This title available in a book and CD format. It provides beginning-through-advanced LightWave 3D character animators with the basics of creating character riggings, and walks them all the way through the complex art of creating believable character performances. Additionally, it covers the importance of storytelling and acting through animation - the subtle mastery that brings characters to life. Updating what has been called one of the best books on animation by top Disney Animators, this new book includes even more pre-rigged models, understandings of the new animation tools found in LightWave 3D 8, and the fastest way to do dialogue and facial performance.The book: shows the complete crafting of powerful and reliable character setups; explains Inverse Kinematics as it pertains to character animation; uses LightWave’s tools to create character rigs that allow you to migrate animation from one character to another; describes how to apply point weighting to create believable character skinning; illuminates basic and advanced animation techniques that are the cornerstones for skilled animation such as anticipation, overlapping action, gesture, and silhouette; outlines key steps for taking a scene from start to finish; and teaches time-honoured acting techniques for helping you ’become’ your character.

Updating what has been called one of the best books onanimation by top Disney animators, this new book includes even more pre-rigged models, discussion of the new animation tools found in LightWave 3D 8, and the fastest way to do dialogue and facial performance.

Disappointing.

This book is 482 pages long, and the second half of it is not Lightwave-(or even 3D)-specific: general concepts of animation like follow-through, squash-and-stretch, etc. Everything in this section has been said before, and more eloquently, in many other books on the topic of animation.

The first half (which IS Lightwave-specific) is a step-by-step tutorial for building a rather esoteric IK rig for a humanoid character. I didn’t find it helpful--nothing in the exercises seems designed to expand the reader’s understanding, it’s just a recipe for reconstructing Albee’s rig. I suspect any reader without a previous understanding of how bones work in Lightwave will be completely frustrated.

If you’re a beginner looking for a technical resource to animating in Lightwave, this is definitely *not* it. Any potential buyers should browse through a copy before buying this.

Great Book

This book is very good for learning animation, regardless of the software package you use. The one think I must say is that its hard to just jump to a chapter and start from where you want. From chapter 9 on is what interested me the most, the book didn’t make it easy to just pick up from there and run. Well written, and great to practice from.

Buy this book. Trust me.

Finally, a comprehensive book on the art of character animation that goes beyond "push this button, now push that one".
With a background of traditional animation (like Brad "incredibles" Byrd and John "Pixar Honcho" Lassiter), Timothy Albee focuses on how to use the tools within Lightwave to create characters with personality. And it’s the character’s personality that makes an animation memorable. This is the best book on Character animtion using lightwave that I’ve seen, and a great resource for learning about the art of animation regardless of your tools of choice.