Animation Books

Anyone who loves Disney animation and anyone who is learning the process of animation needs to get their hands on this book. It is long, it is detailed, but it is well worth it. This book mainly covers the essential Principles of Animation such as Squash and Stretch, Anticipation, Follow Through, etc. Go get it!

This is a really inspirational book! It takes you through the history of Disney animation and how the founding animators discovered their secrets and modeled their craft. You will learn all about the fundamentals of great animation and how to apply proven techniques to form your skill. It is easy to read and is full of great imagery and references. Highly recommended!

Wow!..First of all, the presentation of the book is amazing. The cover, the paper, everything. And wen you open the book, is simply what you need for start to see animation as an art...no, in my case, an "excuse" for use a software (I sarting to go to 3d animation). Buy this book!

The love produces animation! That book exhibition that! That amazes of book! That fantastic thing is the friendship and the production of those two geniuses of the animation! The life and the those two men's art is a thing that contemplates in all us, impassioned by animation. They are my life examples, and one day I would like cannot at least to arrive close to what did. That book, and the dvd about the life of the two, is obligatory things in any school, or shelf peculiar of any person that has feelings and sensibility to understand the beautiful things of the life. Wonderful? Spectacular? Grandiose? I don't have as defining that book. He is more than any definition that somebody can create. It is the love transformed in cartoons overflowing for the pages of that wonderful book. I will buy more a, to be in the shelf without nobody opens it, and my descendants only can you make it for they know a time and such some brilliant people and magics as these highlighted in that spectacular book.

Any artist - animator or otherwise, should read this book. It's not only about the craft of animation, but about the passion of pursuit in illustrating life accurately and in an engaging way.

Told from the perspective of two legends.

Highly recommended.

This book contains an astonishing array of images and sketches from throughout the development of various projects the Imagineers have worked on. If you are interested in really understanding the forced perspective of Cinderella's Castle, or the graphical concept behind "It's A Small World", or if you're just a big fan of the Disney theme parks, this is a remarkable resource, full of life and creative spark. Though it does not have any sort of case study of the development of any particular attraction (though why would it since the most important part of the development is the final version, the one that guests get to enjoy!), a single flip through the book will reveal the vast amount of effort that goes into the Imagineer's creations. Through a closer inspection it is possible to understand the intricate ways in which the various departments collaborate on the projects. Overall, it's a spectacular collection of images and ideas, and is well worth the money for anyone who has ever dreamed of being an Imagineer.

Wonderful book full of information! Definitely recommend this for any Disney behind the scene facts!

I added this book to my collection several years ago, and it is a great addition to any Disney or Imagineering fan's collection. I personally am a huge fan of Walt Disney the man, and all the projects he was involved in. This book gives more images than anything else, but some of the images and the little bit of information it gives is definitely interesting and fun to have. If you are looking for something more in depth about Imagineering I don't know if you will really find it here - it is similar to what you might get in watching a behind the scenes special feature on a DVD, it just glosses over some of the projects and plans throughout Disney Imagineering history.

I taught high school art and retired a couple years ago. This was my bible for creative ideas and approach. I now teach at the college level and still use it regularly as a reference.

I have gifted this book to several of my outstanding students. They loved it.

I loved this book because it has so many pictures. It is most interesting to see aspects of the rides that you might not get to view by visiting the park. The enthusiasm of this book is inspiring for anyone who is interested in theme park design. It does not get into anthing too technical, or show you what an Imagineer does from day to day on a regular basis. I would reccomend this book if you are interested in seeing Disneyland from another angle or if you want to be a theme park designer. It is a very good book if you aren't looking for technical advice, just to have fun and get excited!

Yet another masterpiece from CLAMP! Rayearth has fabulous artwork, an interesting plot, adorable characters, and enough comedy to even it all out. A completely satisfying buy with an exotic touch, Rayearth is perfect for manga lovers everywhere! You won't be sorry!

