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Summary: I love it. Good for Lightwave users too.
Review: I was very impressed with the style and format of this book. It was very helpful and packed with tons of information. I did however have some trouble modeling my head in maya, so I switched and modeled it in Lightwave acording to the format Jason wrote of in his book. I was able to save the model as an .OBJ file and opened it in maya. I still haven't textured the head yet, but I will and it looks soo good. I can't wait to start animating my head. Thank you Jason for your insight into the 3D world and for writing this book. Very well written and wonderful diagrams. Perfect for any 3D modeler.
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Summary: One of the best books on my shelf!
Review: I'd fallen into an uninspired rut of "it's as good as it's gonna get!" with regard to the facial animation work I've been doing, when I ordered this book because Amazon's Recommendation script has established some sort of fiendish control over my brain. I didn't expect to be moved too much, having read a fair amount on facial animation and lip synch and been presented with paraphrases of the same stuff over and over. As it turned out, I was hooked on "Stop Staring" after about a page. After a chapter or two, I was picking shards of my shattered animator's ego out of my palms. I'd also eagerly agreed to the idea of locking what I already knew away in a dark closet and starting from scratch, this time for real. The improvement in my work since doing so has been obvious and exciting. I love the controls he supplies as well. If you're still controlling your faces via lists of numeric fields, becoming acquainted with this puppeteer-like alternative is worth the price of the book even if you didn't read a word of the text!
As clichèd as the thought may be, the only negative feeling I get from this book is that, having learned so much from it, the lack of time available to go back and redo most of the work I've already completed on my current project is fairly traumatic.
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Summary: Must Have for every CG guy
Review: I've always wanted to do some facial animation tests with a model that is film quality and really well rigged. The Book comes with a CD with a fully rigged facial setup which is unbelivebly intuitive to work with and very well rigged, and best of all Jason goes over how to do make this from scratch in his book. Jason is also an excellent animator, i strongly believe all animators must have a good scene of character setup in order to take full advantage of the rig.One of the best books i've bought so far.
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Summary: Great facial rigging book!
Review: If you are a beginner or a profesional 3d artist wanting to learn more about facial animation then this book is your bible! Jason Osipa clearly describes and explains all sorts of great tips and techniques to create very life like animation. A must have for all 3d buffs!
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Summary: Incredible stuff.
Review: It's quite difficult to find books that tackle even semi-realistic polygon modelling and animation, so finding Stop Staring was one heck of a relief. Even the excellent "Joan of Arc" online tutorial pales to what's in these pages.I'd go as far to say that what this book will teach you about modern character modelling for games (between 5k and 10k polys) is better than Steed's "Modelling a Character in 3DS Max" (which, without wishing to offend, reads like one big annotated construction journal and isn't quite as helpful).
Rating:
Summary: Incredible stuff.
Review: It's quite difficult to find books that tackle even semi-realistic polygon modelling and animation, so finding Stop Staring was one heck of a relief. Even the excellent "Joan of Arc" online tutorial pales to what's in these pages. I'd go as far to say that what this book will teach you about modern character modelling for games (between 5k and 10k polys) is better than Steed's "Modelling a Character in 3DS Max" (which, without wishing to offend, reads like one big annotated construction journal and isn't quite as helpful).
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Summary: Nothing quite like it
Review: Most CG books are comprised of chapter after chapter of scratching the surface of topics I want to know more about; this goes into so much specific, useful detail, I really found it useful. Everything revolves around the practical, which, until now, I didn't realize was so lacking in other books I've read. Great stuff!
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Summary: theory into practice
Review: Stop Staring is awesome! Very animator friendly. Before I bought it, I was actually looking for a guide to rig a face strictly with wires and joints. Im glad I don't need to go through that hell. Thanks for a book with both theory and practice. Most just tell you the tools and the theory behind them but most of those authors don't seem to have practical experience at all! They just give Alias manual translations and really poor examples. Buy this super awesome fantastic book if you are a TD or animator looking for an effective way to create lifelike facial animation...
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Summary: One of the most fortunate experiences I have ever had
Review: This book is brilliant. For computer animators, especially, a life-savior. Even if you only go through the first 20 pages... it will change your life. Positively!
Rating:
Summary: revolutionary
Review: This book is really well written - the author's humorous style is not too verbose and technical, but not patronising either! The methodologies for facial animation that the author presents in this book are really quite different from other practical guides to facial animation that I have seen. His methods are really effective (with some great practical exercises), and they've certainly given a "facelift" to the character that I am currently constructing. Although the book tends to be geared towards Maya users, the way that the author explains the rationale behind the paths he takes in the tutorials gives the student the ability to apply these instructions in their software of choice. Of course, if you ARE a Maya user, there's some really helpful instructions for facial modelling and for making some way-cool interfaces to animate your facial setup. I am SO glad I bought this book - it is just about welded to my hands at the moment!
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