Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: THis is a great book but you first need to know about computer animation
Rating:
Summary: It's a textbook, to be sure ...
Review: This is an excellent book if you want a very thorough explanatory treatment of the subject of 3D computer graphics and animation ... very in-depth, very appropriate for use as a college textbook ... so that by the time you are finished with it (many months from now) you'll really understand how things "fit." Take your time and read slowly and carefully. The book's editorial design is conducive to that.I find that "getting the big picture" in any technical subject is the most difficult task. Existing practitioners usually know it so well they can't explain it. This author can. As you can see on his bio (www.about3d.com), he's got the credits. I selected the book primarily for this purpose, and certainly got what I was expecting. The book assembly style gets a little TEDIOUS with loads of BOLD-FACE type on many pages (every KEY PHRASE is BOLD, which kinda gets in the way) but that's an editorial quibble. I hope that the next edition will include Ambient Occlusion, and also a greater mention of the existence of (free!) open-source products like Blender, (www.blender3d.org) which do implement even the advanced concepts discussed in the book and are quite readily available to the general public.
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