If you have yet to read Magic Knight Rayearth, you have no idea what you're missing. MKR is one of the best Anime/Manga series I've ever seen, read, or heard of. The illustrations are amazing - especially on the spells, CLAMP did an awesome job. The story's plot line is addicting, and you'll soon find yourself hooked. You won't be able to just read the first one - you'll find yourself needing to get 2-6, because you want to know what happens to Umi, Fuu, and Hikaru, or if Umi kills Mokona or not. Like I said, if you have yet to read MKR, you need to, because you have no idea what you're missing out on.

My friend got me hooked on Magic Knight Rayearth by letting me borrow the first manga and I can say this, it's brilliant. The beginning does seem to drag on a bit, but all in all, it's a wonderful manga, but then, anything by Clamp is a good read. The beginning threw me off track for a sec but it's a beautifully written story and so far, one of the best i've read and i've read alot of manga in the short span of a year. I know i'm repeating myself but this is a beautifully written manga and I can't wait until I (finally) have the money to spend on the second and third manga books.

Like the title says, this manga is definitely for little girls... The artwork is brilliant (nothing CLAMP makes isn't :P), but the storyline seems to drag on for a while. It does have humor, and the characters are all quite lovable. But if you have no patience, then I suppose this isn't quite the thing for you. :/

Magic Knight Rayearth tells the story of three schoolgirl-turned heroines.These junior high schoolgirls are,Hikaru Shido ,Umi Ryuzaki,and Fuu Houjii.On a field trip to Tokyo tower, they are plunged into a land called Cephiro.There they meet a 745 year old guru named Clef.Although Clef looks likes a 10 year old child,he is the most powerful sorcerer in Cephiro.He tells them they were summoned by the pillar of Cephiro,Princess Emeraude.After listening to Clef's wishes as he is getting attacked by Alcyone,Clef's former pupil and enemy.She is the 'pawn' of Zagato.Zagato is said to be the one who kidnapped Princess Emeraude,keeping her from her duties.Meeting the chief artisan of Cephiro,Presea,they 'borrow' weapons to get the mineral used to create evolving weapons,Escude[Escudo?].That's when their journey begins.

This book looks pretty good and the first chapter was very promising. However I must tell my experience so at least people don't waste time and get frustrated like I did.

The very first example of the book, the Multiple-Choice Quiz will NOT run on latest Flash CS3. It turns out that Flash CS3 (ActionScript3) decided to kill backwards compatibility and throw away the onRelease method for its buttons. So you get a bunch of compile errors. I managed to find out by myself that with AS3 you must use addEventListener to handle clicks to SimpleButton.

Anyways, the line:

totalOutput_txt.text = "Your final score is: " + totalCorrect + "/2.";

Is not compiling either with the error:

1120: Access of undefined property totalOutput_txt.

The totalOutput_txt is being created by "reflection" with the line:

createTextField("totalOutput_txt", 1, 150, 200, 200, 20);

But it looks like Flash CS3 does not like this. Again, another compatibility problem with CS3...

There goes my first star out. Now comes my second start out:

This book assumes that you DO KNOW how to play with FLASH, how to play with the timeline, etc. It does make a good effort to guide you through the steps to create the movie frames, etc, but I felt that I needed a flash designer near me to explain me what was going on.

Anyway, I was looking for a book like: Flash + AS for Java Programmers, but I guess I am asking too much. If anyone has a recommendation for me, please reply in this comment!

This book proved to be valuable for looking up new ways of implementing Action Script into my Flash projects. There were many examples of action script that can easily be found in the books index.

Was going through my books looking to get some space on the shelf for new ones and had this in my hand ready to go but for some reason couldn't do it. I hadn't done Flash/Flex (Flesh? Flax?) in a couple of years (moved mostly to C#) then recently I got a chance to do the quirky & kludgey beast of computing again with Flash8 and This Old Book Still Had The Goods.

If you don't own it, buy it. If you are thinking it's past its prime... buy it anyway :)

Oh, gotta say this: if you're thinking of buying into FMS... buy Wowza instead - it's more flexible and it's not priced as arrogantly as the ancient "Adobe" server.

Hands down, the best ActionScript book in my library. Good for building a solid understanding of AS, but definitely not for someone looking for a few quick tricks, effects or tutorials.

