CINEMA 4D : The Artist's Project Sourcebook (Digital Media Academy Series)

Rating:
Summary: My Former Professor Does 3D Justice...
Review: Anne is my former professor and I was excited to get the book. I've only dabbled in 3D in the past, but this may make me give it a real effort! The Artist's Project Sourcebook looks to be something even I can follow along with. Seriously, a very well-written, fun, artsy approach to something thatÕs always presented as stiff, technical, and mathematical. It's not full of 3D work that looks like 3D work. It's full of tasty pieces of artwork that look like they came from a gallery. It's like stepping inside a carnival and being greeted by all the wacky characters. I canÕt wait to sit down and try the exercises!

Rating:
Summary: Amazed with content and ease of use!!!
Review: As of three weeks ago, I had never used Cinema 4d by Maxon. I recently purchased this book, and within a week, after just working through the pages, I had a great working knowledge of Cinema 4d. I am student at UC Berkeley, and this summer I took a class at stanford, and they were using this C4d book by Anne Powers, and that is when I knew it was for real. Basically, after a week of using the book, and a week of class with the instructor teaching from this book, I feel confident using Cinema 4d, and the most important thing for me is that I can make things independant of the book in the 3d world. I have become an independant artist, and I attribute much of my success to this easy to follow, instructive book that allows any creative person to animate their own art in no time. I have read many photoshop and illustrator books, not to mention flash and dreamweaver manuscripts, and I have had my fair share of dissapointment and joy, but this book ranks among the top of the pile as far as books written for computer programs go, and I recomend it to anyone who wants to start out in the world of animation, or 3d modelling. The last thing i want to say is that I have received education from Berkeley and Stanford, and I thought the book was well paced and well structured, however, my brother, who is 14, read through it, and was able to due the exercises with ease, and is progressing to a level of modelling that I never thought any young person could achieve. I am impressed with how this book reaches the audience it does, which is everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Amazed with content and ease of use!!!
Review: As of three weeks ago, I had never used Cinema 4d by Maxon. I recently purchased this book, and within a week, after just working through the pages, I had a great working knowledge of Cinema 4d. I am student at UC Berkeley, and this summer I took a class at stanford, and they were using this C4d book by Anne Powers, and that is when I knew it was for real. Basically, after a week of using the book, and a week of class with the instructor teaching from this book, I feel confident using Cinema 4d, and the most important thing for me is that I can make things independant of the book in the 3d world. I have become an independant artist, and I attribute much of my success to this easy to follow, instructive book that allows any creative person to animate their own art in no time. I have read many photoshop and illustrator books, not to mention flash and dreamweaver manuscripts, and I have had my fair share of dissapointment and joy, but this book ranks among the top of the pile as far as books written for computer programs go, and I recomend it to anyone who wants to start out in the world of animation, or 3d modelling. The last thing i want to say is that I have received education from Berkeley and Stanford, and I thought the book was well paced and well structured, however, my brother, who is 14, read through it, and was able to due the exercises with ease, and is progressing to a level of modelling that I never thought any young person could achieve. I am impressed with how this book reaches the audience it does, which is everyone.

Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful and FUN intro to Cinema4D
Review: Cinema 4D is a great 3d modelling and animation tool that is (for this type of software) not too expensive, and very powerful. However, for newbies like me the number of options is very, very intimidating.

I recently purchased a copy of Cinema4D, and while I enjoyed working through all the tutorials in the manual, I found they too quickly got into some of the finer points of the product, and I felt rushed. Anne Powers' marvelous new book gets it just right. You very quickly are doing modest little scenes that *look great*. She also has you leap right into animation in the first chapter, so while it's far from slowgoing, she still keeps the steps reasonable, and it felt like I was actually absorbing some of the lesson rather than just following it along. I also appreciate that she often doesn't have you import something 95% done, and you just click a few times to add one feature. Many examples have you building from scratch, which is especially helpful for those of us learning from the ground up.

There's not alot of verbosity following each step explaining *why* you're doing it, and some may find that a flaw. But, I've found that as long as I take a little time to see what I'm doing, and what the results are, that this is not a problem, since Anne does keep each project very manageable.

Finally, the DVD that comes with the book is *truly* useful. There's far more than source files for the examples. There are links to further study on each chapter's topics, extra artists work, detailed discussions on the most recent version (v8.5 as I write this), and more.

Perhaps an industry veteran would find this all a bit simplistic, but I appreciated the pace and level of detail. She also leaves you with lots of great ideas and templates to use as a basis for your own work.

Rating:
Summary: Good for beginners, but made for R8.5
Review: I bought this book thinking I could do many of the tutorials included. I have done some, but am growing more frustrated because the book did not say it was for R8.5 or 8. I have R9, and some of the instructions givin in the book do not corrispond to the current layout in R9. I have never used C4D before so, I was finding myself not being able to complete the tutorial because I could not find the function described in the book.

Rating:
Summary: Cinema 4d: The Artist's Project Sourcebook
Review: I have been working with Cinema 4d for about 9 months and have had to feel my way around the program due to the lack of books in English. I have to say, this book has taught me so much. The projects are easy to follow and well written and there are clear pictures to help you. She covers so much information, from modeling to rendering, that will help any 3D artist with whatever they are trying to achieve. This book is a must-have for any 3D enthusiast. Kudos to Mrs. Powers for writing this terrific book!

Rating:
Summary: Refreshing Writing Style
Review: I like Anne Powers style. The first chapter is about building a dozen primative designs. But in the first paragraph of the first chapter she says go look at the finished designs on the DVD. I've never seen a better approach to tell you just what you are trying to do before you get started on the actual doing. It seems like so many computer forget to tell you just what you're trying to do. After you know what you're trying to do, then step by step, each illustrated. you build the model.

Chapter 2 gets a bit technical, you may be tempted to skip it --so she starts it by saying that if you are planning to become proficient don't even think about skipping it. And so it continues, you're building a car, adjusting surfaces, designing birthday cakes - with legs that dance.

Besides C4D, there is also a chapter on BodyPaint 3D, the companion software from Maxon. There is also a chapter on using C4D in conjunction with other packages such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Zbrush and more.

This is a sourcebook, a tutorial on how to use the software. It just happens to be one of the better writting of these I've ever seen.