MD Communications - Carrara Studio 3 Handbook

By Mike de la Flor, published by Charles River Media

Five star reviews at amazon.com

Whether you're starting in3D or new to Carrara Studio, The Carrara Studio 3 Handbook will bring you up to speed with the powerful modeling, texturing and animation tools in Carrara Studio 3. Nearly 30, step-by-step, tutorials and exercises will guide you through modeling with Subdivision Surfaces, Spline modeling, UV mapping, creating shaders, character rigging, animation and more.

In the first part of the book you'll get acquainted with general concepts in 3D, and you'll learn to customize Carrara Studio user interface. You'll quickly master the modeling tools in Carrara Studio 3 as you work through tutorials in character, technical, organic and terrain modeling. You'll learn to how make the most of the modeling tools and how to avoid common problems.

Next, you'll learn to harness the power behind the Carrara Studio shaders to easily texture 3D models. In the texturing tutorials you will create procedural shaders, use projection mapping, Shading Domains and learn to use the new UV Editor. In the animation tutorials you'll work with the Carrara Studio animation tools to create a walk cycle using Inverse Kinematics, learn the ins and outs of character rigging with bones, and have fun with the Physics and Particles.

Finally, you'll gain practical experience with High Dynamic Range (HDRI) lighting, Global Illumination, and Caustics to create ultra-realistic lighting effects in images and animation. And you'll create abstract and painterly images with the new Non-Photorealistic Rendering. You'll also learn to create 3D Flash content with VectorStyle and get hands-on experience with many of the powerful Carrara Studio plug-ins like Anything Grows and Anything Grooves.

Key Features

Comprehensive guide to modeling with Subdivision Surfaces, Spline modeling, Metaballs modeling and Terrain modeling.

Provides in-depth texturing and shading tutorials using shaders with procedural, projection mapping, Shading Domains and the new UV Editor.

Detailed tutorials provide step-by-step instruction on Carrara Studio's most popular plug-ins like VectorStyle, Anything Grows, Anything Grooves, and new plug-ins like Cognito and Project Gemini.

Includes hands-on tutorials on High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI) lighting, Global Illumination, Caustics and Non-Photoreaslistc Rendering.

Covers character modeling and character rigging for animation using bones and Inverse Kinematics.

Author
Mike de la Flor ( Houston, TX ) is a freelance medical illustrator, instructor, and writer. He is the author of The Digital Biomedical Illustraiton Handbook (Charles River Media 2004), The Carrara 5 Pro Handbook (Thomson 2005),and is a contributing writer for 3DWorld, Computer Arts, MacFormat, MacWorld, and Computer Graphics World magazines. Mike is also an adjunct instructor at Kingwood College where he teaches computer-graphics. Mike has served as staff illustrator at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and Baylor College of Medicine.