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Antony Ward

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Game Character Development with Maya

by Anthony Ward (Author)

3.6 29 ratings

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A comprehensive guide to the game character development process, from conceptualization to animation, uses informative narratives, hands-on tutorials, illustrations, and screen shots in order to teach the intermediate programmer how to use Maya, a popular 3D software. Original. (Intermediate)

ISBN-10

073571438X
ISBN-13

978-0735714380
Publisher

New Riders Pub
Publication date

January 1, 2004
Language

English
Dimensions

7.5 x 1.75 x 9.25 inches
Print length

793 pages
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Antony Ward has worked in the games industry for almost 12 years, for Infogrames/Atari and Electronic Arts as well as some smaller, more independent companies. Antony began his career as an artist working on 2D titles, but has grown over the years to become a lead artist, lead animator, and lead technical artist.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Riders Pub (January 1, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 793 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 073571438X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0735714380
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.09 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 1.75 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,031,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #448 in 3D Graphic Design
- #1,343 in Digital Video Production (Books)
- #1,905 in Computer Graphics

Customer Reviews:
3.6 29 ratings

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Antony Ward

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Since the days when stipple was king, Antony Ward has grown with the game development and computer graphics industries, adapting his skills to match its increasing thirst for polygons. During the past 17 years, Antony has led teams, developed workflows, and trained staff in some of today's leading game development studios, all while sharing new techniques as he did with his first book, Game Character Development with Maya and the eagerly anticipated sequel Game Character Development.

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3.6 out of 5

29 global ratings

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Krista L. Gossett

Tips for Beginners; great book!

Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2011

Verified Purchase

I know it would be best to wait until I've actually cleared the book step by step to form the best opinion, but I can already tell you, on a flip through, that I'm already in love with this book. I've done 8 months in a computer animation school so I didn't go into this completely blind, but I've immediately recognized the first steps I have taken in character development. I realized after my first 3D foundations class that modeling/rigging were the areas I most adored so I wanted to find a book that homed in on those traits. This book seems to be a perfect match and the price I got it for? Unbeatable! ($7! Some folded pages but sealed and untampered CD-rom, working on both Windows and Mac.)

While this book does focus on the gaming side of modeling, you may want to keep in mind, it is actually rather easy to convert your low-res game models to hi-res movie quality models within Maya or even with the help of Zbrush, etc. I have ZBrush; however I think that program is a monumental pain in the ass on my first few forays into it and I admit I'm pushing that aside until later. Maya is a dream to work with; this book actually includes a learning edition of Maya for those eager to learn but are unable to foot the bill on Maya's steep price tag atm.

The author makes it very clear that he is teaching you HIS methods and that are many, many ways to work around a model. You'd do best to take the basics that you learn from any source and compare this to professional animators' sites and videos to find a method that suits you, or eventually adopt your own method. Please remember that learning Maya can be downright frustrating but it's really exhilarating when you persevere!

In this sense, I find this book very valuable. My school actually screwed up and sent me a Mastering Maya 2010 book and I took one flip through, screeched, and had to try very hard not to fling it against the wall. This book, however, has made me feel very comfortable. This focuses more on what you are doing to meet an end, not playing with your mind and shoving lingo down your throat. I can't wait to walk through every detail...

Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2015

very outdated

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2005

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I've not owned a lot of books on 3d design. This is because they are usually filled with information I can easily find online and are too expensive to justify the cost of convienience. Not the case with this book! I really felt like I was getting what I paid for and more!

Designing game characters has always been a weak point of mine. I have always wanted to learn how to create organic models that look good, and still manage to keep the geometry to a minimum.

Although Mr. Ward covers modeling two characters in this book, you'll find that the principles you learn here can be applied to a number of different projects. I enjoyed the book and doing the projects, and managed to produce several models that I was quite pleased with afterwards.

The book shed light on many tools I was familiar with but had always been using inefficiently. I was quite pleased with the workflow of the book, and have already recommended the book to others.

I would like to thank Mr. Ward for writing such an interesting book, and sharing his knowledge with the community. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is comfortable working in Maya, and is ready to learn how to improve their modeling skills.

