Animation Books

Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual GuideThis book is very enjoyable to anyone growing up watching Bugs Bunny and the other Looney Tunes characters. The pictures are colorful and entertaining. The story lines lively.

I bought this book with the intention of finding out more about Warner Bros.' main cartoon characters, and that's exactly what it does for me. Apparently written to be released in conjunction with "Looney Tunes: Back in Action", Jerry Beck shows us a look at all of the recurring characters featured in the classic "Looney Tunes" and their careers. As someone who's trying to gather information on the characters, I learned quite a bit from this, such as who exactly was the original voice of Michigan J. Frog, periodic thespian and until-recently WB Network mascot. Imagine my surprise when I saw the old comic panel where Bugs Bunny reveals his real name! (Although that may not be canonical, since, as Beck points out, the pre-DC comic stories were quite different from the actual cartoons.) And since I've acquired all the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection" DVD sets released thus far, one of the most interesting things about the book is seeing the screenshots that show how bad the video quality is before the shorts get cleaned up for the DVD releases.

Of course, the book is not without its faults. There's a few mistakes here and there (one of which some other Looney Tunes fan mentioned when he reviewed the book on his website); for example, page 91 claims Elmer to be Daffy's tortured contestant in "The Ducksters", despite the accompanying screenshot clearly showing it is Porky whom the duck is tormenting there. Plus, they refer to the turtle Bugs sometimes races with the name Cecil *Tortoise*, despite the current comics labeling him as Cecil *Turtle*, and they claim the bulldog who sometimes beats up Sylvester is mainly named Spike when I've mainly known him as Hector. Also, I can't understand why they devoted two whole pages to the "Duck Dodgers" show on Cartoon Network (which apparently wasn't as popular as page 45 claims, because it got cancelled after 39 episodes), but there's not a single mention given to "Taz-Mania" or "The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries". And like JThree's review stated, I too would've liked it if they had said something about "Tiny Toon Adventures" in here, especially since, on page 106, Foxy's girlfriend is referred to by the name Roxy, which she wasn't actually given until their "Tiny Toons" guest spot. (And while they were at it, they should've also mentioned "Animaniacs" and "Histeria!" in there, since the "Looney Tunes" characters made occasional cameos on those shows as well.) And yes, since we do get four pages about "Back in Action", a nice two-page spread about "Space Jam" would've been a good inclusion too. It's because of these strange exclusions that I did not give this a five-star rating. Other than that, the book is still a recommendable read for "Looney Tunes" fans.

There seem to be numerous visual guides around by these publishers for all kinds of movies and television shows some of which are rather average, but Looney Tunes is a must have. Inside is a substantial amount of information on the major cartoon characters such as Bugs, Daffy, Taz, Sylvester, Yosemite, Wile E as well as minor less known stars such as Torpid Toad, Pete Puma, Cecil Tortoise and Gossamer. Learn that Daffy and Sylvester have the same voice, just that Daffy's is sped up and other interesting facts. The ACME catalogue is a must for any roadrunner chaser and modern movies with the cartoon characters is another interesting section. A must buy for anyone who has ever been a kid and owned a TV.

I have to admit I had reservations when I saw this at the store. I had not been impressed by the Superman volume or the other editions to come out under this series because so much of it was devoted to modern versions of the main characters. But this book is a visual treat, as well as being very informative about the history of the animated cartoon at Warner Bros. Many model sheets, cels, posters, etc. are here indepth throughout this wonderful volume.

Beck has written extensively about the WB cartoons before, so DK made a great choice in picking him for this book. Even though the targeted audience for this series is kids, the adult, like me, will love this beautifully put-together homage to the best cartoons to come out of Hollywood. I am so glad very little in this book talks about recent efforts; instead, they chose the Golden Age (the 30s, 40s, 50s) and I couldn't be happier.

This is an awsome book.No Looney Tunes fan should be without it.It gives perfect details of each and every Looney Tunes character.You'll also see all kinds of merchandise from past and present.There is also mention of the original Road Runner comic book series,and how it differed from it's animated cartoon source.Plus a little bit of information on the latest movie Back In Action.

