Character Development in Blender 2.5 Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is an invaluable resource. As a long time 3d artist, I have picked up little tricks here and there that really bring pieces together well. Jonathan manages to cover these little tricks and more, assisting even the beginner 3D artist in creating a piece of art that feels well polished. A great book and a great read. Also, their website (blendercookie.com) is another amazing resource. Check it out.
The only con I have is the pictures in the book are kind of dark, but the included dvd remedies that nicely.

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Written for everyone from beginning Blender artists to experienced animators and game developers, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN BLENDER 2.5 shows readers how to model believable characters using Blender, a free, open source 3d animation package. Covering the technical, artistic, and theoretical aspects of character development, the book provides an in-depth look at Blender's modeling tools and includes information on modeling, sculpting, materials, lighting, rendering, and more. Written in a tutorial style with step-by-step instructions the book also includes an accompanying CD-Rom that features the Blender 2.5 software and sample art.

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3-D Human Modeling and Animation, First Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)Our Computer Animation students use this book to create stunning character animations. As a result, our alumni have been very successful in finding jobs at major studios such as PIXAR, MetroLight Studios, ABC Interactive, Encore Productions, etc.
Peter Ratner's book outlines the process of modeling and animating male and female human models in easy to follow steps. His illustrative directions guide one through every aspect of the human anatomy; all the way down to minute details such as modeling the fingernails. The author assumes nothing of the reader and therefore goes to great lengths to explain everything as clearly as possible. There are hundreds of illustrations that show each step in the modeling and animation process. In fact, there isn't one page in the book that doesn't have at least one illustration in it.
Professor Ratner's exquisite 3D illustrations are his own and exemplify the fact that he is an accomplished artist as well as author. As a 3D artist he understands the problems that face 3D modelers and animators. Unlike other authors who depend on outside artists to supply illustrations and techniques for their books, Professor Ratner is able to create his own. The numerous color illustrations from his former students are a significant testimonial to the effectiveness of his teaching methodology.
Our department has found it very easy to adapt this book to the various software packages that we are using. For example, even though the book is geared toward spline and NURBS based software, the students who are using LightWave have successfully adapted it for polygon modeling, boning and animating. The book is geared toward mid-level to high-end modeling software packages. Animators using low-end modeling and animation packages that do not have deformation tools might find it difficult to work with this book due to the limitations of their software. In any event, this type of software most likely lacks the tools for any kind of character modeling and animation.
This book's descriptive instructions, brilliant color and black and white illustrations and easy to follow layout practically guarantee improved results for the 3D artist. It has played an important role in our computer animation curriculum. I highly recommend this book to any student or professional interested in learning more about the exciting field of 3D character modeling and animation.
Professor Gary Chatelain, Design Department, James Madison University

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d'artiste Character Modeling 3: Digital Artists Master Class Review

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(More customer reviews)d'artiste: Character Modeling 3 is the eighth book in the Digital Artist Master Class series. Each d'artiste title features the digital art techniques and approaches of a small group of artists.
The 208-page book comes in a sturdy slipcase. There's also a signed and leather bound limited edition if you're into it.
The featured artists here are Giovanni Nakpil, Jan-Bart Van Beek (Killzone creator) and Cesar Dacol Jr. Their bios are further down this review.
Each artist has three sections: background on their career, the invited artist gallery and the tutorial section. So it's actually part art book, part tutorials. Everything's written in first person by the artists. The stories are on how they got started in computer graphics, and got to where they are today. All pretty inspiring.
Different 3D software packages are used but the primary one is Zbrush, and to a lesser extent Maya and Mudbox. The tutorials are actually step-by-step walkthrough on how the models are conceived, modeled and rendered. My favourite tutorial is the one on the Helghast sniper from Killzone 2, which is modeled using Zbrush and Maya. It shows how the sniper is modeled, texture mapped and how the ridiculously cool cloaking shader is created.
The invited artist gallery is filled with top notch 3D characters, be it realistic or stylistic, personal or commissioned work. There's a nice variety of all shapes and sizes, humans and not. A few pieces are actually created from clay, and some, latex. The ones in latex are incredibly realistic and I've no idea how they are created. Anyway, all invited artists have their contact and info provided should you want to check out more art from them.
This book is recommended to 3D character modelers and artists in the CG industry. Those who use Zbrush will benefit a bit more from the tutorials.
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For those buying from the Ballistic Publishing website...
Ballistic Publishing has made available some downloads for the first 500 customers who pre-order the slipcase or 200-copies limited edition. The downloads are high-resolution meshes (ZTL and OBJ file formats) of Giovanni Nakpil's quadruped creature and Cesar Dacol Jr's Pond Guardian from the tutorials. On the download page, I also found an additional (bonus?) media pack download. Inside are three walkthrough videos by artists who created the cover art for Matte Painting 2, EXPOSÉ 6 and EXPOSÉ 7.
(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

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d'artiste: Character Modeling 3 presents the techniques of leading character modelers Jan-Bart van Beek, Giovanni Nakpil, and Cesar Dacol Jr.

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Modeling a Character in 3DS Max, Second Edition (Wordware Game Developer's Library) Review

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(More customer reviews)I purchased this book after skimming it over in a local store. I wish I had taken a closer look at it. I just came off a 2 week break from work and school. During my break I decided to work on a new model and following along with Mr. Steed's book. This turned out to be frustration hell. The methods in his book are fine if you are into wasting alot of time. Boolean and splines to make a simple character like the one in his book actually doubles your work. You wind up wasting more time cleaning up the errors from following his tutorial. Why he didn't demonstrate the way MOST people in the industry model, which is box modeling, is beyond me. He basicly tries to reinvent the wheel. I found much better tutorials for FREE on the web. Save yourself from learning bad modeling techniques. I happen to also know that Paul Steed DOES NOT model the way presented in the book. This should raise a red flag or two.

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In this update to his best-selling character modeling book, professional modeler and animator Paul Steed shares a number of tips, tricks, and techniques that have made him one of the industry s most recognized 3D artists. Modeling a Character in 3ds max, Second Edition provides readers a professional-level skill set as it chronicles the creation of a single low-poly real-time character from concept to texture mapping, and gives insight into the process of creating a high-resolution character. Learn how to:Model with primitives,Use extrusions and Booleans, Mirror and reuse models, Optimize the mesh, Create and apply textures, Loft shapes

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