The Animation : Master 2000 Handbook

Rating:
Summary: Be aware reviews before June 5, 2000 are not for this book!
Review: This book got me started up pretty well, but I had prior experience with Softimage as well as 2d animation. A lot of important details are left out (the author even admits this throughout the book) which makes the tutorials a mystery to work through. It treats digital animation like some how-to-draw books treat cartoon drawing. You're told to put some random lines here and then there, and in the end you have a drawing, but were never shown underlying concept or structure. Same thing here. You piece together puzzles as you learn to use tools, but are never taught anything about those tools beyond a need-to-know basis. This book is difficult to use as a reference for anything other than learning the tutorials, which is ALL that this book amounts to. The advantage is that it did get me up and running in 3-space rapidly, although much of the time I felt I was on my own. If you need it, it will help you more than clicking around with no direction at all.... but the only thing I found useful was the demo version of A:M which I used to learn on before getting the full version.

Rating:
Summary: Unfortunately necessary
Review: This book got me started up pretty well, but I had prior experience with Softimage as well as 2d animation. A lot of important details are left out (the author even admits this throughout the book) which makes the tutorials a mystery to work through. It treats digital animation like some how-to-draw books treat cartoon drawing. You're told to put some random lines here and then there, and in the end you have a drawing, but were never shown underlying concept or structure. Same thing here. You piece together puzzles as you learn to use tools, but are never taught anything about those tools beyond a need-to-know basis. This book is difficult to use as a reference for anything other than learning the tutorials, which is ALL that this book amounts to. The advantage is that it did get me up and running in 3-space rapidly, although much of the time I felt I was on my own. If you need it, it will help you more than clicking around with no direction at all.... but the only thing I found useful was the demo version of A:M which I used to learn on before getting the full version.

Rating:
Summary: Thank you Jeff Paries!!!!
Review: This book is amazing! It takes off from where the MH3DPRO manual falls desparately short. The manual teaches the 3D basics to a complete 3d novice, but I thought it fell short in teching the great animation tools in 3DPRO; the handbook fills this sport quite nicely, and teaches you all the advanced tools in 3DPRO. The only reason I didn't give it a 10, is the lack of spiral binding (a MUST for any manual). Great job Jeff, thanks.

Rating:
Summary: Not THAT great
Review: This is more for the beginners. If you've read and understood the manual, then you don't need this book. It's just the same again more in depth and with more tutorials. The special features not mentioned in the manual (like flocking..) are kept very short in here. The online help of the software should often be enough. If you didn't catch the idea with the manuals explenations then.. buy it!

Rating:
Summary: Not THAT great
Review: This is more for the beginners. If you've read and understood the manual, then you don't need this book. It's just the same again more in depth and with more tutorials. The special features not mentioned in the manual (like flocking..) are kept very short in here. The online help of the software should often be enough. If you didn't catch the idea with the manuals explenations then.. buy it!