“Game Character Modelling and Animation with 3ds Max” - Focal Press
3d World reviewed this a while ago and they were not very impressed. Largely, I’d agree - the book is disappointing in my opinion, for several reasons. It revolves around the completion of one tutorial, which goes through the process of creating a character, texturing it, rigging it and then importing it into the game Unreal Tournament 2004. Why he went down a game specific route, I’m not sure of, but I guess it is to demonstrate the kind of process required. The author suggests it will take some time but the content is actually not that tome consuming, unless you are a total beginner. Thankfully, I’m not too far beyond that stage, so it does have some benefits - the spline modelling section and UV unwrap tutorials are actually quite good for people who still struggle with understanding some of these methods. Still, even I can tell that the final model is lacking, partially because it doesn’t match up to the supposed aims of the concept sketch - also because it is maybe too low poly, given that the games engines of today - and indeed of 2004 - are able to handle much more. Even for UT2004, given what I can tell, it looks like a pretty amateurish first attempt. The final model, even with its low poly count and so on, has a stupid square head for no apparent reason and fairly poor texturing. A shame.
Plus points - Good for novices. Decent introduction to some concepts. Decent introduction to spline modelling etc
Negative points - Poor choice of tutorial subject. Limited scope. Very game specific. Pitched too low - given the techniques demonstrated the aspirations could have been far higher
In conclusion, it’s a worthy buy for someone who is very new and / or definately wants to get into game character modelling NOW, but to be honest I can’t see it has much appeal beyond that.