Table of Contents (Over 500 Pages + Companion CD-ROM)

Part I: The Many Milestones Leading to The Autiton Archives

Chapter 1: Early Tests
Chapter 2: Creating a Dry Run Test Short — BlastOff!
Chapter 3: BlastOff! Results
Chapter 4: Lessons Learned
Chapter 5: Funding the Pilot
Chapter 6: Tools of the Trade

Part II: Creating the CGI Pilot – Fault Effect

Chapter 7: Time to Chart a Course
Chapter 8: Making a 3D CGI Film Star – 0090
Chapter 9: Lip Sync Animation Study – Tuna Fish
Chapter 10: 0090 Takes a Walk, with IK Booster
Chapter 11: Designing the Instance Generator Lattice
Chapter 12: Designing & Modeling the Interior Set
Chapter 13: Lighting & Texturing the Interior Set
Chapter 14: Designing & Animating the Generic Autiton Drone Instances
Chapter 15: Special Effects
Chapter 16: Creating a 3D Digital Storyboard and Shot List
Chapter 17: From Story Reel to Final Animation
Chapter 18: Network Rendering
Chapter 19: Compositing, Editing, and Output
Chapter 20: Adding a New Dimension with a Sound Track

Part III: The Journey Beyond Production

Chapter 21: Show and Tell — Short Film Distribution
Chapter 22: Looking to the Horizon and Beyond

Creating a 3D Animated CGI Short

The Making of The Autiton Archives™
Fault Effect™ – Pilot Webisode

Written by Michael Scaramozzino
Published by Jones and Bartlett Publishers
-Recently Hit #1 on Amazon.com in CGI Category
-Read the Book Press Release

Creating a 3D Animated CGI Short presents an insightful behind-the-scenes tour of the entire production process for 3D artists, animators, and independent filmmakers who are interested in creating their own CGI shorts as well as for those who are simply fans and enthusiasts of CGI films in general.

This book presents detailed examples of every step of the production process; from initial concept through character design, set design, modeling, texturing, lighting, camera animation, character animation, lip sync, rendering, post-production, compositing, and all the way to film festival submissions and online web distribution.

Creating a 3D Animated CGI Short truly has something for everyone interested in CGI films.

Using readily available off-the-shelf hardware and software such as modo, LightWave 3D, FPrime, HD Instance, Peak, Shake, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand and more, Creating a 3D Animated CGI Short shows how to produce a complete 3D animated CGI Short, including how to fund the production by taking on paid freelance projects along the way. Where other filmmaking books typically describe industry standard methodologies that are most effective for larger productions, this book shows how to drastically simplify and condense those processes and focus only on the essential elements that will enable a single artist or filmmaker to complete a CGI short on their own.

The companion CD-ROM includes full-color versions of all the images used throughout the book, animation tests created during the production process, Fault Effect, a full version of the completed pilot for Web series, and a full version of Michael Scaramozzino’s previous award-winning 3D animated CGI short film – BlastOff!™

About the Author

Michael Scaramozzino is an award-winning digital media pioneer with an extensive background in both the art and science of computer graphics. Since founding DreamLight® Interactive™ over twenty years ago he has received awards for digital design, 2D PostScript illustration, interactive multimedia development, 3D illustration and 3D animation. His work has been published in various magazines, books and exhibits. His first award-winning 3D animated short film BlastOff!, has screened at over a dozen international animation film festivals. He is currently producing The Autiton Archives, a 3D animated CGI series of shorts for the Web. Fault Effect is the series pilot.