This is an excellent book for those who are new to the iLife suite of applications for Macintosh and prefer step-by-step guides. Jim has done a great job distilling these feature rich applications down to their essence and teaching you want you need to know to use them effectively.

He also provides helpful tips that apply to each topic in general and not just the application. For example, in the iPhoto section he has tips on how to compose images properly. In the iMovie section he has tips on what chapter markers to use for wedding videos (and other common scenarios). This may seem like nothing but it's the practical hints that allow you to get the most out of these applications. Not just learning about which buttons to push.

The included DVD is well done and augments the book with a step by step explanation that you can follow visually.

This book is not for intermediate or expert level readers. For those folks I would start by recommending an O'Reilly book that covers your specific topic. For example photographers should try Derrick Story's excellent iPhoto 4 book. You will get more in-depth coverage of all of the features of iPhoto in that book.

O'Reilly has an intermediate level book that covers all of the iLife features that was just recently published called iLife '04. I recommend this book instead for beginners.

I'm the author and host of this book/instructional DVD, and I *greatly* appreciate the kind words written by S. Brown in the adjacent review.

I just wanted to address one criticism: S. Brown said that the book doesn't cover Apple's GarageBand. I suspect he or she reviewed the older edition (also available here on Amazon), because the new edition most definitely covers GarageBand. With the DVD, you even get to watch over my shoulder as I compose and perform a song. (I'll leave it up to other reviewers to judge my musical abilities. :-)

Enough said. I appreciate all feedback and reviews of the book -- but please be sure you're reviewing the latest edition, which has "04" in its title: "The Macintosh iLife '04."

Sub-Title: An Interactive Guide to iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie. iDVD and GarageBand

Apple doesn't include much documention with their iLife products. This book is a quick and easy way to learn these packages. The large number of illustrations and the two hour movie that's included with the book is just about the fastest way possible to get started. It's a like the Apple philosophy.

The basic concept of computers, that they aren't very bright and persist in doing just what you tell them to do rather than what you want them to do is very well brought out. There is good reason that this book is the top-selling book on iLife.

The layout of the book is well done. It is intended that each couple of pages covers one task that you might want to do. You could go through them one at a time, but you don't have to. The index will quickly direct you to getting the task done that is the emergency of the moment.

Jim Heid's book is a great guide to all the iLife products. I found it to be very helpful for both the complete novice AND the experienced user. For instance, I use iTunes all the time, but still found all sorts for interesting nuggets of information. My son, on the other hand, was able to use the book (and the accompanying DVD) to learn GarageBand in less than an hour! He was quickly on to creating music of his own.

The layout of the book is highly accessible. Rather than imposing pages of unrelenting text, the book is filled with screenshots, diagrams and all sorts of helpful, easy-to-follow instructions. Even with all the pictures, this book is no light-weight. There is a wealth of information on all the iLife products.

In my house, I've heard the following said about this book, "he explains things really well". High praise indeed!

An aesthetically pleasing book. Heid looks at Apple's latest offering, which is a powerful suite of {iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand}. Each of the programs has been well received by Apple's fans. All have Apple's trademark of careful UI design. Plus, the book has numerous screen captures, that are well integrated into the accompanying text. The publisher also deliberately chose high reflectivity paper for the pages. Makes the diagrams sharper and improves the tactile nature of the pages.

A major emphasis of the book is not on each program, per se, but on what iLife represents. A well chosen diagram shows how you can move data from one program to another. The synergy of iLife. It increases the value of each program and the flexibility of the entire package. What Apple is offering is for you to maximise your creativity, by giving as many options as possible.

As an intermediate Flash programmer, and one who does not find it easy to learn solely by reading a book, I found this book extremely helpful and easy to understand. I am a 'hands on' person, and learn better thru exercises and simplified instruction, (i.e. "click THIS, then click THAT."). This book offers that type of instruction, yet the subject matter is deep enough to be helpful to any Flash animator. From simple animations to indepth interactivity, this book is excellent and well worth the price.

Has sufficent depth in important new areas; such as actionscript, components, video and jpg pixs. The actionscript section has four chapters and 240 ppgs, about one quarter of the book. There are two comprehensive projects at the end of the book where you can integrate all that you have learned, at a beginner and intermediate level (actionscript). The final chapter covers 70 pages.

