Animation Books

Apparently I'm in the minority, but I found this book to be disappointing. The examples are somewhat cryptic in that they tell you what to do, but not necessarily why you're doing it. Once specific example left out a very critical "gotcha" that took me half a day to figure out. Another issue is that sometimes Mac keyboard shortcuts are cited in the examples, with no indication of what the PC equivalent is.

Surely there must be better Flash books out there.

Everything is here! Drawing techniques, button informations, keyboard shortcuts (a real time-saver), even basic actionscript (with an example that might be useful for some people), optimization. I wish went more in depth into sound, but there are other books for that. I perfect beginner's guide made by a mom and her son! 5 STARS!

It is a good book for sb who want to master Flash.

I found this book absolutely amazing. For the longest time, I have been looking for a book like this one. I found the overall readability and layout of this book to be excellent. This book is a must for someone who is intrested in designing web applications with flash.

This is my first Missing Manual book that I've read through. I'm sure that humor is something difficult to perform in a step by step text. Still, as the text droned on and on with too limited a vocabulary, I found myself fighting harder to make it through this book.

The lady author did make a joke here and there, in fact I think about every 70 pages there was a joke or two until later in the book. Somewhere in the 300s, the lady changed her vocabulary from simple explanations to simple explanations with some American slang in between. The sentence with 'muff' was my personal favorite in the book. That sentence flowed so natural, I felt as if she was talking to me in a conversation. After that, it went somewhat downhill with slang she didn't seem well adapted to, and later getting better toward the end of the book. Other than lack of vocabulary, she took nearly a hundred solid pages and used 'she' instead of 'he' in her sentences. English wise, she 'muffed' up. A better choice would have been 'individual' or 'person' or if she so desired 'dude' or 'dudette'. In that case, the slang would have been obvious, and loose rules would be applied.

As far as teaching, the book does provide the necessary information to use Flash to produce an animation, basic web page, or an animated GIF. There are a few notable shortcuts given, such as #Static, which were worth the last hundred pages you made it through to read them. Actionscript is very lightly covered. It seemed that she was tired of this book somewhere in the middle of the 300s, which is understandable, as I was tired of the book at least thirty pages before it was obvious the author was. Covering Publishing, Publishing Profiles, and Exporting was well done excluding her PICT explanation where she didn't explain dpi(dots per inch) or postscript, which was definitely not any of the prior options of gif, jpg, or png which she compared the export PICT option menu to.

The book also makes many references to programming, but seems bound by the presentation and audience of the book to achieve that depth. This book would have been better if the times when the author found herself bored, she consulted a thesaurus to vary the vocabulary.

Even though I've spoken of some annoyances, the missing manual book does it's job. Flash 8 basics to intermediate usage was taught. The step by step instructions were simple and easy to understand. There is enough explaining to understand and learn what is going on. While the book does fail to achieve and maintain an 'interesting' status, the book succeeds in it's objective to be a simply understandable guide to Flash 8.

Are you a Webmaster who has given up in frustration because of distracting and annoying elements on your sites? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Emily A VanderVeer, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that explains all of the tools and shows you step-by-step how to create animations from scratch; as well as, why you want to do each step--in English, not programmer-ese.

VanderVeer, begins by guiding you through the creation of your very first Flash animation, from the first glimmer of an idea to drawing images, animating those images, and testing your work. Then, the author shows you how to manipulate your drawings by rotating, skewing, stacking, and aligning them; add color and special effects, and multimedia files such as audio and video chips; slash file size by turning bits and pieces of your drawings into special elements called symbols; and, create composite drawings using layers. Next, she shows you how to add ActionScript actions to frames to create automatic effects and to buttons to create audience-controlled effects. Finally, she focuses on testing, debugging, and optimizing your animation.

This most excellent book will show you tips and shortcuts for making Flash easier to work with; as well as, making your animations as audience-friendly as possible. More importantly, this book is designed for readers of every skill level except the super-advanced-programmer.

