Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Don't waste your time & money

Customer Rating:

For starters the cover pix was not done by Rattner and further more is not posed, rather it was - (tell me if I'm wrong) - modeled in place. There used to be a web page that covered the first chapters of this book, I guess it was taken down because it was hurting sales. As was mentioned it skips edge loops and other important aspect of CG sculpting. The book is chocked full of bad anatomy and techniques, it goes about modeling in a shoddy and disorganized way, that will start the beginner off on the wrong foot. You will save money and get a better start using the Joan of Arc tutorial that is available for free on the web.

very nice book

Customer Rating:

Think this book is very good written. Specially useful for people who wanna fast introduction to 3D-modeling. Everything starts from simple and goes to very difficult models. Author simply wanna give a reader the most simple explanation of everything. How, what to use, how else you can do it... Think very nice book... it a bit reminds a lessons in school. Every small part of book - is one lesson. But at the same time it's not boring lessons, so think this book have pretty much right for existing.

Below average modelling - bad anatomy

Customer Rating:

All Modelling concerns with this book aside, the biggest problem I have with 3-D Human Modeling and Animation is simply that the author's models are terrible examples of the human form. Not very impressive. If you see this book - just skip to the human face blend shapes section and see what I mean: ugly, anatomically incorrect shapes. This problem permiates through the whole publication. Don't let the cover image fool you (not the authors.) If you are new to character/organic modelling, I do not recommend this book. If your'e a little more experienced, there's a few chapters here that inspire especially later in the book. I found the reference section on hair shader variations quite handy.

Great modeling guide!	Customer Rating:
It is friendly and understandable. I needed to model a human character using Maya without my instructor being there with me. So I totally did it using the book. It made everything to go smooth and FORWARD.

There are better books than this one

Customer Rating:

If you want to learn how to model the human form, I defitnely won't recommend this book. I bought this book as a newbie modeller. But it didn't help me a bit. I learned more from reading about modeling and topology on diferent forums. And now I can say that about 90% of Peter Ratner's modeling theories are plain incorrect. He doesn't even mention edge loops. Even if it is mentioned because I missed it, still edge loops is a term that should have been mentioned 10 times or more on every page. It is one of the very pillars of modeling theory. Instead Peter Ratner tells us to extrude a polygon, cut it a few times and move the vertices around until you get the nose shape, or the ear shape or whatever. My grandmother could have told me that for free. Anyway, the second half of the book was helpful though. But I must say that the second half (that's about animation and lighting and texturing) is standard knowledge that is explained far better in other books. The CD has a few nice artwork on it. Nothing I could have downloaded from various sites on my own. What could have been more useful was tutorials on how the authors of those images made those images. If you are a beginner, skip this one! There are better books like "Stop starring", all the books from the [DIGITAL:] series from the top of my head.