Welcome to the Library!

Here you will find a list of all sorts of resources for 3D artists.
This includes Books, Instructional DVDs, Tutorials, Resources and more.

If you would like to suggest a resource, add it to the comments! If it's a good resource, it will be added to the journal post. If it's a great resource, you might get a prize!

This is the master list. Eventually, each featured resource will have a review of it within this group, and we will do away with outside linking. Cheers!

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Anatomy and Modeling:

Action Anatomy by Takashi Iijima
This book teaches you how muscles move and interact with each other, as well as how the human body moves and bends. A great resource for anatomy and animation alike.

An Atlas of Anatomy for Artists by Fritz Schider
This one's got it all. If you can only buy one anatomy book, get this one. It's a bit verbose but it's packed with useful information that will really help out anyone who is hoping to become a character artist.

:thumb245081706: Ryan Kittleson's Modeling Tutorials
Ryan Kittleson has some really great, easy to follow tutorials, and is very good at explaining correct topology. Edge flow is always a nightmare, and one he tackles very adeptly. Check out his hand and ear tutorial for helping you out in the tough spots.

ImagineFx: How to Draw and Paint Anatomy
This is more of a magazine than a book, but it is a very useful one, using simple blocked out characters to demonstrate muscle movement and anatomy. As it's a magazine, it's also a lot cheaper than  the books

Drawing People By Joumana Medlej - :thumb245081706: BONUS! Joumana is Majnouna on DeviantArt and some of her book is available for free on her page!
The reason I have added this here is because this book is not your typical anatomy book. Instead of teaching you anatomy, it's one big book of reference for pretty much everything you can think of, body shape, muscle location, ethnicity, facial features, flexibility etc. It's a great resource to flick through and have handy on your desk while you're working.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and its companion workbook are great for learning to observe the real world. That sounds silly, we look at the world every day, but our mind often fills in how things should look, which may account for some people's lack of drawing ability (yours truly )


:thumb245081706: Joan of Arc Tutorial by Michel Roger
This is a great, free tutorial that takes you through character creation from beginning to end. If you are familiar with the software package you are using, you can follow along quite easily despite it being intended for 3D Studio Max users. The problem with tutorials like this usually is that the artist creating it is not as familiar with the process as they perhaps should be to write a tutorial, but this one doesn't have that issue.

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Animation:

The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams
Richard Williams worked at Disney and learned much of what he knows from The Nine Old Men themselves. His book on Animation and the companion disks that go with them are an astounding resource for any would-be animator. Whether it's 2D, 3D, stop motion, or anything else, these basic principles are reinforced with examples and repetition. This one is a must have for any aspiring animator.

Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life
Totalling five hundred and seventy-six pages, a revised edition, with the inverted title The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation was published October 19, 1995. It contains four hundred eighty-nine plates in full color, and thousands of black and white illustrations ranging from storyboard sketches to entire animation sequences, all of which illustrate the exquisite art of Disney style animation. The philosophy of the Disney animators is expressed in the so-called 12 basic principles of animation. (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Animated Performance by Nancy Beiman
This one isn't a book for beginners. It's packed with tips and examples that you can browse through, or just use when you need them as a reminder.

Stop Staring by Jason Osipa
This is a great book for facial animation, and it goes over practically everything, from topology to blendshapes, expression, emotion and more.

:thumb245081706: Animation Insiders - Workflow
This book is packed with brilliant advice, tricks and tips, with a focus on workflow, the step by step of how the contributing animators work. Best of all, You can download it for free from Squeeze Studio!

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Lighting, Composition and Rendering

Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney
This book explores light in the real world, taking a good hard look at how it works. It's illustrated with the author's own paintings as examples, just in case you were worried he didn't know what he was talking about, and contains many tips and tricks.

