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.

To survive in today?s competitive 3D computer graphics industry, one must possess the technical and artistic skills necessary to create believable visual effects. Through tutorials, interviews, and industry-proven examples, this book provides a complete breakdown of lighting and compositing a digital image or scene, from the basic concepts of lighting to the advanced and challenging special effects used on some of the most well-known feature films in recent history. This exploration of the day-to-day workings of veterans in the visual effects industry makes Inspired 3D Lighting and Compositing a great tool for anyone looking to break into the field.

More than just a step-by-step tutorial on rigging in Maya, "Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging and Deformations" helps you develop the skills you need to successfully manage your rigging process from start to finish. You'll learn the reasons behind each step in developing a character rig and learn how that rig fits into the entire pipeline process. The authors provide a unique glimpse at the real-world problems and choices that professional Character Technical Directors face, as well as the solutions they have developed for dealing with high-end digital characters. A follow-up to "Inspired 3D Character Setup," this book takes this difficult and sough-after skill and provides in-depth explanations and techiques.

This book is about a requirements specification for a Holodeck at a proof of concept level. In it I introduce optical functions for a optical processor and describe how they map to a subset of the Risc-V open instruction set. I describe how parallelism could be achieved. I then describe a possible layered approach to an optical processor motherboard for the datacenter and for a personal Holodeck. I describe Volumetrics in brief and show how its evolution to Holodeck volumetrics could be done with bend light technology and the possibility of solidness to touch. I describe in detail the architecture of a Holodeck covering several approaches to Holodecks from static scene to scrolling scene to multi-user same complex to networked multi-user Holodecks.

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!

Do you have some experience and a reasonable knowledge of C++ and want to write your own computer games? Have you ever looked at a PC or Playstation (R) game with characters running and leaping through an exciting landscape and wondered how it was done? If so then this book will give you all the information you need to achieve this goal, whether you are a hobby programmer, student or even a professional wanting to add that third dimension to your website. Nik Lever takes you through the journey from the basics of 3D manipulation all the way to morph objects and sub-division surfaces. On the way you get Visual C++ project files to study and software that runs on the Windows desktop. The free CD-ROM gives you a full-featured development environment for 3D character animation, so even if you find some of the maths and the code hard to follow straight away you can still create your own games. The game engine (Toon3DCreator) provided free and fully functional on the CD-ROM, even has an ActiveX control that allows you to distribute your work on the Internet. All source code for Toon3D is included on the CD. You will also get an insight into the artist's problems; learn how to keep the characters interesting while not exhausting the game engine. Understand the complete picture and make the most of your skills to help you succeed in, or break into the computer gaming industry with this comprehensive guide to programming for real-time 3D character animation.

Secrets of Digital Animation sets out to demonstrate and showcase a range of cutting-edge work, new techniques, and influential practitioners within all forms of contemporary animation, from anime to flashware, and from animated shorts to machinima, offering creative hints and tips from the genre masters. This book offers young practitioners, and those interested in broadening their skills, an insider’s view of the fast evolving work of animation; showcasing professionals and their creations, working methods, and inspiration, along with jargon-busting explanations and easy to follow demonstrations. Stunning examples of finished work are shown alongside conceptual drawings and works in progress. The book contains practical advice and case studies that explore the professional techniques behind designing innovative characters and fantastical worlds, and bringing them to life.

Virtual Immersive and 3D Learning Spaces: Emerging Technologies helps push the conceptual and applied boundaries of virtual immersive learning. Virtual immersive spaces bring with them plenty of promise, of sensory information-rich learning experiences that will enable a much wider range of experiential learning and training—delivered to computer desktops, augmented reality spaces, digital installations, and mobile projective devices. This work explains how these spaces may be exploited for effective learning in terms of the technologies, pedagogical strategies, and directions.