3D Art Essentials

Readers learn to create high-quality 3D animations and models using the basic concepts and principles of 3D art presented by GeekAtPlay.com-s Ami Chopine. Readers get a studio reference breaking down the core concepts into easy-to-understand segments, showing readers the "why" in addition to the "how." Taking an application-agnostic approach, this book shows how to model, pose, and texture readers' creations, and then create scenery for them, animate, and render them. Chopine shows readers what applications best fit their needs and how to get started making money in 3D. The companion website includes video tutorials, models, project files, and other resources. It is endorsed by and includes extensive models by Daz3d.com.

Ami has been dabbling in computer graphics since she was a child. She co-founded Geekatplay Studio through which several award winning images and animations were released. In September of 2007, the Geekatplay team started releasing video tutorials for Vue. As well as editing Vladimir's work, Ami developed and recorded a Vue tutorial series for beginners, called Discovering Vue, one of Geekatplay's most popular products. Their tutorials are well known the community for being the most informative and easiest to follow of all the Vue tutorials available. Since then, she has also written several tutorials for 3D World Magazine. A graduate of Orson Scott Card's Literary Bootcamp with published fiction, Ami has a passion for teaching and helping other artists develop their creativity. She brings to the table high end professional writing skills, with a strong emphasis on clarity, keeping interest, and understanding the needs of her audience. She is also the co-author of 'Vue 7: From the Ground Up' which published in May 2009.

Chapter 1 A History of Computer Graphics and Special Effects; Chapter 2 Getting Started And Getting Finished; Chapter 3 Polygons: How 2D Becomes 3D; Chapter 4 Nurbs: The Spliny Truth; Chapter 5 Subdivision Surfaces: The Marriage of Polygons and Nurbs; Chapter 6 Deforming: It's a Good Thing; Chapter 7 Rigging; Chapter 8 Animation: It's Alive!; Chapter 9 Dynamics: Let's Get Physical; Chapter 10 How the Pixel Gets its Color; Chapter 11 More than Just Color; Chapter 12 Light Effects; Chapter 13 Lighting the Way; Chapter 14 Working the Camera; Chapter 15 Environments; Chapter 16 Rendering; Chapter 17 Procedures and Graphs; Chapter 18 Scripting; Chapter 19 What Tools to Use; Chapter 20 Making a Career Out of 3D;