The CD has QuickTime5 videos for visually describing subjects using Flash MX. These videos are large near full-screen sized and are competently produced. The videos cover the subject, but don't repeat what is in the text. The CD also contains a 30day eval version, along with QT5 Player, eval Sorenson Squeeze for videos, and Flash Shockwave 6 MX Player plug-in.

The subjects are illustrated well with diagrams and illustrations. There are 16 pgs of color plates at the back. This book provides a very good value; I read it at the local library. Minor errata is at the author's website and you can email him at derek at derekfranklin dot com. Three appendices are wisely on the CD; keyboard shortcuts, resources, and third-party SW.

The master
Derek has come through again. His books are fantastic and quite in detail. Thank you Derek. You have made my life so much easier.

This book is a good book for those of you who are just starting out with Flash or Upgrading to Flash MX. It is a good starter and dives a little bit into ActionScript. Goes good with ActionScript by Derek Franklin.

If you want to learn Flash MX without a large emphasis on ActionScript, this would be an ok selection. If you are looking for information on creating animations with ActionScript instead of tweening, then don't get this book. It's well written, but fairly basic.

This is the encyclopedia of cartoon voice. Details beyond details. Not only does this tell the story of the voices behind the cartoons, but also the obsession of the author (from Central Illinois of all places) to track all of this information down over a number of years and put together a one book history of some of the best loved character voices from our cartoon memories.

My 13-year-old son loves this book. He had a blast thumbing through the pages and seeing the faces behind the voices of some of his favorite cartoons, both old and new. We were all blown away by a few of these incredibly talented people when we saw the vast array characters in their resumes! Really amazing talent ... would be fun to see a color version of this with more photos of the recording sessions.

The biographies, anecdotes, credit listings and photos of actors who served as the voices for popular cartoon characters are packed into The Magic Behind The Voices: A Who's Who Of Cartoon Voice Actors, making it a fine survey of voice actors and their work. Even a decade ago, many in the profession didn't even consider voice actors to be 'real actors': Magic Behind The Voices provides excellent insights from early cartoon voices down to the animation of modern times.

TIM LAWSON's long awaited book on CARTOON VOICE ACTORS fills a void plain and simple! We needed this book to find out a little more about the talented cartoon voice actors of the GOLDEN AGE of cartoons and also to learn a little about today's artists. GREAT BOOK! Congrats TIM and ALISA! Rick

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book from cover to cover!!! I give the book 5 stars BUT they did leave out MANY voice-actors who i felt held higher precedence over others. There is the inclusion of several one show or one character voice actors in here, like Chris Sarandon and Wally Cox in favor of several legends that aren't discussed. Some of the legends missing are Stan Freberg; Hal Smith; John Stephenson; Howard Morris; and Henry Corden. However, the book is still 5 star material because the subject matter is rarely spoken about in many publications and since this book is a 2004 copyright, it's fairly recent. I was earlier complaining about some of the legends being left out which is a shame...BUT there ARE many other legends included in this book, too. There are also write-up's on current voice actors who have tons of credits under their belt already. The voice actors of whom i enjoyed reading about the MOST were my favorites to begin with: Mel Blanc; Daws Butler; Don Messick; Paul Frees; Paul Winchell; and June Foray. Bill Scott is spoken about in here...which is a rare treat. He is typically thought of as a cartoon writer and director instead of a voice actor BUT he gave voice to many characters on the Jay Ward cartoons with "Bullwinkle" and "Dudley Dorite" being his Top-2 popular roles. I learned a lot about Jackson Beck and Nancy Cartwright and i learned some things about Jack Mercer, Charles Adler, Dayton Allen, and several others. The bottom line is, the voice actor rarely gets time in the spotlight and THIS book and others like this go a long way in spotlighting cartoon voice actors. The book gets 5 stars on subject matter and 4 stars on it's not including several key voice actors who made the field into an art form.

Opens up the world of video/audio post-production on your home computer.
Software is already installed on most windows computers.

