Michele Bousquet, an Autodesk Certified Trainer, has been using Biped and Character Studio since its first release. She is the author of Model, Rig, Animate! with 3ds max 7 andAnimation with Character Studio 3. Michael McCarthy is an accomplished 3D artist and animator. His skills in the 3D field are largely derived from many years of painting and drawing. Character animation is one of Michael’s passions and he enjoys the study of motion. Michael is very involved in teaching 3D art in the classroom, in books, and with training DVD’s.

3ds Max is a leader in 3D animation for game development, design visualization, and visual effects and enables users to outperform the competition when it comes to high-volume visual effects production. From 3D storyboards and digital matte paintings to realistic digital environments, believable characters, and impressive crowds, this all-in-one software is professional and fast! The powerful Biped module in 3ds Max 8, with pre-linked and realistically constrained skeletons and its suite of motion tools, dramatically speeds up the animation process. In this book and accompanying CD, author and award-winning animators Michele Bousquet and Michael McCarthy look at the Biped, Physique, Crowd, and Motion Mixer tools and demonstrate how to animate character models quickly. They start with the basics of Biped, and then move on to footstep animation, freeform animation and the use of crowd behavior simulation tools. Readers will also learn how to use all the new tools of Motion Mixer for mixing motion files, and the Workbench for adjusting biped function curves, and learn specific animation techniques, including how to adjust physique for perfect deformation, fit a biped to any character model, create realistic motions, combine motions on any character, create crowd scenes automatically, and more!

3 out of 5

3ds Max Animation with Biped
I’ve been working with 3ds max over 3 years and this book is Very Simple and not really helpful for beginners and advanced users.

Great, but just Technical Info...

This book was exactly what I was looking for. It had detailed instructions for how to perform nearly every task in Character Studio (now just called the biped system in 3DS MAX). It’s not going to have anything conceptual in it.

If you want a comprehensive animation guide, you need to get the animation bible (The Animator’s Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion, and Internet Animators) in addition to this. Make sure you know everything about squash and stretch, anticipation, etc. Come to think of it, start with the book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation (you can find a lot of this info online, because it’s so old, but it’s good to have it when you’re not on the interwebs as well).

Actually, you can start with whatever excites you most, but you won’t get anywhere interesting without the foundational concepts in these two other books. They apply to even the realistic kinds of animation you see in action movies. In fact if you’re going to Mo-Cap everything you ever do, you should still know them.

Good for Learning the Basics of Character Studio

If you’ve looked around for books on learning Character Studio, you’ve undoubtedly noticed there’s not much of a selection. 3ds Max Animation with Biped is probably as good a book on the basics as you’re going to find. Also addresses some of the more advanced features of CS including combining mo cap files in Motion Mixer and building multiple Biped crowds. Michele Bousquet does a good job breaking things down into easy to understand terms. If you’re wanting to learn a few things about Max’s ’other’ Bone system...get the book.

3ds Max Animation with Biped

This is by far the best book covering Biped. 3ds Max Animation with Biped is for the beginner who wants to learn how to use Biped. Few books cover the Biped in any detail.
The examples are straight forward and well explained. The authors know "How to Teach". Very few books about 3ds Max are well written. Most leave details out and confuse the reader. I have purchased almost all the books written about 3ds Max and have been greatly disappointed by most. Michele Bousquet and Michale McCarthy have done an excellent job in writing this book.

good for begineer only

I had a little biped experience before reading this book and have learnt nothing new from it. Only buy if you are a complete beginner. Nicely laid out, clear and well explained.