Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
To the Actor
Michael Chekhov
This is the premier topic for teaching actors
the keys to “getting inside” their charac-
ters. Its exercises have been practiced by
the best actors for generations. (It is what
directors
study to understand how to get the
performances they need from the actors to
tell the story they need to tell.) Plain and
simple: If you plan on doing character-based
work, either as an animator or director, the
information in this topic will be one of your
greatest keys to success.
Audition
Michael Shurtleff
This is another “must-have” for the charac-
ter animation crowd. This topic teaches you
how to quickly understand the inner work-
ings and dynamics between characters in a
scene (and within a single character him-
self). In a nutshell, it teaches you the
quickest, most effective
ways of getting the
clearest picture of
why
the scene is in the
film (because in an audition, you frequently
have less than thirty seconds from being
handed the script to acting it out before
director, producer, et al.). Then,
combining
what you find with Chekhov's “method,”
you can make the scene as moving to the
audience as it possibly can be.
LightWave 3D 8 Character
Animation
Timothy Albee
This topic takes you from where you are
now and puts you on the path to being a fea-
ture-quality animator. Character rigging,
inverse kinematics, posing, timing, silhou-
ettes, squash-and-stretch, action, acting,
facial animation, and taking a scene from
start to finish are only a few of the items
covered in depth within its pages. If you're
not a modeler, don't worry; you can animate
any of the characters that ship on the
topic's CD-ROM; they even come
fully
rigged
if you have no interest in learning
feature-quality rigging (setting up a charac-
ter for animation). Exercises like
“Life-Drawing in 3D” and “Moving Life
Drawing in 3D” have proven themselves (in
teaching promising young animators work-
ing for me at my studios) as the best,
fastest
ways of going from novice to feature-quality
animator.
Vilppu Drawing Manual
Glenn Vilppu
If you want to do figurative work — charac-
ters, humans, or otherwise — you need to
get this topic. As I mentioned earlier,
Glenn's greatest gift is in being able to
teach people (even those with little or no
previous experience) an understanding of
the human form such that they are able to
create works that one would normally asso-
ciate with a master figurative artist. It is the
understanding
of how the forms of the
human body
work together
that make a
model of a human look “good.” The exer-
cises in this topic will give you that
understanding.