I've been doing photography since the 1970's. Until recently I never owned a camcorder. So I literally knew nothing about how to work with it or any kind of video media. This book totally solved this issue. If you're a beginner this is a great book for you. It goes deep enough to keep me going for the next few months. Eventually I'll outgrow it but not for a good while.What I like best about the book is that it really does start with the bottom line basics which everyone "in the know" assumes that you already know. But that's the problem that this book solves. Buy it!

To much reading,I needed more visuals. It jumps around a bit to. I would Recommend "Movie Maker 2 Visual Quickstart Guide By Jan Ozer"

If you have made slideshows and used pictures in PowerPoint or other programs, give Movie Maker a shot. Then after you fiddle with Movie Maker, give this book a shot. I have found it to be the very best guide to Movie Maker available and I don't think you will be disappointed. It gives a very good description of Movie Maker from top to bottom and the pictures on every page are beautiful and glossy. It is clear that the author spent a lot of time working on the book and it only benefits us as readers. Good luck with your movies and good luck with this book too. Enjoy!

While you could probably discover most of what's in the book on your own --- just using the program --- this will guide you to quickly understand the power of Movie Maker. It's not the best developed book on the subject. But it's a book worth buying and perhaps using as a reference or introducing you to the many rich features of the program.

This is a good, detailed look at Office Communications Server 2007. It has a lot of nitty gritty details, including information on how to debug the system with a network monitor and low-level protocol information. Where the book really misses the mark, is for administrators who do *not* have a giant, multi-site, zillion server network. Ironically, most sys admin books feel like the author only had access to 1 server to write the book, and admins in larger networks are left with no details on scaling out. This book goes in the opposite direction; huge portions of it are devoted to large networks, and all of the examples are for large networks. As the admin of a much smaller network, I found much of this to be useless, occassionally confusing, and trying to put me on an implementation path much more expensive than it needs to be for my organization.

J.Ja

Este libro ofrece información detalla acerca de la arquitectura de OCS. El contenido de este libro es amplio, ofrece un nivel de detalle que no he visto en otros libros, de lejos el mejor. Para los que lo están evaluando, no lo pienses dos veces.

OCS is a powerful product, enabling many different scenarios, and this resource kit is a must for administering it.

Just having the tools and OCS PowerShell scripts in one place is handy, but what makes the *book* a great buy is the content around the tools and scripts. The book is neatly organized by different scenarios, and show each of the reskit tools *as appropriate for each scenario*. That's a big help, because there are many useful tools and scripts here, but identifying which one(s) to use would take a lot of effort without this focus.

The material itself is structured so that it's easy to find high level information, but has deeper information embedded. It's easy to get right to the practical information while skipping over the deeper technical content if you don't need it, but it's easy to find and dig into that deeper material if you *do* need it.

Because of the organization and solid content, you don't have to read the whole book to get a lot of value. When I needed specific information about the changes from LCS (the previous generation of OCS), or when I needed to figure out the best tools tools to use for the *new* scenarios, I got practical guidance, quickly, on the appropriate techniques and tools.

Best of all, the book is filled with detailed and interesting side bars from experts, both within the Microsoft product team and from outside experts with extensive real world deployment and configuration experience. They were so much fun, I found myself skimming the rest of the book, just to read these sidebars.

This book explain in good way the general architecture of Office Communications Server 2007. This Microsoft product have many features and many server roles to install and configure and in the resource kit there are some real scenarios descriptions that facilitate undestanding. In the book's cd there are some important tools for better management of the Server. Don't are developed in deep mode the integration with others Microsoft servers like SharePoint Server 2007 and MOM.

The OCS 2007 Resource Kit is a must have for any OCS administrator. It has all the details about Office Communicator you need to fully support and understand this complicated product. It has all the WMI settings that any admin would need to make changes to there environment. Also detailed diagnostic information about IM, Conferencing, Telephony is fully exposed in their respective chapters. I highly reoommend it.

I've been in love with still photography for over 35 years. Only recently have I developed an interest in video and video editing. I recently purchased a Pinnacle DV/AV capture card and Pinnacle Studio 11 editing software. This book is detailed and easy to understand. Would be lost without it. If you're going to use the software, buy this book!

