Building a Digital Human (Graphics Series) (Paperback)

by Ken Brilliant (Author) "If you want accurate reference photos, it is not sufficient to arbitrarily point the camera and shoot..." (more)
Key Phrases: breast geometry, long vertical split, specularity map, Digital Humar, Modeling the Hea, Soft Selection (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
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.

KEY FEATURES:
* Provides a practical guide to human modeling techniques and tools
* Uses a non-software specific approach to illustrate how to build the model, but teaches how to apply the techniques to your program of choice easily
* Defines the polygonal modeling terms and techniques that are covered in the book
* Builds the model using primitive shapes to help define correct body proportions
* Teaches the techniques for creating realistic facial features, arms, hands, teeth, hair, etc.

ON THE CD!
* 3D models in various stages of completion to use with the tutorials
* All figures from the book in full color
* A working version of Amapi v5.15 (Mac & PC)
* A working version of the 2D paint program Project Dogwaffle 1.11b (PC only)

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Windows: 95, ME, 2000, XP, NT or Mac OS9 or OSX; a 3D modeling program with strong polygonal toolset such as Lightwave 3D, Maya, SoftImage XSI, Cinema 4D, Amapi, trueSpace, or 3ds max. Image editing software that supports layers such as Adobe Photoshop or Procreate Painter. Read the "read me" files in the free programs for directions on how to install them.

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: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #513,690 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 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 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!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, April 29, 2005

By	Flatline "RS" - See all my reviews

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.

6 of 6 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 (REAL NAME)

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.