Book Description
Beginning with a review of the essentials, you’ll learn about all of 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, combustion® 2.1, and the Shag Hair plug-in.
If you’re interested in learning an efficient and practical process for creating animated environments and films, you’ll find everything you need in the detailed tutorials and techniques included throughout this book.
Highlights!
* Uses the latest features of 3ds max 5 & 5.1 to teach particle effects, including rain, Hollywood explosions, dense explosions, and atmospheric explosions
* Teaches how to use character studio to animate crowds of people
* 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, and visual effects lighting
On the CD!
* All the files needed to complete the tutorials from the book
* Additional selected images and animations to augment the chapter content
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Minimum Requirements: 3ds max 5 or 5.1, IBM-compatible PC, 800 MHz processor, 256MB RAM, Video display with 32MB RAM, 600MB; Recommended System Requirements: 3ds max 5 or 5x, IBM-compatible PC, 2.0 GHz or better single or dual processor, 1GB or more RAM memory, Video display with 64 or 128MB RAM, 4GB available hard drive space.