Light for Visual Artists by Richard Yot - :thumb245081706: BONUS! Richard Yott Has some content from his book available free on his website!
Richard Yott's lighting tips are great and he makes them really easy to understand. The stuff on his website is a really good start, but if you're keen, get the book. Each chapter details a different type of light, which is cast on a plain white sphere so you can see exactly the colour, shadow quality and brightness. it's a great resource for anyone thinking about doing any sort of lighting.

Digital Lighting & Rendering by Jeremy Birn
This book is great because it's not specific to any type of software, while still teaching techniques specific to 3D artists. It covers compositing, lighting, shadows, render passes and more, and is an excellent read for getting your head around how to render in 3D.

:thumb245081706: Composition by Phil Straub
This is arguably the best thing since sliced bread. Composition is one of those super important and hideously boring subjects which whole books are devoted to. Phil Straub manages to use 3 pages and many stunning digital paintings of his to illustrate rules of composition and concepts of drawing the eye through the work.

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Other:

3d World Magazine
3D World can be hit and miss, but it's a great magazine to catch up on what the industry is doing. The tips in there are occasionally useful too, and the discs come packed with free stuff every month. If you're an avid 3D artist, you really don't want to be without this one, and it keeps you up to date with a very rapidly changing industry.

Realism in Vue by Dax Pandhi
Distilling more than 10,000 hours of renowned Vue expert Dax Pandhi's revolutionary experimentation, this 300+ page book is the de facto guide to achieving hyper-realistic renders in Vue. (from the website)

How to Cheat in 3DS Max
My goodness is this book useful! It assumes you have a basic understanding of the software, and teaches you all manner of ways to improve your work flow. It's packed full of great lists and references and places to look for solutions to those annoying problems that everyone has and you don't want to dig through a manual to find out about.

Inspired 3D Short Film Production by Jeremy Cantor and Pepe Valencia
Covers every aspect of the short-film production pipeline, demonstrating each concept and technique through a combination of general theories, examples, exercises, case studies, and interviews with short-film directors and industry specialists. Full of amazing imagery and one-of-a-kind content, Inspired 3D Short Film Production is a must-read book for current and future animated film-makers. - Blurb (But it's true, it's an absolutely brilliant book if you want to make short films!)

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Resources and Reference

In Character: Actors Acting by Howard Schatz
This book is a fantastic reference. Actors are given a few lines about the characters they are supposed to be, and act it out for a photo camera. It's excellent reference for facial expression and an invaluable tool for animating. Actors are great at acting, so it's a good idea to tap into this when you're animating. The book also features some pretty famous celebrities, including Brendan Fraser, Rickey Gervais, Laurence Fishburne, Brooke Shields, Geoffrey Rush, Whoopi Goldberg and John Goodman...just to name a few

Incredible Characters: Fantasy Artists Pocket Reference by Finlay Cowan
This is a reference book covering myths and legends about fantasy creatures from history. Everything in this book is completely free to use and in the public domain because it doesn't come from any copyrighted stories. Best of all, it's a very small book and fits well into your pocket! Good for coming up with new creatures and mixing and mashing folklore together to get something unique quickly.

The Illustrated History of Weaponry by Chuck Wills
Books like this one are excellent for when you know you need something but aren't exactly sure what. Why give your character a sword when you can give them a rapier or a scimitar, why a gun when you can use a blunderbuss? It's important to have books of reference to help broaden your thinking and improve your characters and work.

The Automobile Edited by Craig Cheetham
This is an excellent book if you want to make cars. It lists hundreds of different cars, with perfect front, side, top and open hood and door shots of each and makes amazing reference for car buffs. It's also brilliant for those 3D artists who hate cars but are forced to make them occasionally, because you can just flip through till you find one you like without having to be a guru of makes and models.

:thumb245081706: Poles and Loops
It's unusual to have a forum thread here, but it's very hard to find useful information about topology, what it is, what to do with it and how to make it behave. Poles and Loops helps advance you from a beginner to a more experienced modeller, who is aware of what topology is and why it is there. Best of all, it's well illustrated with examples so there's not much reading you need to do in order to understand the concepts.

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