Essential Computer Animation fast How to Understand the Techniques and Potential of Computer Animation

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.

1 What is Computer Animation?.- What is computer animation?.- Who should read this book?.- The aims and objectives of this book.- Assumptions made in this book.- How to use the book.- 2 Computer Animation.- Animation and computers.- The history of animation.- Animation and the human visual system.- Computer animation.- 3 3D Computer Graphics.- From computer graphics to computer animation.- Principles of computer graphics.- Cartesian coordinates.- Modeling simple objects.- Modeling curves.- Surface patches.- Procedural modeling.- Laser scanners.- Perspective view.- 3D clipping.- Coordinate systems.- Transformations.- Rendering the image.- Color.- Colored objects.- Light sources.- Illumination models.- Shading models.- Rendering algorithms.- Texture mapping.- Bump mapping.- Environment mapping.- Displacement mapping.- Shadows.- Transparency.- Radiosity.- Ray tracing.- Volumetric lighting.- Shaders.- The RenderMan Shading Language.- Aliasing.- Anti-aliasing.- Conclusion.- 4 Computer Animation Techniques.- 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.- Skeletons.- Conclusion.- 5 Computer Animation Hardware.- Computers.- Motion capture.- Conclusion.- 6 Computer Animation Software.- A generic computer animation system.- Conclusion.- 7 Post-Production Techniques.- Digital images.- Image compositing.- Rendering and compositing.- Interactive and batch processing.- Conclusion.- 8 Computer Animation Applications.- Television graphics.- Computer games.- Commercials.- Multimedia.- Legal.- Computer-aided design.- Virtual environments.- The Internet.- Simulation.- Digital special effects.- Computer-generated films.- Conclusion.- 9 Computer Animation Jobs.- Modeler.- Artist.- Compositor.- Character animator.- Enveloper.- Technical director.- Conclusion.- 10 Animating.- Weight, mass and inertia.- Center of gravity.- Kinetic energy and momentum.- Bouncing and restitution.- Character animation.- Facial animation.- Conclusion.- 11 Conclusion.- Appendix A Useful Web Sites.- Animation software.- Compositing.- Conferences.- Conversion tools.- Digitizing hardware.- Facial animation.- Magazines.- Motion capture.- Plug-ins.- Programming.- Useful companies.- Time-Slice Web sites.- Other Useful Sites.- Appendix B A Renderman Shader.- Appendix C Motion Capture Hardware.- References.