"An advanced training series that requires the user to have already mastered basic climbing skills (or aerial lift operation) and cutting techniques. This series begins with the basic methods for hardware selection and use, knot tying, and limb removal, and advances to compound rigging techniques and methods for removing heavy wood."--Back cover of accompanying book.

Get an inside look at the creation of production-ready creature rigs for film, TV and video games. Garner strategies and techniques for creating creatures of all types, and make them ready for easy automatic use in many different types of media (transmedia): film, TV, games - one rig for all. You will move step by step from idea, to concept, and finally to completion through a proven production-pipeline. "Digital Creature Rigging" gives you the practical, hands-on approaches to rigging you need, with a theoretical look at 12 rigging principles, and plenty of tips, tricks and techniques to get you up and running quickly. This is the definitive guide to creating believe production-ready creature rigs with 3ds Max. The companion web site has all scene files, scripts, tutorials from the book.

Pull Enhance your 2D skillset to the benefit of your own 3D animations to develop characters that are technically and artistically dynamic and engaging. 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. Includes practical, hands-on examples, now fully updated to include 3ds Max, Maya and Blender tutorials. Master the fundamental techniques with the companion website which includes short demonstrations, 2D and 3D exercises and 20 fully rigged character models.

“[A] very useful little reference book . . . for members who strive to achieve an accurate set of rigging lines on their models.”—Bottleships Employing superb, clear draftsmanship, this book illustrates each and every detail of the rigging of typical period fore-and-aft vessels. The rigging of period ship models is arguably the most complex task that any modeler has to accomplish; the intricacies can be daunting, and visual references limited. The author’s first book, Rigging Period Ship Models, was a triumph of clarity for those needing to decipher the complexities of square rig and has now sold in multiple editions. This book does the same for fore-and-aft craft and deploys three typical eighteenth-century types—an English cutter, a three-masted French lugger and an American schooner. Some 200 diagrams show clearly where each separate item of standing and running rigging is fitted, led and belayed. Whatever the requirements of the modelmaker, all the information is here. This edition brings a visual clarity to the complexities of period rigging and will delight anyone with an interest in the rigging of traditional fore-and-aft craft. “This book is naturally highly commended to its target audience, but anyone with an interest in sailing ships will find it an interesting source of information that can be very hard to find.”—Firetrench “Not just for modelers but also a boon to traditional seafarers and readers of historical fiction.”—Julian Stockwin, author of To the Eastern Seas

Rigging for Games: A Primer for Technical Artists Using Maya and Python is not just another step-by-step manual of loosely related tutorials. Using characters from the video game Tin, it takes you through the real-world creative and technical process of rigging characters for video games and cinematics, allowing readers a complete inside look at a single project. You’ll explore new ways to write scripts and create modular rigs using Maya and Python, and automate and speed up the rigging process in your creative pipeline. Finally, you’ll learn the most efficient ways of exporting your rigs into the popular game engine Unity. This is the practical, start-to-finish rigging primer you’ve been waiting for! Enhance your skillset by learning how to efficiently rig characters using techniques applicable to both games and cinematics Keep up with all the action with behind-the-scenes images and code scripts Refine your rigging skills with tutorials and project files available on the companion website