Building a Digital Human [With CDROM]

by Ken Brilliant

In the universe of 3D animation and graphics, the final frontier isn't the vast unknown depths of outer space but rather the intimately familiar human form. Replicating this body is by far the most... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1584502851
• ISBN13: 9781584502852
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Charles River Media
• Length: 380 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Look no further for detailed and anatomically correct human modelling! Excellent book!!

If you want to learn how to model a detailed digital human,this is THE book for you! You start out with totally empty viewports,and if you follow the book you'll end up having created a model with an incredible amount of detail. The author explains in great detail the process of modelling every body part (head,neck,arms,hands,legs,feet and torso) with anatomical references where they're most important. I wanted a book which I could use as a definitive guide to model a detailed and anatomically correct human body or body part,and I'll look no further when I have to do so. It's also got a clever chapter about modifying the same model to create very different ones, and a good chapter about texturing and UVW unwrapping. Finally, it refers to cloth and hair (somewhat briefly) and,no,it DOESN'T cover rigging. But it does cover, extremely well, human modelling, which is what mr.Brilliant had set out to do,I assume. Very very good!

He thought of everything!

Given that you are already familiar with some type of modeling software, this book is the best resource you could have! The non-software specific approach of the book keeps it focused on the concepts of creating a good model rather than the user interface. Every detail of the body is covered with step-by-step diagrams, and a lot of it focuses on creating a topology that is animatable and will subdivide correctly (ie the mesh is mostly in quads). It also covers texturing, rigging, facial animation, both modeled and simulated hair, and simple clothing. The book discusses anatomy to the extent that it is needed to create a realistic model, and uses those concepts to demonstrate how the male model you create can be changed into a female, or into a fantasy character that looks completely different. One thing that did make it a little difficult to use was that in the screenshots, the mesh was transparent and therefore you couldn't tell whether vertices were at the front or the back of the model. More screenshots with an opaque mesh would have made it easier to see the topology. Overall, the explanations are concise and makes the task seem efficient, easy, and fun.

Great book

If you are in organic modeling this book is for you. This is really great book. It's not for begginers it's more advanced. Here you have very nice tutorial how to model head, body (with hand, fingers etc.), hair and here you have one amazing thing "how to transform you male model to female". Very very good book.

Great book if...

This book is ideal for someone like me who has built a few human models before, but is looking for details in how to work smarter and better, but not harder and longer. This book truly covers every aspect of this process. Everything, that is except sexual organs. Minor details as tedious as eyelashes are covered if you need them. This book is advanced however, so your are best to know your 3d program well, your paint program well, and perhaps have modeled a few figures already in your past. If you meet those 3 requirements, then you should certainly get a wealth of information out of this manual. The whole book is quality, but the last 75 pages or so are gold in that they explain powerful methods for manufacturing a wide variety of characters based souly on the model you build in the first 2/3 of the book. Using these techniques allows an artist to spend their time building one quality base model, and in turn, spawn numerous unique variations off of it essentially allowing you to build 10 distinct models in the time it would take you to model 2-3 from scratch. Use the tools wisely, change some textures here and there, and you can quickly build a stable of wildly different characters in hours or days compared to weeks or even months. Finally, and probably the most important, is the anatomy lessons you learn along the way of building the model named Frank. This is probably a 3d book that will stand the test of time for a while. Many of the anatomy and concept lessons will not change that much any time soon if ever, so after you read it, using it as a reference for the next many years is probably a wise move. If you are just starting out in 3d, then your better off with something else because you will probably get lost and confused. If you are at least intermediate with 3d, then you should get this book no matter which of the more well known 3d programs you use!

Excellent Workbook

Building a Digital Human presents a book-length tutorial that starts with a cube and ends with a fully-articulated male model. Reference images on CD in addition to clear writing with frequent explanations of why the author chooses to model with various sub-division modeling techniques is extraordinarily helpful.To be honest, beginners will probably not walk away from this book with the ability to model any human. Intermediate-to-advanced users may find nuances that will be missed by those new to polygon and sub-d modeling. I've found that my investment of time and patience has increased my general modeling ability more than I can had thought possible, even though it may be a while until I can recreate all of the steps that the author has taken while modeling my own characters. I heartily recommend this book.Building a Digital Human is non-software specific.