From Focal Press arrives information on several of the company’s recent titles. Specifically designed to help animators, present and future, hone their craft, books in the ever-increasing list include: Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, 2e; Animating with Flash 8; Animation: The Mechanics of Motion and Designing Sound for Animation. For info on these publications, please click:
Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, 2e
Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, 2e is key to understanding how to capture forceful poses with dynamic drawing. It is informative, concise, and packed full of inspirational illustrations. Author Mike Mattesi helps novice animators and artists create appealing dynamic poses in their drawings. These are vital skills for both traditional and computer animators.
Force is not just another ‘anatomy for animators’ book – it assumes the reader has experience of figure drawing. The focus here is to build on that knowledge and to use straight and curved lines to show the direction of force in the body. Every point in the text is thoroughly demonstrated with the help of superb, dynamically drawn examples.
The first edition of Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, 2e was self-published with iUniverse in June 2004. Despite poor production values and very minimal marketing, it still garnered five very positive reviews on Amazon.com and had healthy sales. Now, since Force is a quality Focal Press book, it will do even better!
– ISBN-10: 0-240-80845-2
– Publication date: September 2006
– List Price: $24.95
– Format: Paperback
– Approx. 220 illustrations
– Pages: c. 248
About Mike Mattesi
Mike Mattesi is a professional production artist and instructor with clients including Walt Disney Feature Animation, Walt Disney Consumer Products, Marvel Comics, Hasbro Toys, ABC and Microsoft. He now owns an art resource and intellectual property company entitled Contagious Concepts, based in southern California.
Animating with Flash 8: Creative Animation Techniques
“An excellent read… I recommend it to the newbie to the flash environment as well as the programmer.” E. Okyere, Flash Magazine
Whether it be for a designer new to Flash, a professional animator creating digital animation for the first time, or a Flash user who hasn’t yet made the most of the animation features in Flash, Alex Michael has produced a clear and informative guide to creating professional interactive graphics and animations. Packed with color illustrations showing a wide selection of animation styles from a range of artists, along with key tips and tricks from the professionals, Animating with Flash 8 will prove inspirational to all Flash work. This book is an essential tool to achieve a comprehensive understanding and superior results!
Animating with Flash 8 covers the latest features included in Flash 8. These include ‘Interactive Mobile Device Development,’ which allows users to build content once and test it on a wide variety of mobile phones, and ‘Higher-quality Video Codec,’ which provides superior video quality that is competitive with today’s best video applications at a much smaller file size.
– ISBN-10: 0-240-51966-3
– Publication date: late July 2006
– List price: $49.95
– Format: Paperback w/ CDROM
– Approx. 770 illustrations (750 in full color)
– Pages: c. 456
About Alex Michael
Alex Michael is the lead animator and managing director of Sprite Interactive Ltd.UK, a new media agency. He is also the author of six other books on marketing and the use of Flash.
Animation: The Mechanics of Motion
A Volume in the Focal Press Visual Effects and Animation Series.
“Animation: the Mechanics of Motion by Chris Webster – this is one of the good ones. Webster must be a great teacher, because it comes across in this book. He makes a complicated subject understandable and he makes it sound fun to do.” – Animation World Magazine
Animation: the Mechanics of Motion is a long-awaited comprehensive introduction to the key skills every animator needs, whether they are working in 2D (e.g. Beauty & the Beast), 3D model (e.g. Wallace and Gromit), or computer animation (e.g. Shrek or Finding Nemo). There’s a wealth of information in this book which gives a complete course, written by an experienced teacher, in the fundamental principles of animation, with extended pieces on timing, acting and technical aspects. Animation: the Mechanics of Motion is ideal for serious practitioners as a ready source of reference and a key learning tool for those who are keen to get into the animation industry in any of these three main disciplines.
– ISBN-10: 0-240-51666-4
– Publication date: August 2005
– List price: $36.95
– Format: Paperback
– Pages: c. 256
About Chris Webster
Chris Webster is an animator who has worked for twenty years in the industry. He has extensive experience as an educator, teaching across a broad range of levels from schools, higher education and professional training programs and within the studio environment. He is currently Head of Animation at the Bristol School of Animation and the University of the West of England.
Designing Sound for Animation is a nuts-and-bolts guide to sound design for animated films, explaining audio software, free downloads, how sound works, and the power of sound when wielded by an animation filmmaker. It also provides varieties of examples for how to use sound to enliven films with professional sound.
Sound-savvy animators save precious resources, such as time and money, by using sound for effects they don’t necessarily have time to create. For example, the sound of a crow flying gives viewers a sense of the crow without the crow. Where there’s a macabre element or scene in an animated film, Designing Sound for Animation explains why you should choose a low frequency sound for it – low frequencies are scary, because the ear can’t decipher their origin or direction!
Designing Sound for Animation comes with a DVD that features three 5-minute animations; sample sound clips, jump cuts and video streams; plus motion graphics with which to practice sound-applications explained in this book.
– ISBN-10: 0-240-80733-2
– Publication date: July 2005
– List price: $34.95
– Format: Paperback
– Pages: c. 216
About Robin Beauchamp
Robin Beauchamp is a professor of Sound Design and Production Music at the Savannah College of Art & Design.