A good book for coders, but designers will probably want something far less intense.

It is a book that directly is recommendable for whatever it wants to program with ActionScript.





It is not necessary to enter the details of the book because everything is recommendable.





All the proportionate examples are practical and functional.





The author is a recognized programmer of ActionScript and has the Web www.moock.org.





It is necessary to consider that includes neither the components nor classes MX.





To be a programmer it is necessary to know how everything what the book author explains.





Directly recommendable, whatever the direction that is wanted to give later to the programming with ActionScript.





Next to this book also it is recommendable "Essential ActionScript 2.0" of he same author.

I like the way Scott designs his information, it makes it easier to absorb, and skim through if I already am familiar with it. Full of to-the-point tutorials, I learned a lot from this book. Also, he freely plugs other authors who give more in-depth teaching, which I appreciate since his books are not ultimate "Bible" type works. His goofy humor is featured in the intro to each chapter, barely worth a chuckle most of the time, but at least he's not an unbearable ego maniac schooling the unwashed masses like Dan Margulis. Recommended.

Like most of Kelby books very usefull guide and very easy to understand. Even if you only know a little of english like me. Recomended

Excellent: Easy to understand, detailed, great for beginner's to the advanced. I learn something new every time I open this book.

Scott's style of writing in this book becomes a little overbearing at times, as he tries to be amusing at every turn of the page. That makes it rather hard to read the book a second time to review things one may have forgotten.

Having said that, Scott doesn't write as if the reader is an imbecile, and the pace of the book is good. Scott clearly explains each step required to use channels and if you follow along you are amazed at the end of an exercise how much you have accomplished in a short space of time.

Because of the large number of screen shots, the book can be easily read without sitting in front of the computer, which is handy if you want to read it on the plane or over a beer at the pub.

I therefore recommend the book for people with a variety of skills in the use of Photoshop. That ranges from anyone who knows what a layer is through to an advanced user.

Scott Kelby uses an easy style to get the information he wants to present across to the reader. It may not be for everyone but it made the material more accessible for me. I was able to quickly absorb a lot of information. I read the entire book first and now I am going back and doing the excersizes. I have been using Photoshop for several years but I have not used channels until now. Recommended.

This is really an absolute must for beginners. I am 76 and have been using computers for a few years and wanted to learn doing web sites. I just wish they had a book like this to learm Dreamweaver and it would have been easy to learn. When I went to learn Flash it was easy and all I can say is WOW. You can learn Flash easily with this book. If you really want to learn Flash and you are a beginner this is the book.

I've learned a whole raft of software by following the lessons in assorted books, but I must say this one topped the lot. I'm reasonably savvy at website work (I use Dreamweaver and Fireworks) and wanted to introduce some animation on our website, so it's time to begin learning Flash. This book is incredibly easy to follow (tells you what it's going to tell you, then tells you, and then tells you what it told you), puts everything in the right sequence, and gives context or big-picture explanations exactly when they're needed. Outstanding.

Excellent book! Clear, straight-forward, and specific. Flash is not an easy program, but this book makes it less frustrating by providing step-by-step instructions. I'm a beginning Flash developer and this book has been a god-send.

Joe Okonkwo

Over the last two years, I've purchased a few Flash books in the hopes of learning the tool and spicing up my website. For some reason, the materials never delivered on their promises and I ended up going with SwishMax in a pinch. This book does a GREAT job in teaching the materials...much better than I've experienced in the past. Now that I'm comfortable with Flash, I've put SwishMax back on the shelf.

BTW, I'm an IT project manager with 30 years experience and I just turned 60...never stop learning.

I made the mistake of buying another Flash textbook without reading the reviews here. Big mistake! After two failed attempts at muddling through the text - I began to think that Flash was impossible to learn. I spent many hours following lessons without knowing what I was doing or why. And the book was full of technical errors, so often the lessons weren't even possible to follow.

I decided to give Flash one last chance. Based on the glowing reviews here I chose this Yeung / Weinman text.

