cheers,
Christiano