which book?

# 1 29-01-2003 , 08:47 PM

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I gonna buy The Animators Survival Kit with either 1 for the following books:

:: How to Draw Animation: Learn the Art of Animation from Character Design to Storyboards and Layouts (Christopher Hart)

OR

:: Timing for Animation (John Lasseter)

Dose any one have/read these books cos i need to know which one is better?

thanx

Last edited by doodle; 29-01-2003 at 08:53 PM.

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# 2 30-01-2003 , 01:40 AM

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Either one would be good, depending on what you're looking for.

Chris Hart's book will teach you a bit on how to draw characters for animation -- handy if you're not comfortable with your 2D skills. It's not really an animation how-to book but more of a general overview of the processes. It has a focus on character design and construction and is definitely geared towards 2D animation.

Timing for Animation -- which is by John Halas and Harold Whitaker, not John Lasseter who only wrote the foreword -- is a good general reference book for, well, animation timing. There's info in the book on how many frames it takes to get a good explosion, how to do splashing water, breakdowns of walk sequences, etc. It's fairly technical, in terms of traditional animation, but it's still good information. This is also a very 2D-oriented book, but the fundamental concepts can still apply to 3D.

I own all three of the books, and I usually look at them in this order:

Animator's Survival Kit
Timing for Animation

I haven't looked at Chris Hart's book in months. The Animator's Survival Kit pretty much provides all the information that I need. Occassionally, I'll open up Timing for Animation, but that's only for my animation classes.

Hope this helps!

Danny Ngan
Animator | Amaze Entertainment
my website | my blog | my job

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# 3 30-01-2003 , 01:54 AM

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Yup m8 The Animators Survival Kit pretty much provides all the material the other two contain and more I think. Ive just recently bought that and the Timing for Animation book too and I have no complaints whatsoever with either. Terrific resources user added image

Also get The Animators Survival Kit from Amazon because you can get it for a tenner as opposed to £25!!

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# 4 30-01-2003 , 01:58 AM

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yeah...i saw that. Why is it so cheap?

Yeah, but no but yeah but no....

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# 5 30-01-2003 , 02:03 AM

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That I dont know m8, I know it went out of print a number of years ago and then they obviously reprinted it. Perphaps they are just looking to shift some surplus stock. Anyway, once you recieve your book, I think you will be wanting to give them more money for it! Its actually a fairly big book. Dont question the price just buy!!

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