Andy Beane - 3D Animation Essentials

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Cover Image: Andy Beane

Copyright 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-14748-1

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ISBN: 978-1-118-23905-6 (ebk.)

ISBN: 978-1-118-26379-2 (ebk.)

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Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing 3D Animation Essentials. This book is part of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.

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To my wife, Heather, and my boys, Ollie and Max, thank you for all of the patience you have shown me during all of my fretting and for picking up my slack around the house to allow me to complete this project.

Acknowledgments

This book allowed me to write out in a formal form information I am asked about weekly as a professor at Ball State Universityquestions such as What kind of jobs are there in 3D animation? and Where will I have to move to, to work in 3D animation? To the prospective students and their parents who have been asking these questions, this book is for you.

I would first like to thank my fantastic wife for supporting me during the writing of this book. Also I would like to thank Mariann Barsolo for giving me the chance to write this book and for helping me through the whole process. Thanks to Candace English, my development editor, for helping me make this book understandable and worth reading. Thank you to my technical editor, Keith Reicher, for helping me keep it real and correct. I would like to thank Larry Richman for giving me a recommendation that started this whole endeavor and for giving me my start in the education world. I would also like to thank the entire Sybex production team for making this book look great. I would like to thank everyone who helped me by talking about his book and creating images for me to use. They look good.

About the Author

Andy Beane is an animation artist who has been teaching and working in the field since 2002. He currently oversees the animation major at Ball State University in Indiana and previously taught animation at the Art Institute of CaliforniaOrange County. His production experience includes a childrens television show pilot with Xzault Studio, Coming Undone music video, and Barnyard from Paramount Pictures. He wrote curriculum for the Autodesk Animation Academy 2010 and is also a board member of the MG Collective, an Indiana-based motion graphics and animation community group. He has an MFA in computer animation from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Introduction

What is 3D animation? What kind of jobs are there in the field? How does 3D animation get created? What is the future of 3D animation? These are all questions that are asked by someone who is looking to pursue 3D animation as a career or hobby and are reasons this book was written. The answers to these questions are not always easy to find and definitely not in one location, so this book can be used as a reference to answer your personal questions about the animation industry.