Improve your 3D animation by understanding the key traditional 2D skills. Learn the basics for producing original and exciting animation.

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.

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.

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.

This book "shows artisists, designers, and animators how to add drama and emotion to their work through simple human observation and baisc animation techniques, providing the tools and step-by-step instructions for incorporating emotion into animation. Discover how to see emotion in life and apply it to your drawings; explore reactions, emotional states, and transitions in body language; learn how to animate life-like facial expressions; create dramatic effect through timing, lighting, and 3D set; and more. Learn how to create truly great animation that catches the eye and captures the heart of your audience with Character Emotion in 2D and 3D Animation....." - back cover.

Light Wave is an easy-to-use rendering and animation package increasingly being used to create effects for commercials, television and movies. This book presents the latest techniques for readers to build high-quality characters, with special focus on facial animation and walking.

Make the Most of Today’s Leading Animation Package With release 4, max further establishes itself as today’s dominant modeling, animation, and rendering package. And with its fully revised and updated coverage, Mastering 3ds max 4 further establishes itself as the definitive max resource--just the book you need to master all the techniques supported by this powerful product. Inside, you’ll learn all about sculpting and texturing your characters, setting them in motion, lighting the scene, and producing the final animation--for movies, games, television, and the Web. You also get in-depth instruction in MAXScript, including detailed explanations of all that’s new to this release. Coverage includes: Understanding basic 3D concepts Modeling in polygons, patches, and NURBS Creating detailed models Optimizing models for low-poly environments Applying textures for real-time and pre-rendered output Animating using parametric animation, forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, and character studio Fine-tuning animation by editing keys and transitions Creating drama with lighting Applying post-process effects Cutting and cross-fading between shots Compositing in Video Post and combustion Exporting to Web 3D with Pulse Getting started with MAXScript Using scripting for scene manipulation Using scripting for animation Customizing the user interface Defining autostart scripts Creating your own plug-ins using MAXScript