Improve your animation by fully understanding the key 2d skills before using a computer!

Improve your character animation with a mastery of traditional principles and processes including weight and balance, timing, walks, birds, fish, snakes, four legged animals, acting and lip-synch. Traditional animation skills and techniques are presented in both 2D and 3D space. The companion CD features demonstration animations and exercises conducted in each of the major animation packages including 3ds Max, LightWave, Maya, and XSI Softimage.

Based on 10 years of animation teaching experience, this comprehensive guide to key techniques will ensure your skills best fit the computer animation workplace. A complete understanding of the vital animation drawing skills will be achieved by learning the pitfalls in a 2D exercise then applying these skills when using 3D animation packages. Providing a broad coverage this book will be relevant whatever 3D package you use, Softimage XSI, Maya, 3ds max or LightWave. Just knowing and being able to use a specific 3D software package does not make you an animator, but reading this book will! The Free CD-ROM includes; how to animate exercises in each specific 3d animation program; short movies showing best practice; computer models so you can experiment and learn; a free demo copy and discount code for the best 2D animation software you can buy, DigiCel FlipBook. www.characteranimationin3d.com, provides further resources about the world of animation, extensive list of links, how to get a job, build a lightbox, make an animated movie and much more!

CD-ROM contains: Examples for text -- Toon3DCreator 1.7 with full source code.

Expand your animation toolkit and remain competitive in the industry with this leading resource for 2D and 3D character animation techniques. Apply the industry's best practices to your own workflows and develop 2D, 3D and hybrid characters with ease. With side by side comparisons of 2D and 3D character design, improve your character animation and master traditional principles and processes including weight and balance, timing and walks. Develop characters inspired by humans, birds, fish, snakes and four legged animals. Breathe life into your character and develop a characters personality with chapters on acting, voice-synching and facial expressions. Expertly integrate core animation techniques with your software of choice featuring step-by-step tutorials, highlighting 3ds Max, Maya and Blender workflows. Adapt the tips, tricks and techniques for unique projects like character design for rotoscoping and motion capture. Advance beyond the fundamentals of 2D and 3D character animation with the companion website which includes short demonstration movies, 2D and 3D exercises and fully rigged character models.

Clark's book takes an in-depth look at the methods and technology that professionals use to create realistic and believable characters using computer technology.

Creating moving camera character animations in 3D is a multi-faceted computer graphics and computer vision problem that requires a formal representation of the moving camera, and efficient algorithms to help author manage and render the multitude of character poses required for the animation. This well-researched book introduces view-dependent character animation, covering all the relevant background work. Numerous example animations are offered to explain and illustrate this versatile technique.