Very definitely not an elementary level user guide. It is poorly written and must assume that the reader is already well versed in how to use the product. Its only saving grace is that the documentation that comes with the software is even worse. I would NOT recommend this book nor the software to anyone. I feel that I have wasted my money on both the software and this book.

An excellent product. Don't start using Pinnacle Studio until you have at least browsed this book. Much much better than the Pinnacle manual.

This 477 page book is an essential purchase for any user of Pinnacle Studio 11. The author, Jan Ozer, answers all Studio 11 questions before you even ask them. The book's screen grabs are very well annotated, and his discussion of program functionality is excellent. It includes all components in Studio 11, Plus, and Ultimate. These programs are simple on the surface, but have many complex and very confusing parts which this book explains clearly. It is the best manual I have every read; it makes using the poorly documented Studio 11 a joy!

While Studio comes with a printed manual (and how unusual is that these days?), this book is a necessary supplement. Its emphasis on the practical, along with inclusion of useful methods and workarounds, makes it the "go to" book when the manual doesn't answer your questions. Previous editions have saved me several times. There's only one thing I wish it had: a short section on what's new in Studio 11. The manual doesn't have such a section either, and what's on the software box is, not surprisingly, promo copy. The lack of a "what's new" chapter doesn't change the fact that this is absolutely required reading if you're going to get the most out of Studio. It would just make the book better yet.

explains all resources all indumentary needed and best of all almost everything has high budget and low budget examples.

This book is selling for $27.99 at Barnes and Noble as of 2/24/04 - that's over $20 less than here!

This book is the most concise, and comprehensive book I've seen on the subject of producing a 2D animated cartoon. While several other books focus on the art of animation, Mark Simon focuses on the nuts and bolts of "getting it done". Topics flow from planning, visualization, character design to storyboarding, audio recording and animatics, through editing, rendering and even distribution options. The sample CD-ROM has a huge assortment of demo programs to help you "work along" with the book. It is by no means the ONLY book you need to embark on animating a cartoon, but it is an essential one for any prospective cartoon filmmaker's library. Interviews with several industry professionals are included and add a perspective from the talent buyer's view. All in all a very handy resource for someone who knows what they want to do, but need guidance to realize their vision.

First of all, I just wanted you to know - this book officially kicks ass.

I have been messing around with Flash animation on and off for the past 4 years. Some of my stuff appeared on Howard Stern's syndicated TV show, and I even won a prize in an animated joke competition.

But I have been in a total slump lately - no motivation or understanding of how to improve my skills and not a decent idea to speak of. I haven't posted a new animation on my website in well over a year.

Then I received the book (Producing Independent 2D Character Animation) as a gift. It has been the jump start I needed, like shock treatment for my creativity. I've written some scripts and started storyboarding. I also did an animatic in Flash to check the timing/jokes. With the procedures outlined in the book as my guide, I intend to begin animating again shortly.

Thanks to the author for sharing his knowledge.

There is some good information in this book. If you have at least a modicum of familiarity with animation though, there's very little new about art or theory or instruction in here. The title and subtitle should be reversed in terms of importance to

Making and Selling a Short Film: Producing 2D Independent Character Animation.

Granted, this is not a flaw with the book, but I am writing this review as a caution to those who might think of it as one thing, when it is in fact another. They don't mean "I produced animation for Mary." They mean "For Mary I was involved in an animation production."

Difference being, aside from a section on tips, there is -no- mention of the process of animating, but rather name-dropping of software/hardware you'll need to run a digital version of the conventional studio, presented vicariously through the author recounting his experiences in making his short film.

All that being said, though, the tips are pretty good and the single most informative part of this entire book are the exclusive interviews with artists and suits from around the industry. These are so insightful (on the respondent's part) and so chock full of good things to know that it might have been more beneficial to chop the price in half and have the whole book just be about the interviews. Still, keeping the price the same, it's almost still worth it.

This is not a bad book by any means; on the contrary, it is one of the better, more clearly written books out there, and though there are too many purposeless illustrations, the ones with purpose are great and it's wonderful eye candy to have them in full color. I never got a chance to see it before I bought it, and ordered it into Barnes and Noble by my house...Now I'll likely be contributing it back into the world via the Marketplace as an interesting one night stand...

