Inspired 3D Short Film Production

Jeremy Cantor, Pepe Valencia, 2004

This is an excellent book on how to produce 3D animated shorts. The production processes are explained from A to Z, beginning with story and character development, art direction, storyboarding, to the typical production cycle from modeling to animating, rendering and compositing, and lastly to marketing and distribution. Four case studies of famous animated shorts are discussed in the book, while a DVD of around fifty animated shorts are included.

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The Animator’s Survival Kit

Richard Williams, 2002

This is another must-have book for those interested in animation. Williams shares with us in great detail his techniques and philosophy in animation, from lessons he had learnt through trial and error while working with other great animators. Although he covers many of the basic movements such as walks, runs and dialogue, it's his analysis and tips of these fundamental actions that give great value to increasing one's understanding and appreciation to this magical art form.

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The Illusion of Life : Disney Animation

Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnson, 1995

This is a big and heavy book, both literally and metaphorically. I haven't finished reading it. Regarded as a must-have for any serious animator, this book gives an inside look on how Disney studio created their animated works, right from their historical beginnings, with useful explanations of the methodology utilised, including many illustrations and photographs of behind-the-scenes.

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Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting

Robert McKee, 1997

This is a guidebook for the screenwriter. It's written almost in the style of Stephen Covey's "Principle Centred Leadership" - systematic, thorough, and inspiring. McKee begins with by defining the story, and then dissecting the various elements that make up a story. He then puts forth his ideas on story design, and recommends design principles for us to apply. Finally, he examines story treatment and style, such as the use of antagonism, exposition, and how to handle problem areas like sustaining interest, or coping with holes in logic. There is also a chapter of character design, and the screenplay itself.

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Acting for Animators

Ed Hooks, 2001

This book is about acting theory and technique specifically for the animator. An introduction to the Seven Essentials Acting Concepts, is followed by chapters on the audience, character, scene, movement and body language, and speech. Several tips are presented on acting for the camera, action techniques, and handling various forms such as comedy, and different mediums such as computer games or commercials. Finally, several classroom type exercises are provided and finished off with an analysis of the acting done in the movie "Iron Giant".

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Disney's Art of Animation : From Mickey Mouse To Hercules

Bob Thomas, 1997

This book talked about the history of animation at Disney, and explored its animation process. It traces the efforts done to produce famous characters like Mickey Mouse and Snow White, to movies like Pinocchio, Cinderalla, Sleeping Beauty, Alladin, Lion King, Toy Story and features a special "making-of" section on Hercules. Elements that made each film, such as story sketches, layouts, and background paintings were explained, giving us a tour behind the scenes.

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The Art of the Storyboard : Storyboarding for Film, TV, and Animation

John Hart, 1988

This isn't just a book on how to create storyboards, but elaborates on the the role a storyboard artist plays in the production team, and the whole process of ensuring the story concept is captured in its essence into the storyboard. There are chapters on drawing technique, visual perspective and depth of field, lighting, framing, cinematic composition and sequencing. The appendix contains notes about storyboarding for commercials and multimedia, and has a section where a few key production team members were interviewed regarding storyboard artists.

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Drawing the Head & Figure

Jack Hamm, 1982

This is a how-to handbook that offers step-by-step procedures on pencil sketching the human figure in a practical and simplified way, and provides lots of tips and hints. Detailed steps are shown to draw in various styles for the head, hair, torso, neck and shoulders, arm and hand, legs and feet, and als0 clothing.

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The Animator’s Workbook : Step-By-Step Techniques of Drawn Animation

Tony White, 1988

This book is mainly for hand-drawn cel animation, but many ideas can be applied to 3D computing. It has many example drawings to perform head turns, walks, runs, takes and double-takes, sneaks and staggers, adding weight and overlapping action. Later, it covers flying bird and four-legged animals, lipsync, and visual effects like wind, water and fire. It also has a chapter on background art.

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Digital Texturing & Painting

Owen Demers, 2001

I bought but haven't actually read this book. Skimming through it, I can say that it emphasises on the importance of observing real life objects and the dissecting it's surface textures to determine what elements are needed to reproduce those impressions on the computer. Separate chapters are devoted to colour theory, paintings, and analysing the various input to help make your production decisions. Finally, several project assignments are provided to get you to turn theory into practice.

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Digital Lighting & Rendering

Jeremy Birn, 2000

This is an excellent book if you need to understand how to light your scenes properly and produce pleasing results. It is not dependant on any software package yet covers important basics such as lighting workflow and setup, qualities of light, shadow, colour, and even exposure. Composition and staging is discussed much like in photography, followed by a primer on materials, texture, rendering, and compositing. You get to understand what it takes to make a scene look realistic.

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Character Animation 2 – Volume 2 : Advanced Techniques

George Maestri, 2001

This book continues from Volume 1 and discusses the steps to making a 3D film and then talks about character and story design. Detailed explanation goes into topics like character rigging, human and animal motion, acting and games production. Some tips and tricks on how to make characters seem to think, doing effective facial expression, dialogue, and body language are also covered. This book doesn't go into each topic too in-depth, rather provides short notes and is to the point.

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Character Animation 2 – Volume 1 : Essential Techniques

George Maestri, 1999

This is a very good introductory book on 3D animation. It can be applied to any software package, and covers the basics very well. It starts of with a discussion on design principles, then goes on to modeling and rigging for animation. Animation topics are then covered, such as posing characters with strong silhouettes and lines of actions, emphasis on timing and the language of movement, following similarly to disney's 12 principles. Walking and running are also covered nicely, together with facial expressions and lip-sync.

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Animation Master 2002

David Rogers, 2002

An excellent book that describes systematically how to use A:M. However, books like these will very quickly lose its usefulness because the software has new and upgraded features every year. I'd rather have an online guide that is updated regularly. Of course, some of the concepts and techniques are still valid, it's just that how it's achieved may be different in newer versions.

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Welcome to my Animation World!

Hi! My name is Harun and this is my 3D Animation blog. I've loved cartoons and especially 3D animated movies ever since Tron. I never knew I could dabble in this art form until I played a bit with Autodesk Animator and later in Hash Animation Master. I've tried several other software packages like Lightwave, 3D Max, and even the free Blender, but Animation Master won me over with it's ease of use, excellent animation tools, and great online community.

I hope to share with you my learnings in this 3D exploration, and make this simple blog a benefit to those that visit it.