From Book News, Inc.
Instead of focusing on defining every button in the program, Kennedy (a Hollywood 3D animator) shows how to integrate the features of 3ds max 5 and 5.1 to animate, render, and complete actual animated film projects supported by high-quality characters and environments. After an overview of the program, Kennedy covers particle effects such as rain and explosions, male and female character modeling and skeletal rigging, lip sync, visual effects, lighting, motion capture animation, compositing, plug-ins, and advanced animation concepts. Use of the included tutorial CD-ROM requires an IBM-compatible PC with 3ds max 5 or 5.1 software.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


Book Description
3ds max 6: Animation and Visual Effects Techniques has been thoroughly updated to cover the enhancements and new features of version 6. The book provides an organized and thorough process for integrating the features of 3ds max 6 into your own projects. Everything taught throughout the book is based on the creation of a film project that was done completely with max, including all of the visual effects and animation techniques. Beginning with a review of the essentials, you’ll learn the key features used in animation and visual effects. You’ll learn about the fundamentals of animated filmmaking, and you’ll work through detailed tutorials covering modeling of buildings, environments, humans, and aliens. Once you’ve created the models, the animation techniques are explored, including character setup with bones, lip sync, facial expression, and walk cycles. From there the process moves to scene animation, visual effects, materials and textures, and lighting and rendering. The book ends with detailed chapters on character studio® 4 and combustion® 3, and the Shag Hair plug-in. Highlights! * Uses the latest features of 3ds max 6 to teach particle effects, including rain and Hollywood explosions and details the changes from version 5 to 6 * Teaches how to use character studio 4 to animate crowds of people, and how to do physics- based animation using reactor 2 * Explains facial animation and how to record dialog and sound effects * Details lighting and rendering features, including * Radiosity and Global Illumination, Skylight and Light Tracer, visual effects lighting, and network rendering On the CD * Original, full size figures from the book * All the files needed to complete the tutorials from the book * Extras folders that contain color images, animations, 3ds max materials libraries, and texture maps * An animated scene from Homing Instinct, the movie used to illustrate the techniques in the book First Edition User Comments "Up-to-date sprung to mind when I skipped through this book…Finally someone has added a FULL tutorial on how to model a human from scratch! The effects chapters are amazing too, thick, Hollywood explosion techniques! …this book is aimed at someone who has used Max for quite sometime and knows a little about modeling. But I recommend this book to anyone that has Max!" "I love this book! It makes sense of things in 3ds max that I couldn’t quite grasp before. I’m finally getting over the learning curve for lots of stuff in Max!…" SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Minimum Requirements: 3ds max 6, IBM-compatible PC, 800 MHz processor, 256MB RAM, Video Display with 32MB RAM, free HD space 600MB; Recommended System Requirements: 3ds max 6, IBM-Compatible PC, 2.0 GHz processor, 1GB or more RAM memory, Video Display with 64 or 128MB RAM, free HD space 4 GB.


Book Info
Handbook provides insight into the tools and techniques used in 3ds max 5 and 5.1 to create high-quality characters, environments, and visual effects. Covers plug-ins, bringing everything together into an animated rendered scene, and how to use discreet combustion 2.1 with 3ds max for compositing and 2D visual effects. Softcover. DLC: Computer animation.


About the Author
Sanford Kennedy (Los Angeles, CA) is an author, animator, and designer. He has worked in Hollywood special effects since 1977, and computer animation since 1994. He has worked on 54 movies and numerous commercials, and recently began working on games, including Graystoke: The Temple of Ultimate Evil. He has written over 100 articles and co-authored a variety of books on 3D computer animation.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

3ds maxTM 6 Animation and Visual Effects Techniques is a completely updated version of this best-selling book. It covers 3ds max 6 and provides an organized and thorough process for integrating all of the features of max to create, animate, render, and finish an animation project.

Beginning with a review of the essentials, users learn about all of the key features used in animation and visual effects, including the fundamentals of animated filmmaking, and then work through detailed tutorials covering modeling of buildings, environments, humans, and aliens. Once they have created the models, the animation techniques are explored, including character setup with bones, lip sync, facial expression, and walk cycles. From there the process moves to scene animation, visual effects, materials and textures, event-based particles, and lighting and rendering. The book ends with detailed chapters on character studio￯﾿ﾽ 4, combustion￯﾿ﾽ 2.1, reactor￯﾿ﾽ 2, Mental Ray￯﾿ﾽ 3.2, and the Shag Hair and Dynamic Effects plug-ins. Anyone interested in learning an efficient and practical process for creating animated environments and films will find what they need here.

KEY FEATURES

Teaches a practical process for creating animated environments in 3ds max 6 Uses the latest features of 3ds max 6 to teach particle effects, including rain, Hollywood explosions, dense explosions, and atmospheric explosions Teaches how to use character studio 4 to animate crowds of people (including a charging army tutorial), and reactor 2 to create realistic physics-based animations Details lighting and rendering features, including Radiosity and Global Illumination, Skylight and Light Tracer, mental ray 3.2 Rendering, Caustics, Lighting Models, and Network Rendering Explains facial animation and how to record dialog and sound effects Includes a companion CD-ROM with all the files needed to complete the tutorials from the book and additional selected images and animations to augment the chapter content

ACCREDITATION