3D Career Change: The Books

To supplement the online training I’ve been doing as I cross-train into 3D and motion graphics, I’ve been working my way through a number of books.

This is my 3D and motion graphics booklist as it stands so far. I’ll probably update it as I go along to reflect on how useful I’ve found each book. If there’s any must-haves I’m missing let me know!

Lighting

Light for Visual Artists: Understanding Light in Art & Design

Beautiful. Just a really beautiful book, lovely layout. Fantastically well communicated. Takes what could be a dry subject and grounds it in everyday life.

As there is no CG content, this book is purely about observing the behaviour of light. I'd recommend it to any artist.

[digital] Lighting & Rendering

Jeremy Birn's book is considered by many to be the definitive text on lighting for computer graphics.

There's a reason for that. It's a great book; comprehensive with good coverage of 3D lighting and rendering. Pretty thorough. Nuff said.

Essential CG Lighting Techniques

So it turns out that [digital] Lighting and Rendering has a challenger, as this is another great book on lighting for CG. The content and quality are almost identical. There are possibly a couple of places where one or the other book has the edge, but there is little to choose between them.

Overall, I'd say that the layout is probably slightly better in [digital] Lighting and Rendering. But if I had to choose one over the other I'd go for this book. Simply because in addition to the theoretical discussions it has a number of sections and tutorials which focus on putting techniques into practice and production considerations, which the Jeremy Birn's book doesn't cover.

There is a more up-to-date version, than the copy I have. It looks like it has slightly more of a focus on 3ds Max. However, I suspect 99% of the content will be non-Max specific.

Modeling

Digital Modeling

Great book. Both at a practical level and because of the 'industry insight' sections where various professionals discuss their roles in the pipeline and their workflow.

Animation

The Animator's Survival Kit

The animation bible, simple as.

Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques for Live Action and Animation

Animation Methods - Rigging Made Easy: Rig your first 3D Character in Maya

The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation

Haven't actually got this one, as I think most of the other books cover it's key content. But it's arguably the book that started it all.

Compositing

The Art and Science of Digital Compositing

A solid coverage of compositing techniques and workflow. Very thorough.

Motion Graphics

Motion Graphics Design: Applied History and Aesthetics

Incredibly ugly cover, for a design book. Absolutely fantastic read though, so far. I thought it was going to be fairly dry, but it's actually been really hard to put down.