As per usual, the Missing Manual line hits another solid ball with Flash 8: The Missing Manual, but this time it's not out of the park. Packing 14 chapters and nearly 450 pages with solid material and great writing like you would expect from this line, I cannot do anything but give five stars for the writing and instruction. Unfortunately, when one opens the book and finds that there isn't even a SINGLE color page in the entire text, this is big mistake. If this was a book that covered something like Word or Excel (except for any graphs that might be used) this might not be such a bad thing, but for something like Flash where the entire premise is flashy graphics, smooth animations and crisp, clean vector graphics, to not have any color at all is a mistake. If you want to use Flash you cannot go wrong with this book, but this major decision faux paux I consider a huge fumble and it's the only thing stopping me from giving my usual Missing Manual 5 star rating. Hopefully this can be improved in the 2nd edition or with Flash 9.

**** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The book dissapoint me at the begining because i consider the contents to be too soft, like totally for beginners, I thought "oh no, I just bought another "flash for dummies" sort of book, where you get told how to use tool by tool, but not how to put everything together, the keys of how to actually create a professional flash website. But I totally start to enjoy the book from episode 10 where the author explains how to control your animation with actionscript. It happen to be very clear and useful to me.So, yes, i would definetly recommend this book to everyone who wants to start to get into flash. Not for Medium-Expert users anyway.

However, the quality of the illustrations that are used as examples are of really poor quality. So if you are looking fordward see pretty graphics not purchase this book. And it's in black and white too.

This book is for someone who has never heard of Flash and doesn't know anything about animation.

A much better book is Hollywood 2D Flash Animation by Sandro Corsaro and Cliff Parrot. That book shows you professional, useful techniques. This author didn't even draw his own art.

Teens and their parents will find Flash Animation For Teens to be a very fine guide to creating animations using Macromedia Flash: Flash 8 is used to teach techniques to create games, web sites, cartoons and more and you don't have to be a computer or Flash expert to use it, either. Parents thus will find it as useful as their teens.

This book is awesome for a beginner or ages 9-100. Don't let the title fool you. It is not just for teens. I do web design work, and I bought the book because of the writing style and examples made it easy for me to teach my 10 year old some Flash basics. NOT for a Flash Professional - it is true - it will take you from zero to beginner, but you can have a lot of fun doodling after you finish the book.
- Laura from Vermont

This is a very good book for anone who has never used flash before. I have used flash before and was expecting some animation tips but this takes you from novice to begginer. I still like all the extra features it tells you that you other wise would have missed , but this book is best for a begginer.

Genius advice about a finicky industry from a true insider, told in an inspirational, humorous tone.

It contains a lot of precious advices and more resources to find in internet too when you are searching for a job in the animation field.

This book is a fairly enjoyable read for someone interested in getting a job in animation, but it really doesnt tell you much. Its more or less the story of The author(Gene Hamm) and his experience in the animation field. If you can find it for under $5 get it.

Mr. Hamm provides an entertaining insight into the animation industry through his own life experiences while at the same time gives valuable information to help anyone seeking employment in the field of animation.

it has a very bad explation of how alpha in file textures work. In fact one example that showed how to connect "alpha" was actually using black for transparency. Other wise the info is a good foundation. Hope the Maya 8 Version is better.

These books are a spectacular edition. Alias has been good about teaching in their books, but these books actually have FUN projects! I have enough books that will tell me how to do something (and these are VERY easy to understand) but the only ones that I can actually have fun working with are the ones contained in this new series. Not for the advanced user though. If you want advanced, go for the Maya Tecniques series, not the Learning Maya series. Great books!

Good reference if you know enough about Maya to spot the discrepancies. Some of the tutorials are also buggy in Maya 8.

