Inspired 3D Character Setup

Rating:
Summary: Best Book On Character Setup In Print
Review: Being an animator for several years I can tell that the single most important aspect that must be in place before you spend weeks bringing your characters to life is a solid character rig. This book not only provides clear cut information on how to build a robust setup but also takes you to the next level in showing you techniques in which you can add funtionality and control with expressions and scripts. Once again the Inspired series lets you learn from ACTUAL SENIOR CHARACTER ARTISTS WHO ARE PROVIDING YOU WITH INFORMATION USED BY TOP STUDIOS IN THEIR OWN PIPELINES. This book is worth the price just for the speed and interactivity these setups will provide. Your output and ability to make changes will double, garaunteed.

Rating:
Summary: This book should have stated that it is MAYA specific
Review: Hard for me to rate this book, while the presentation is very good with real world application and opinions on the CG industry, the material jumps around too often with no apparent cohesive to follow for one example to another. It does present very good information on rigging characters, but as I mentioned it really needed organization of the material in a clear and structure manner instead of being all over the place. I MUST mention that this book will go very nicely if you are a MAYA user, but will be problematic for non-MAYA users as all the examples require Maya to follow along, and are of course very MAYA specific.

Rating:
Summary: Beginners beware
Review: I bought Inspired 3D Character Setup hoping to find a smarter workflow for my own character rigs. As a veteran animator, I am always looking for new and more efficient techniques.

I found this book full of great tips and knowledge on character setup, but unfortunately it was also full of errors and missing steps. I managed to find my way around the mistakes and eventually get the desired setup (I think), but it wasn't an easy task. I was pulling my hair out on more than one occasion and I've been doing this for seven years.

Overall, I would not recommend this book to a beginner if you plan to learn from the tutorials. The authors should have taken more time to proofread and test their workflows or at least included a supplementary guide on the website that corrects the obvious errors.

Rating:
Summary: semper gumbi (always flexable)
Review: I have been using Maya extensively now for two years and bought this book to try to take myself into the intermediate level of character rigging.
The first problem I encountered with this book is that I opened it and the spine broke! Not exactly what you would expect from a [$$$] book.
I think it went downhill from there. Yes the pictures are beautiful and the it really showcases what you can do with Maya(or what others have done), but the editing in this book is terrible. Examples include naming of nodes that on the same page have two different names. The downloads don't match the book. e.g. ch13 has the low-res geo download that doesnt include the sphereCTRL or the cubeCTRL but sure has the proxyGEO. Anyone think i'm messed up? send me the right one please..
Otherwise, you are better off with the Art of Maya, or Secrets of the Pros. I think this is one not quite worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: This book will give you a headache
Review: This book is the only book out there that makes a serious attempt at explaining 3D character rigging. You will find that the book a is joy to read as it contains lots of pertient information, including in-depth interviews from industry experts. However, there are a few errors. The book does not come with a CD, support files require downloading from the publishers website. As you work through the tutorials you will find that the files you download wont help you much. The first real tutorial (chapter 13) asks you to load a scene of a non-rigged character, however, the scene file is already fully rigged! I managed to un-rig the character and reorder the scene to how it should be, but this took me ages and I am an experienced Maya user.

For the beginner user looking for no hassle instruction I recommend you stay away from this book as it wont help you on your learning curve. Another problem is that although the book states it is software independent all the tutorials and explainations are done in Maya.

For the more experienced user, this book contains lots of good information. The book has the potential to be a great instructional book, it is a great shame that the authors missed the boat when organising the supporting material. Also, there appears to be no method of contacting the publishers via their website except by phone. I feel I have already paid over the odds for such poor quality and wont be spending more on international calls. U.S residents may wish to contact the publishers.

Rating:
Summary: Great setup - from foundation to sophistication
Review: This book leads you from the most important knowledge needed to create a good character setup to the high-end setup demonstrated in the last several chapters. It's very crucial to follow the chapters from the beginning to get an clear understanding of the tools. Honestly, I read and exercised through them very fast and then followed the tutorials. It goes so deep and sophisticated that when I finished the setup, I couldn't fully understand what I was doing. I went back to the first several basic chapters and learned that actually I did a lot mistakes...such as translation and rotation tools and joint orient that you never think it's important. Those chapters are a great help too when you finish the setup and go back to read them again! You'll find new things every time you read the book. Tutorials are worthy of doing them again. They all refer to the concepts described earlier which are very basic but very easy to forget their importance!