What a difference!!! I feel like I'm not even using the same software. Within just a few minutes of reading this book I understood things about Flash that I didn't understand after many hours with the other book. Within hours I was creating my own animations with ease!

For a beginner, this book is clear, easy to follow and most importantly it helps you to really understand the concepts behind what you're doing.

I would recommend this to anyone.

I have worked in a pro photolab for 12 years. Photography and Photoshop are always a main topic in conversations at work.
This book is not an "intro book", if you want to learn photoshop or photography basics, I recommend looking somewhere else (try the digital photography book vol 1 or vol 2 {they're both excellent but different} by the author scott kelby). What this book is, however, is one of the best all around books on intermediate portraiture skills that I've read. It has a broad spectrum of topics all relating to making skin look like you want it.

The book covers:
physical characteristics of digital capture and lighting
positioning of the lights and camera (a couple are a little over the top)
monitor calibration
retouching for flawless skin
other miscellaneous photoshop tricks and techniques

I'm an experienced photographer and retoucher with Adobe Photoshop. I own many books and think can make a sincere judgment. Well, that said ...I have bought the book based on the many good reviews, but it was a real disappointment. It's outdated and very, very basic. Even the only chapter that actually covers the title of the book about correcting skin tones wasn't useful. Save the money, there are much better books and sources on the Internet. For example do a Google search on `Gry Garness'.

If you're a photographer or Photoshop user with zero experience, then this book might bring you some knowledge, but for the rest it will only be in your book closet unused.

Behind the scenes look at the art and technique of glamour/nude photography. Includes discussion and many wonderful photos to help understand the concepts. I learned several techniques that I was not previously aware of. If you are interested in this type of photo work, I recommend the book. A good value.

I haven't really read all the chapters yet but this book is very professional in terms of the processes they use to enhance images. Everything from different kinds of lighting to the steps through photoshop to printing. With that said, this is not a beginner book. Prior photoshop experience is needed or else one will easily get lost.

This is a must have book for anyone shooting professional portraits or stock photos with people in them. It explains everything from lighting, to photoshop. Very well written!

The book is useful for those who want to move up from basic use of Photoshops image enhancment tools to a more advanced level. The use of various layer masks and how to develop an efficient workflow is described. The book is laid out as a course and the reader should do the exercises using the images from the included CD. The style of the results is of course a reflection of Versaces own style, however by learning the described teqnique the reader can gain a platform to develop his own style. The example images are portraits and close-up nature. There is also a small collection of the Versaces images nicely presented which shows that the author has achieved his goals.
This is not a general encyclopedia on Photoshop rather it is an introduction on how to use the toools in Photoshop to achieve a specific photografic result and to get inspiration from a master.

This book is inspirational; there are 4 or 5 very detailed step by step exercises. There are, also, many example pictures of finished work, like the one on the cover. It is a pity that the author has chosen the "less beautiful" pictures for developing the exercises. Don't expect to find how to make the one of the cover.

Vincent Versace's Welcome To Oz is quite possibly the most innovative and best digital photography title I've ever come across (excluding my own books, of course!).

Versace is a superb photographer. So this is not one of those digital photography books that is written by a Photoshop guru without the creative gifts and guts to make images. But it is still largely a Photoshop book.

Versace's subtitle tells the story of his book: "A Cinematic Approach to Digital Still Photography with Photoshop". After reading this book, I felt better able to view photograph-making from the perspective of what would happen to the photo in the computer as well as in the camera. And, as I said, the images are splendid (and the step-by step accounts of how they were created very thorough).

If I have one caveat here, it is that Versace provides versions of his original images, and encourages readers to duplicate his work on these samples. Personally, I prefer to try things out on my own images, and I enourage readers and students to process their own work. Otherwise, the whole thing becomes a slavish imitation of a master rather than an original creative endeavor. But that's a matter of individual taste and a quibble, this is a really, really good book.

Looking for a wild ride or an interesting trip? This is the book for you. Along the way, you'll get a few important glimpses of the future. This a highly personal, idiosyncratic, at times eccentric, thoroughly original, book.