A great book for beginners of maya7. It is basicaly the "Rendering" and "Dynamics" books of the Learning Maya6 Book Series all in one. There are over 600 pgs of color diagrams and simple text discriptions. It is very clear and covers many very important aspects of image quality. Unfortunately for me, I already have the Learning Maya6 Book series so there is a lot of redundant information. Though there is enough new info to keep me happy.

If you have zero knowledge in flash then this book is o.k fo you.I learned most with free online tutorials;I was expecting more on this item. And they mentioned ":Paperback: 250 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 2.78 x 9.62 x 7.36
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; ISBN: 0130944106; 1st edition (October 15, 2001)". But I haven't receive any of this book,received only 58 pages course work book that only to use for writing notes for each lecture. I am returning this item. I decided not to buy any books in online and any kind of cd trainig courses.

This is the best training course, I own tons of Flash books and it is so hard to follow the reading. What a brillant idea to put a Flash course into a hands on CD. I signed up for a training course at my local comunity college and happened to stumble across this training cd before I started my class. Well I have to say I cancelled my class this Seminar is great for beginners and advanced Flash designers. Lynn does go through some parts of the material quickly but it is nice that you can pause and reverse. I recommend this Seminar for everyone.

i had some familiarity with flash b4 purchasing this.. like what can be done with each panel, as well as knowing exactly which menu would contain a certain task option.

the strength of this cd-rom training is in the workflow experience you'll get. it may seem slightly complex at first, but eventually you'll learn to grasp the point.

the weakness of this cd is that despite the fact that i'm not a flash expert, during many of her executed sequences, even i knew she didn't seem to know what she was doing at times(a sign that when they made this quicktime video recording, it wasn't planned out or practiced). What I mean by this is that she sometimes confuses you as towards what she's trying to do b/c she at times goes in circles, leaving you wondering .. "why didn't she just do that?"

You can remedy this flaw by looking at the final product .FLA file(what you're ultimately trying to create) for each chapter b4 beginning each sub exercise. Then you won't be as confused.

let me add that this training cd will not help you master flash.
there's really no short cut. mastery can come only with practice and experience.... obviously you can't control time. you should also consider foundation flash 5 as the main learning material; this being the supplement.

i would have given this 4 stars, but considering that it's a good value, i gave it five. I mean, those LYNDA.COM cds are exorbitantly priced and not any better. And I won't mention the instructor's name, I found LEARNING ILLUSTRATOR 9 somewhat difficult to follow, b/c the dude had an accent... ^_^

After spending the weekend going through this course, I can say that I've learned more flash skills than I have using books over the course of months. Kyle's course presents the material, from basic to fairly advanced, in very clear fashion; you watch a movie version of the flash interface, and see the cursor move through it; the quicktime movies let you see exactly what she's doing while you listen to her narrate her moves every step of the way. (You even see her make the odd mistake, which she then shows you how to undo.) Her approach to workflow (which she hardly mentions but nevertheless constantly exemplifies) is a really valuable aspect of the course.

I was immediately able to make a couple of my own reasonably complex flash spots and felt very confident doing so; previously I've had to constantly refer to books, and made lots of frustrating mistakes as I went along. I now feel able to actually utilize the various tools and techniques taught by Kyle, and to go beyond the specifics of the course to do my own work. I'm also in a position to understand some of the more complex stuff in other books I own, and put it to use.

Two recommendations: I'd suggest copying the entire CD-Rom to your hard drive, and running set-up from there; this avoids having to run the course from your CD-Rom drive, which may slow down the quicktime presentations. Second, I went through the entire course once just watching and listening, and then again while doing all the exercises; I think this made the process more effective.

The 140 page workbook described in the publisher's review does not come with the course; the workbook you get is just a brief outline of each lesson with lots of blank space for your notes. But it doesn't matter: Kyle's presentation is very effective, and the online text that is included is a valuable, well-written resource. This was a very worthwhile investment and I'm glad I made it.

