Book description
Whether you're a professional Character TD or just like to create 3D
characters, this detailed guide reveals the techniques you need to
create sophisticated 3D character rigs that range from basic to
breathtaking. Packed with step-by-step instructions and full-color
illustrations,
Body Language
walks you through rigging techniques for all the body parts to help you
create realistic and believable movements in every character you design.
You'll learn advanced rigging concepts that involve MEL scripting and
advanced deformation techniques and even how to set up a character
pipeline. Eric Allen
is currently the Modeling Lead at Daz3d. Besides creating and managing
the creation of the figures, he is in charge of the creation of hundreds
of deformer and viseme morphs for the Daz3d figures. He also oversees
the creation of the joint controlled corrective morphs. These can add up
to hundreds of shapes that work with each other to produce realistic
deformations. He helped create Victoria 4 (Daz3D female model found in
the book) and rigged her in Maya for this title. He also built and
rigged the “Runner” character which is used for most of the advanced
examples. His figures are used in everything from movie content to
graphic art. They have been used for the covers of 3D User
, Popular Science
and Scientific American
and have been used in the digital art Exotique publications. He has
also worked as a freelance commercial animator where he has created
medical and other types of animation using mainly Maya. He has studied
Maya rigging and experimented with various techniques for years.
Kelly L. Murdock has been authoring computer books for many
years now and still gets immense enjoyment from the completed work.
His book credits include various 3D, graphics, multimedia, and Web
titles, including seven previous editions of his book, 3ds Max
Bible. Other major accomplishments include Edgeloop Character
Modeling for 3D Professionals Only (also with Eric Allen),
Maya 6 and 7 Revealed, LightWave 3D 8 Revealed,
Poser 6 and 7 Revealed, 3D Game Animation for Dummies,
gmax Bible, Adobe Atmosphere Bible, Master VISUALLY
HTML and XHTML, JavaScript Visual Blueprint, and
co-authoring duties on two editions of the Illustrator Bible
(for versions 9 and 10) and three editions of the Adobe Creative
Suite Bible.
Contributing Author Jared Fong has a profound ability for Maya
rigging. He brought us Chapters 15 and 17 as well as many of the
scripts included on the CD. He has been a major influence on the
rigging of the projects at BYU and part of the thinking that went into
this book. Jared is currently working at Pixar as a TD resident.
Contributing Author Adam Sidwell has traveled the world
spreading his 3D talents. He has worked at such studios as Digital
Domain, ILM, Sony Imageworks, and Weta. He has presented at Siggraph
and is very proficient in the studies and methods of the “back end” of
the production pipeline. Adam contributed the brilliance of Chapter
19, the “Pipeline in a Box.”