The contents include: The Tao of Dynamic Workflow; Image Harvesting: The Unwitting Ally; Classic Studio Lighting; Creating a Black-and-White Image from an RGB File; It's About Time.

Vincent shares his personal experience with and passion for how digital tools have changed the way he sees and makes photographs. He invites you into his world.

His `cinematic approach' is fascinating and timely, as the nature of visual culture and still imagery becomes more and more impacted by moving pictures.

In this book you'll get a first-hand glimpse of how Vincent struggles to achieve original authentic expression with the basic building blocks of photography - light and time.

He uses compositing to represent how the human eye sees in more compelling ways, controlling depth of field, time, and light.

Ultimately the concerns of this book transcend Photoshop. It's really about perception. He draws on other fields (acting and science) to expand our understanding of this process.

If his sentence structure is extended at times, Vincent more than makes up for it with passion and insight his reveries contain.

Vincent's shares more than what he knows about Photoshop. Vincent shares how he's come to see in new ways. He offers many valuable opportunities to you in this book.

See other books I recommend here: http://astore.amazon.com/johnpaulcapon-20

Versace's book introduces some great concepts about seeing and handling images that are not found in your typical Photoshop book and are always given from the perspective of a practicing photographer rather than a computer jocky. It is designed however as a tutorial with the intention of having the reader actually do all the exercises not just once, but several times. All great advice, but there is one aspect of this book that is exasperating. The editing is terrible. I have found this problem with many technical tutorial books. I believe it is because the editor does not have the knowledge to know when something is amiss in the instructions and the author is too close to his material to see the ambiguities and layout mistakes are never picked up. In layout mistakes, the author never sees them and the editor has no clue if they exist or not. It is only the poor reader trying to follow very detailed instructions that picks up these gafs.

In this book, I found every tutorial had mistakes in the instructions with steps out of order, ambiguity in instructions, mismatched example images for the step involved, layer masks that did not match the instructions. Truly maddening. These types of books should be proofed by a student so that these mistakes can be reported and fixed.

So I have started doing the exercises, but when I come to a step that has mistakes, I just have to wing it. Frustrating for an expensive book.

One reviewer mentioned that the exercises depended on using proprietary plug-ins. Well, he does encourage the use of Nik plug-ins, but does usually give you a work around with the exception of the Nik Skylight filter. He also notes that you can freely download time-limited trials that can be used to do the exercises. I agree that the arrangement between Versace and Nik is just a bit to tight in this book.

Overall I am glad that I am working through this book, but poor production practices have made it a struggle and thus my 3 star rating.

Also it should be noted that Versace's handling of images is quite theatrical with very strong lighting effects that will strike some viewers as phoney looking. This however is this photographer's style. I believe that the concepts he is trying to impart can all be used but much more subtly if his style seems way over the top to you.

This book is by far the best I've seen of its kind. I have read reviews that say the tutorials get lost in the long paragraphs, but those reviewers obviously didn't open the CD, because every single tutorial is presented in a step by step video that is shot from a first person perspective. How much easier could it be? This book is perfect for those new to Maya 4, because once you've finished this book, you can model a character from scratch, apply textures, set camera shots and various other activities and for those who have intermediate experience will find this book useful as a refresher and possibly learn short cuts to their work flow. The best thing about the book is that if the reader chose to, he or she could simply pop in the CD and learn all that this book has to offer. I am actually looking for other books written by these authors, becasue I haven't seen anything close to the way they teach.

This book is by far the best instructional book I have ever purchased and I don't just mean in the field of Computer Animation. Although I have bought several books for Lightwave, 3dMax as well as one other book for Maya, I could only recommend this one. Not only is the text informative and understandable, but with the CD Rom that comes included, you don't even need to read the book: Every tutorial is demonstrated by one of the two authors of the book and they follow along with the text verbatim. If I buy another animation book, it will be by these two guys.

This book made the conversion from other software very easy. I would recommend this book to anyone coming over from another package. The movies on the cd make following the steps very simple. I am in full production mode using maya with some time spent on the tutorials of this book.

Maya 4 Fundamentals---

So you want to learn MAYA... well this is a GREAT place to start...