4 people found this helpful

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Byron

Good Book

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2005

This book is a good step-by-step process on how to create a game character model. You'll learn a lot about 3D modeling in Maya, but for me it was too tedious, and the book doesn't really tell you how to do it from scratch. Some times it shows you a picture and say get this. But overall it's a really good book for intermediate users. This isn't really a good book for beginners! The author assumes you know most of the UI for Maya 6+!

4 people found this helpful

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Charles D. Silvey III

Not just for games, but aimed at beginners

Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2005

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This is a good book. I was hoping for some much more indepth technical information. This is a great book for starting into maya, and character creation.

One person found this helpful

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Maya

very friedly for novice

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2020

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comprehensive text book for novice animator

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2005

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If you want to learn everything about game character development, buy the book!!

I'd like to say thank you to the author of this book, really you did a great job, you have also said this is your first book, and I think you are a nice man who are just opening doors for people all over the world.

4 people found this helpful

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EUNICE

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2016

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exactly what my son need for his class, and at a steal

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fabio annecchini

triangoli da convertire

Reviewed in Italy on August 8, 2020

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Il modello che si crea seguendo il tutorial ha troppi triangoli, non sono sicuro che sia la procedura migliore per la modellazione rivolta all'animazione utilizzando Maya.

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Alex Marmo

Excellent, still in 2012

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 19, 2012

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Although being several years old, this book is just so comprehensive and easy to follow. The author writes really clearly and simply and always gives just the right amount of details, or shows the right screenshots for you to follow along. Mind you, the author assumes you already know your way around Maya/3D modelling, but all steps area very well described. The book describes Ward's techniques on polygon modelling based on reference images, UV texturing (from Photoshop to Maya), skinning and rigging (with face controllers and blend shapes) and briefly on biped animation as well.

For Maya 2010+ users, he often refers to the "Edit Polygon" menu which is now the "Edit Mesh" menu; the split polygon tool he uses throughout the modelling is the old one ("SplitPolygonTool" command from the MEL command line) and not the very buggy new, interactive one; there very few other menus that may have different naming now but for the greatest part everything is still well up to date. Plus the book comes with a CD with two great rigs and a ton of useful scripts. A really great package all in all. I think it really deserves a re-edition, ideally with an extra chapter on animation techniques maybe. Totally recommended.

watercolormark

お勧めの洋書です

Reviewed in Japan on March 21, 2006

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ゲーム作成を想定して、主人公の女の子とモンスターをモデリング、テクスチャーそしてアニメーションまで説明してくれます。

写真も多く、分かりやすいです。

また、ゲームの開発の際の注意点などの説明されています。

ゲームなのでローポリゴン設定でのモデリングなのですが、ハイポリゴンモデルにも十分応用できる内容だと思います。

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DavidStrife

A Tad Outdated, But The Essential Techniques Are Always Relevant!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2012

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This was written for a more PS2/Xbox style of character design, but this book's goals aren't to overly complicate the matter of character design, but to deliver the main essential techniques that will always be relevant so long as we are working with polygons, skelentons, and UV mapped textures.

Maya is a powerful tool, but it can be daunting to newcomers as well as difficult to work with on some occasions for the professionals using it; sometimes misbehaving or just being plain awkward. The book gives a no fuss approach to how to use Maya in the simplest way possible, and keeping the frills out of the equation. You will know how to create an entire character by the end of this book, and how to rig and animate it etc.

The principles taught apply to all 3D based work in general, so even if you don't plan on using Maya forever, this will plant important seeds that will help you learn other packages later. I started learning in Maya and moved over to Blender, and excluding the particular shortcuts and buttons Blender uses, the pipeline and methods were exactly the same.

S Foster

A good in depth guide for Maya

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 1, 2007

Verified Purchase

This is a good in depth work with lots of detail for creating game content with Maya, however this is not a beginner's book.

The level of complexity ramps up quite quickly.

I would recommend this for Intermediate to Advanced Maya Users.

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