This book presents all the concepts needed to get started on your own games in Flash. It covers the basics for game programming and even provides a little on advanced topics. This was my first book on game programming (any type not just in flash) and I can definitely recommend it as a good introduction.

The first two chapters start with brief introductions to Flash and ActionScript. With these chapters, existing knowledge of Flash is not technically needed. But, anyone using this book should probably already understand Flash, including some ActionScript. In lesson 3 we code our first game - a simple mouse chaser. Every lesson after that progressed at a nice pace with each adding a little more material and eventually leading to advanced topics. In lesson 10 we use a recursive function to program an AI for a tic-tac-toe game. Even simple game physics was introduced, including the code needed for object collisions and reflections. Some of the math required includes the trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, tangent), the Pythagorean Theorem and vectors. The last chapter wraps up with a few game and general Flash concepts such as a preloader, loading data dynamically and JavaScript calls. Although no game is introduced here, a simple high score board is demonstrated with CGI as the server side language. All the code for each game or chapter is broken down into small fragments with each explained with plenty of detail. The CD includes project files with all the complete game code as well as without code for those who want to type it out.

Like many programming books there were a few mistakes and problems in this one as well. A few of the project files had library symbols with incorrect identifiers in the linkage properties window. Sometimes small code fragments or even functions, which did appear in the final code listing, were missing along with the usual related discussion. Also, the actual placement of code occasionally needed to be clearer. However, the completed games on CD worked perfectly and the code listing at the end of each chapter helped to correct any errors or confusion. Ultimately, a support website with an errata sheet could have helped. One final note is that this book does not go too much into object oriented programming (OOP). Only a single chapter is dedicated to the topic and no example game. Anyone interested in OOP based games will need to look for another book.

I was a bit hesitant to purchase the book because I have had a bad experience with other books in the series. However, Craig Murray does an excellent job of pacing the information so that you never feel like you are learning too little or trying to cram too much. Very well done and lots of good information.

This is a pretty decent book in an easy-to follow format which does a great job of providing information for it's stated purpose (Flash MX game programming).

As an experienced programmer who just started toying with Flash, I would say this book certainly opened my eyes to the capabilities of Flash and Actionscript. After reading Chapter 6, it took about an hour to modify the "Space Invaders" type game into a "Math Blaster" game to help my son learn his multiplication tables.

It also does an admirable job of being useful for beginners and experienced programmers. For those already familiar with Javascript, there will be a lot of repeated material but the book's format makes this easy to skim through.

Now for the problems. First off, the index is one of the worst I've ever seen. I typically scan through an entire book to see what kind of information is available then use the index when I need to look up the specifics. This book might as well not have one. I finally started writing my own additions in the margins of the index pages.

The second problem probably isn't fair to mention but, because of the useless index, you will definitely still need a good Actionscript reference (is there one out there?). Again, to be fair, the book never claims to be a reference.

If you plan to program Flash games or just want to learn what Flash is capable of doing, read this book. If you're looking for a reference guide, move on (and please let me know when you find one).

I always wanted to make games, but making games with languages
like c++, java, visual basic is not an easy job. Thanks to
Macromedia it in now much easier to make games with Flash than it was ever before. Therefore Macromedia Flash mx 2004 Game Programming is a great place to start. Why? Well this book is
simple, fun and easy to follow. You dont need to have a computer science degree. Even if you ever have programmed games
with other languages, this book will open your eyes on capabilities of Flash. The book starts with an introduction to
Flash enviroment and scripting. These two chapters could've
been removed. Any one having no knowledge of Flash can never
attempt to programme games. It is obvious that one must have
some minor(or in some cases major) understanding of the tool.
This book also does not cover any thing about sound. I think
sound is a great way to convey your message. If the authors have replaced the first two chapters with a sound chapter,
this book could have been a great book. But even without any sound it is still a great book to read.