This book and CD does not only cover the basics in writing... but they take it one step further and go step by step on CD... Jim Lammers is extremely understandable and makes learning MAYA fun... They walk you through designing a haunted house...and much more...

I did have a hard time understanding Lee Gooding... but he only covers 2 or 3 of the 14 chapters. I found that reading those chapters thoroughly and then watching the movie helped...

I would recommend this book for any beginner to MAYA. This book is not intended for the Intermediate to Advance MAYA user...

I am not certain how many users praising this book my have used an older version of Maya to work through the tutorials. While I do not have any difficulties with any tutorials released by Alias Wave-front, the exercises in this book do not match Maya 4.0. Windows that according to the book are supposed to pop up do not, and if they do, they look entirely different from the images in the book. I suspect that Maya 3 looked like this and the book was released without a thorough update, to match number 4. This does render the book quite useless.

I'm a fairly savvy computer user in most graphics and video applications, and I've had an interest in what Flash can offer for my projects. I've enjoyed using Dreamweaver for years, and figured I'd get myself a guide to help explore the world of Flash.

And while this book presents some good basics on using the features available in Flash, there are just too many BASIC chapters. Really, the book should start somewhere around chapter 10 or 11. If you have any knowledge of Freehand, Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign/Pagemaker, Quark or any other major graphics program, a good chunk of this book will bore you to tears.

However, the parts on animation are very clearly written, and the supporting files show you how things should work so you can judge your progress.

Personally, I'd prefer more emphasis on web design and less on pure animation, but I understand the bias, given Flash's primary intent. If you're looking for a Flash for the Web book, do consider either 1) a companion book or 2) a different source altogether.

A 600+ pages tour of Flash MX buttons and menus... with just a couple ridiculously elementary "tutorials" thrown in. Makes me think of somone who had to write a flash book and has never done anything with it but figure out how the user interface works. You won't find anything useful in here, that is about CREATING something with Flash. As for me I am never gonna buy a book from this author again, and I am probably also ditching the whole "savvy" line as well.

The actual rating is MINUS 5 stars. This book sucks. The stupid CD DOES NOT WORK on PC. Finally I copied it from my Mac. More surprises. Some chapters, IMPORTANT ONES, ARE MISSING. Without completing these chapters, you can't move on. I am throwing my book away in disgust. I'm heading out to buy a book that actually works.
People who can't even program their own CDs shoudn't write "How to" manuals.

If you would like to learn flash then this is a good book to start. With all the different titles out there, I believe that this comes clostest to being 'savvy'. It covers a lot of important concepts that you would need to get started like simple drawing, amimation, sounds, and a good intro to action script (if you don't know much about scripting then this maybe a hard concept to understand, MX has a simple interface of click and drag, but on the 2004 verison, the option was taken out).
Like all complex program, flash is a 'bottoms up' program where you need to learn the simple concept first, then from it build up a more complex movie.

I brought this book with a Flash class I'm taking at my college of env design. It really helps when there is an instructor to help with the common questions. But, since I missed most of the class, I found this book to be very helpful. Nevertheless, I wish there were more 'hands on' chapters.

Flash MX Savvy is NOT for beginners. It's not for advanced users either. It is a happy medium that is written for intermediate users of Macromedia Flash MX.
The presentation style is what most impresses me with this book. It is not a reference manual, nor is it one of those "Use our pre-made material in this step-by-step tutorial" sorts of books. It tells you the steps that need to be taken in a way that lets you apply what you read to your situation and not one they have dreamed up for you to mindlessly follow.
The progression of topics begins at the beginning. It talks about the various windows and panels, the tools for creating content, and then moves on to techniques in utilizing each tool in greater detail.
Actionscripting is implemented in very small portions that are followed with a description of what the code does and how to alter it.
The most interesting bits of information are towards the back of the book. Sections for integrating Audio and Video effectively are detailed very well. The capstone for me is the section on producing Flash content for an interactive CD. It was this that made me choose the Savvy book over any of the others on the shelf. It was unique, caught my interest, and is applicable to situations I will come into contact with in the future.