Customer Reviews

Timing for Animation

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Well, after waiting so long for this book to come back into print it turned out to be an overall disappointment. I found "Timing..." to be remedial and overpriced. True, timing itself is crucial to animation as with all acting, however this book offers nothing I didn't already learn from "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life" or Preston Blair's How-To books, which I cut my teeth on.
If you are an animator who already owns every other book on the subject and you have 30 bucks burning a hole in your pocket then this book is for you. However, if you don't own the 50 other great animation books by Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Richard Williams, Eadweard Muybridge, John Canemaker, Brian LeMay, Jeff Kurtti, Preston Blair, Chuck Jones, Tony White, Culhane, Finch, Schneider, Adamson, Rebello, Green, and Hart to name a few; then please go buy one of theirs.
This one is going back for a refund. Sometimes you just have to say "The Emperor is Naked."

I'm downgrading this book partly because it's overpriced and frankly I wish the drawing style in it were different.

It's still a nice book to have and covers some specific timing and staging problems that a lot of other books don't, but it's not the end-all and be-all for animation timing that it gets hyped up to be.

I still don't understand why this book was out-of-print for so long in the US and why it's so ridiculously overpriced now. It's really a $15 or $20 book at most, but the publishers are charging $30!

I have referred to this book for nearly ten years, and it is still my favorite with regards to the fundamentals of creating naturalistic movement.

More concise, less self-indulgent, and less bulky than either Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit" or Frank and Ollie's "Illusion of Life", Whitaker and Halas' "Timing for Animation" allowed me to advance in my knowledge of timing charts and the creation of believable, naturalistic movement more efficiently than either of those two venerable books. While I tend to agree with reviewers who question the book's price, the no-nonsense explanations it contains provide a solid base from which an animator can embark upon further exploration without being too tied to a particular guru's insights.

Although I don't own a copy of this book, I've read most of it. Just as the title says, this book focuses on one of the most important aspects of animation: timing. It's well written and full of exercises and techniques that will help you improve your timing. I've heard that some animation schools use it as a textbook. If you're thinking about a career in the animation industry, this book is a must buy. However, it's pretty hard to find since it's out of print. I think that it's worth the extra effort to own a copy.

I've been a professional animator for over 10 years and I cannot believe that I never had this book before now. I wish I had this to reference on several of my projects. Instead I pretty much re-invented the wheel. It not only shows visuals, but also explains the physics behind what is going on with the graphics. For instance, for a water splash, the author explains how the air affects the volume when an object plunges into water, etc. It really makes sense of what is going on so that the artist can recreate their own version without the need of copying.

I recently purchased a copy of Harold and John's book, and find it to be well-written and easy to follow; were it not for the recent publication of Richard Williams' book 'The Animator's Survival Kit,' I would label 'Timing for Animation' a critical purchase for an animator's arsenal. Wait. I take that back. It IS a critical purchase, but 'The Animator's Survival Kit' also covers this material exceptionally well, too, plus it has SO much more... Bottom line: This book is worth having.

My instructor recommended this book for my special effects animation class. It was such a life savor.

It covers all the basic animation topics like Squash and Stretch, Anticipation, Slow In and Slow Out, Exaggeration, etc...

This book is simply a must have for animators. It's very clear written and has great examples, I consider it a must just as the two masterpieces "Illusion of Life" and "Animation Survival Kit". Being about the timing I think it works great not only for traditional animators but also for CGI one (like I am).

I think it's a very good book for the beginner, because it explains some basic concepts very very well. (Best explanation of overlapping I've ever seen.) But there's not much to it beyond explaining these basics. The language is very clear though and it's an easy&fast reading.

An excellent book made for those who works or just need to know everything about timing in animation (2D, 3D, CG or stop motion). An Updated, essential and useful book. Easy to read, easy to understand and full of images/figures.