After reading this book and contemplating just how seriously Mr. Greene takes the Planet of the Apes movies, I can only say one thing: his premise would make for a great magazine article. :-)

Greene also does the text commentary on the 35th anniversary DVD of the original PLANET OF THE APES movie, and you can see why he was chosen. His deep insights into that film, and the ones that follow, are an absolute joy to read. If only the producers of the dismal remake of PLANET OF THE APES had read Green's book, they'd perhaps have understood how deeply symbolic and profound the original was. Although this is a scholarly work, it is also just a whole heck of a lot of fun. Five stars.

Eric's book is a marvel of academic analysis. The way in which he relates the Apes series, in all its incarnations, to the political and racial strife of the day is nothing short of amazing. I highly recommend this book.

From beginning to end this is the study of the Planet of the Apes series that everyone of the series' fans have dreamed of and that academics who never took the series seriously will learn from and hopefully teach.In addition to being an enjoyable read, Greene has a politically-minded scholar's insight that helps lift the series from trivia into concrete seriousness. I think it is a model for future works of film scholarship and appreciation.

I would have like to give this book a 5 stars like the other guys but like I said I think the book had a lot of promise potential but miss the mark. so to me I could only give it 2 and a half star because it seem like only half of the information was there which was alot of good information but at the same time some subjects were left out or wasn't covered enough or just skimmed over that should have been covered like at the end of the book he talks about his short film he finished. which could have been better spent with exercises on the subject like compositing, post-production work etc. maybe use combuston or adobe after effects, there were no exercises on that.

In some case no explanations on the how and why. like you do a little of rigging, skinning and animation then you get to facial animation but there is no real talk about morph targets explanation about them how to set them up for animation. its like you are just thrown into facial animation with no explanation of morph targets or how that is set them up, then there are files missing from the cd which is supposed to go along with the book and some type o's .

I e-mailed the authors which sometimes it seem like forever getting a response back from them on issues and questions about the book.and even then answers semmed kind of vague or I didn't really feel like he answer my question(s) that was asked. I would think if I was going to put out an book I would have and or make the time to respond back to those who may have questions about the book. which brings me to another thing. I have gotten other books in the past dealing with 3d, and I have never had to write the author because something didn't make sense maybe once because of a type-o. usually the book explained it well enough.

so there was no question as to what that the author(s) were trying to say or the point they were trying to get across. I said that to say just because you know something and do it well, does not mean you can teach it well. one of the reviews here talk about how the authors had all of the experience working in the 3d field.

"Professional short films" book title itself is a big range to cover. and the book does not do that well covering it. I know that because having went through the book I still have questions which makes me want to go back through the book but I know the answers are not there.

The book probably should have been called "Animation 101". don't get me wrong, I did walk away from the book feeling like I did learn something but at the same time I have more question about things that should have been answered along with the other information I did learn.

When I think of the word film(s) or movie I think of a finished product like if you went to see a movie. you wouldn't go spend money to watch half or part of a movie would you? the projects in this book should have lead up to a finished product but they didn't nor did the book itself lead up to a finished products. which is where I also think the book fell short of its mark. If I could do it over I don't think I would spend my hard earned money of this book.you would be better off searching the web for tutorial on the subject.

As can be seen from looking at any list of movies there has been a dramatic increase in the number of annimated films. Of course this comes from the advailability of powerful software to assist in the production of such films rather than the manual drawing required in earlier days.

Originally only the highest performance computers were capable of producing computer generated graphics. The 1982 movie 'TRON' a mixture of live action and computer generation used a Cray supercomputer to do the graphics using custom written software. Now computers with several time the performance of the Cray are avaiable on the desktop.

To go with the powerful computers has come standard, commercially packaged software oriented to annimation. In this book Autodesk 3ds Max is used to produce short films that may be called for by industrial or advertising users.

The two authors have years of experience in computer annimation using 3ds Max. They bring a view from the front line of users needing a film rather than just a teacher going through the features of the program. In fact it presumes that you have the basics of the program understood and are now ready to do useful work.

