Essential Computer Animation Fast: How to Understand the Techniques and Potential of Computer Animation

ISBN-13: 9781852331412 / Angielski / Miękka / 2000 / 162 str.

John Vince

Opis

Computer Animation is now worlds away from its early beginnings when programs merely mimicked the hand drawn cartoon process. Its now regularly used for creating wonderful special effects in major movies like Titanic, Toy Story, Antz and Bugs Life.
John Vince tells you all about: The basic principles used in the powerful software products currently available on the market; The terms and processes involved; And in an easy-to-understand way, with no complicated math.
So if you want to learn more about 3D computer animation without being swamped by complex mathematics, then read this book and have fun creating your own animated programs.

Spis treści

Introduction.- What is computer animation?- Who should read this book?- The aims and objectives of this book.- Assumptions made in this book.- How to use this book.- Computer animation.- Introduction.- Animation and Computers.- Animation and the human visual system.- Computer animation.- 3D Computer graphics.- Introduction.- From computer graphics to computer animation.- Principles of computer graphics.- Cartesian co-ordinates.- Modelling simple objects.- Modelling curves.- Surface patches.- Procedural modelling.- Perspective view.- 3D clipping.- Co-ordinate systems.- Transformations.- Rendering the image.- Colour.- Coloured objects.- Light sources.- Illumination models.- Shading models.- Rendering algorithms.- Texture mapping.- Bump mapping.- Displacement mapping.- Environment mapping.- Shadows.- Transparency.- Radiosity.- Ray tracing.- Volumetric lighting.- Shaders.- The RenderMan shading language.- Aliasing.- Anti-aliasing.- Conclusion.- Computer animation techniques.- Introduction.- Interpolation.- Function curves.- Parameters.- Channels.- Keyframes.- Inbetweening.- Motion paths.- Transformations.- Hierarchical animation.- Hierarchical geometry.- Metamorphosis.- Procedural animation.- Forward kinematics.- Inverse kinematics.- Particle systems.- Physical simulation.- Rotoscoping.- Constraints.- Free-form deformation.- Computer animation hardware.- Introduction.- Computers.- Motion capture.- Computer animation software.- Introduction.- Softimage.- Alias/Wavefront.- 3D Studio MAX.- Lightwave.- Other systems.- Plugins.- Post-production techniques.- Introduction.- Scanning.- Compositing.- Colour balance.- Film.- Video.- Computer animation applications.- Introduction.- Television graphics.- Computer games.- Commercials.- Multi-media.- Legal.- Computer aided design.- Virtual environments.- The internet.- Simulation.- Film special effects.- Computer-generated films.- Conclusion.- Glossary.- Appendix A: Useful Web Sites.- Appendix B: Renderman Shader.- Appendix C: MotionCapture Hardware.- References.- Index.