Arrived very quickly and in good repair for a used product.

This book is quite cute. Basically, a storm blows through down, knocking down things, and the team has to gear up to rebuild the town. Bob goes one direction and part of the other team goes out to Farmer Pickle's farm to help clean up the pond. However, when Lofty tries to lift out a fallen tree, Pilchard was in it and the branch breaks, dangling her over the pond. Bird comes to the rescue and goes after Bob and Scoop to get Pilchard out of the tree. Scoop saves the day and rescues her and in the end, she's safely purring in the chair in Bob's living room.

This book is particularly good if you have a large storm and you have to explain what's going on in the news. It's sorta strange how we got this book the day we had a very large storm here and it made all the difference in explaining what was going on. Bob having to go out and repair a lot of problems really helped to explain all the trucks, etc. that were around fixing things. Highly recommend this book!

My name is Dores Pampers and I have read this book 100s of times.
I am 13, and it is one of the best books in the world. I love it so much, and you will, too!

A big storm rages through the night and causes lots of damage. Bob and Wendy get the calls and they head out fix things.

At farmer Pickle's, a couple of the trucks notice the pond has to be cleaned out. But before they can get started, Pilchard the cat climbs a shaky tree and gets stuck upside-down right over the pond. The trucks rally with Bird to find Bob and Wendy. But in the end all is well.

The book uses stills from the television show to illustrate the story. Each page has one picture that fills the whole page except the bottom where the text is. The text is a little clumsy. It reads like a transcript of the script with 'said Bob', 'said Muck', etc. stuck at the end of each line. But while a little clumsy to read the first time or two, the kids seem to really like it.

There's not a lot I really have to comment about this book. It's a cute extension of the Bob videos. My 2 year old loves to watch the movies, and likewise loves to look through this book. Now granted, a two year old won't really take the time to let me actually read it to him at this point, but he loves to look at and point out what he calls the, "Big Trucks".

If your child loves the 'Bob' movies, they'll love thumbing through this book!

Its hard for me to treat the books of this series separately (ShaderX 3, ShaderX 4, ShaderX 5). They are all very good books of GPU-Gems level or higher. In comparison with GPU Gems, they are more academic, i. e. they are rather short and more applicable to wide range of applications then GPU Gems ones (while GPU Gems series is more scientific, state of the art, considering one particular research) and the accompanying CD is much more better (lots of working examples, most with source code).
Sections (Image-Space, Shadows) are also very helpful to figure out what is useful for you.
This series is not for beginners anyway, so please, go Cg Tutorial or DX SDK Tutorial and don't put 2 or 3 marks for these books because you can't cope with them.

Whilst the content is quite good it probably isn't on par with some other books by say Matt Pharr, books from ACM or Academic Press I think the biggest issue with the book is that the quality of the paper is a bit below par and all images are black and white.

Normally black and white isn't a problem, but when the book is about graphics and there is a statement in the book like (e.g.) "...notice the unique HLSL effect on the blue ball compared to the green..." it makes it a bit difficult. Even a color plate section would have been nice.

This book is the best than previous editions.
Each article is a source of ideas for developing your engine or demo.

If you want to know where the state of art is arrived, buy this book.

Wolfgang Engel edits SHADER X4: ADVANCED RENDERING TECHNIQUES, a toolbox of advanced graphics hardware and software techniques for any student of graphics programming. SHADER X4 especially lends to classroom use, with its articles covering everything from interlaced rendering and fog volume issues to real-time environment mapping and Shader subsystems. While the coverage can help novices, it's especially noted for advanced graphics programmers who will relish the equations, charts, and more technical discussions.

I was disappointed not to find any code - only demos of applications on a few of the chapters (e.g radiosity tool, gpu terrain). IMHO it is better to have fewer topics/chapters and better coverage of each topic, with source code etc. As M. Severino 's review correctly states 'Each article is a source of ideas ', so don't expect to learn how to implement all the techniques in the book.
Some authors have included lots of code, others have included none.
I vote against the "*gems-style" books, more attention to the educational side of these books is needed. Flashy programmers who want to show off please go elsewhere.