I would suggest this book wether you are just starting out in 3D or getting ready to animate..I found it a good source of inspiration, Even tho I still have no time for my own projects! :-)

Well worth the $$

Chris Neuhahn and Josh Book's Professional Short Films With Autodesk 3DS Max teaches how to use the tools in 3ds Max to create short films, from devising a story and storyboards to rigging characters and animation, using different techniques in the process, and editing to produce a polished product. An actual film, Vacant Planet: a Curious Bit of Scrap, is used as a case study and files on the accompanying DVD-ROM help users develop their own stories for an animated tale. You have to have prior 3ds Max basics down to benefit: this is for the user who wants to move on to more professional pursuits in the short film format.

If you are a freelance professional or a student of 3D you are going to find this book very useful. Every year I have to review several books to try to find a teaching tool that is clear and concise. This book hit the spot.

The book fills two vital needs. Not only will you learn to use the color and lighting tools in your program, but if you need to get up to speed on the other software packages that are covered, this book is the answer. The book covers Maya, 3D Studio Max and Lightwave!

If you work for various clients you will find this is a great reference to help get going regardless of software used in most of the production studios you would encounter. If you are a student or have just graduated, this is a wonderful tool to keep handy and help convert from one package to another, fast. There is just enough background or theory to let you understand what you are doing with the tools, as well as actual useful examples that reinforce the instructions in the book. But, wait, that is not enough, what I really appreciate, is that Mr. Summers actually talks about the "Gotchas" and traps that seem to be inherent in all 3D packages. These are the little undocumented software "features" that usually take hours or days of experimentation, e-mails to colleagues, or digging through the underbelly of the internet, to uncover or understand.

Now two things that bother me about the book, and hence the four stars instead of five, are the name of the book and the errors found in it. Now, the errors are all minor and I never found an error that was so bad as to make a lesson unusable (like I have found in so many other books and online tutorials), but I would believe that by now publishers should be able to find good technical editors. Which leads me to the title.

The title just does not do justice to the material. There is so much more in the book then just texturing. I find the book more of a good instructional manual or reference for color and lighting in general. For example, in one lesson Mr. Summers covers not only how to use and make layered textures, but also how to create and control displacement maps and backgrounds, without being overwhelming, dryly technical, or worse, confusingly abbreviated, like so many online tutorials.

The book is not a guide on how to paint textures, there are plenty of... well I call them "efforts" to cover that arena. I suggest you find a way to carefully review those books if that is what you are after. Instead, Mr. Summers has provided a way to form that mental map of the software that will allow you to use it or learn it effectively. In today's fast paced job market and in the everchanging academic environment, this could be the edge you need to succeed.

I love to paint textures, so I looked forward to this book. I just want to straighten that out for texture artists.

This book has a lot of theory on mapping, shaders, procedurals maps and so on. But no information on painting textures. If you are looking for a more theoretic reader on this subject rather than an artistic book, then it might be of use to you. As such I guess programmers would also benefit in part from it.

The funny thing about this book with TEXTURING across the cover is that it seems to cover everything *except* what I'd consider texturing. It has a really good discussion on basic art design principles, then extensive coverage of lighting, color, materials, shaders, and even UV mapping, but nothing on actually creating textures!

In any case, I still recommend this book. All the materials it does cover it covers well. There are really nice color pictures throughout the book, which really helps given the topics.

One thing to note though is that after presenting some topic, the book generally tells you how to accomplish that in Max, Maya, and Lightwave. If you use one or more of those tools, then great, if not, then I think the discussion will still be useful, but obviously you'll get a little less out of it then those who do use those tools.

If you can only have one book on texturing/shading this is the book you would want. As a teacher I look for information on how to do things but more importantly, why. This is an amazing book with depth and breadth to suit the novice, the adept and the expert. You will discover the roots of the science and art of texturing in addition to the how-to.