GPH 338 | Computer Animation Survey (Practical Environment: MAYA)
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Digital Tools
CG Companies
3D Web Links
3D Books
Magazines
 
This section is all based on my personal interests. Feedback @: yqwang@cs.depaul.edu
General 3D & Visual Effect
CG Channel - Frequently updated with 3D news and features.
3D Artists - The largest gallery of 3d artwork on the web - a must-see.
3d Ark - Includes a collection of 3D-related articles.
3d Links - As the name implies, lots of catagorized links.
3DSite - An extensive site for 3D artists, with featured newsletter, employment board...
Animation World Network - Animation site by AW magazine.
VFXPro - A must-see effects site, updated daily with news & jobs.
Design In Motion - A sister-site to VFXPro, 2D multi-media news.
Digital Video - DV Magazine covers video hardware, 3D, compositing, etc.
Visual Effects Headquarters - A valuable reference archive on feature film effects work.
Visual Magic - Features news and reviews of the digital tools
Visual Effects Society - Organization of visual effects professionals
Alt.movies.visual-effects FAQ - An invaluable tool for resources about visual effects.
IMDb The Internet Movie Database, search for information about current and historic films.
Television Production - Free book covers a lot production topics
Conference
AMC Siggraph
NAB - The National Association of Broadcasters
Recomended Reading
Professional opinions on demo reels, from 3D Ark.
Maya Links
Aliaswavefront.com
Highend3d.com - The most popular directory of Alias/Maya resources, including tutorials, links, downloadable files, and news.
pixho.com - A site dedicated to lighting & rendering techniques in Maya, includes useful MEL scripts, tutorials, and other downloads.
Blackorb - A collection of Maya tutorials.
Jackals Forge - Includes some Maya Tutorials, the maya Bible, and other behind-the-scenes info.
3d max Links
Discreet - The current owners and developers of 3D Studio Max.
3D Animation Workshop - Tutorials on 3D Studio Max gathered on a weekly basis.
Maxhelp Tutorials - Another collection of Max Tutorials.
Lighting Research Links
Global Illumination Research - Henrik Wann Jensen's research on Global Illumination.
Paul Debevec - His art and research includes light-probe imagery and experiments sampling lighting from the real world.
3d Light - Andrew Weidenhammer's web site shows his own work including radiosity tests and tutorials in lighting.
Radiosity - A slightly quirky but useful explaination of global illumination.
Television Production - a full on-line textbook includes the basics of real-world lighting.
Texture Map
Free Texture Map Download Sites
A|W Texture Farm - Navigate from Aliaswavefront.com to Maya\Download. A must-see for anyone wanting free textures.All high-quality, no compression TIFF files.
Forrest.cz Texture Library - Wood, stone, marble, cloud, nature, water, organic, skin and fur, metal, technical, maps (geography), paint, misc, and bump texture maps.  All free, not processed for tiling, but most have 600+ pixel res.
Animax 1000 Free textures - A nice library of catagorized textures, most are not tiling, but could easily be made into tiling maps if needed. This site also sells textures on CD-ROM.
CGSD RealTexture Library samples - A small set of .tiff files for architectural rendering (grass, arial views, etc.)
Public Textures (from Jeremy Engleman) - As if you didn't have enough reasons already to visit his wonderful web site, Jeremy Engleman has made available about 700 free photographic images for you to process into texture maps.  Most are unprocessed, approx. 600 - 1200 res. including good ground, dirt, walls, metals, cement, etc.
Blade's Textures - Hand-made (created in paint programs) tiling textures, variety of catagories all 512x512 jpeg.
Texturator.com - A variety of images, only 128x128 and procedurally generated, seems better suited for web/multimedia than 3D projects, but you never know when you'll need a pattern.
Absolutecross Textures - A variety of images, only 256x256 and procedurally generated, again, better suited for web/multimedia than 3D projects.
Special-Purpose Texture Map Downloads
The Ultimate Guts Site - The actual title is "Organ System Pathology Images," but 3D artists doing creatures, sci-fi, etc. will love all these high-res medical close-ups!.
XGLOBE & XPLANET Maps - High-resolution (up to 2400x1200) downloadable maps of the earth.
Maps of The Solar System - NASA Star maps make great backdrops for space scenes.  Very high-res.
Anatomy Web Sites
Richard Suchy - A very useful step-by-step tutorial modeling a woman, plus free download of his final woman model.
Jeremy A. Engleman - A talented artist whose work includes mature, well-executed 3D figure studies.
Drawing a human body - Teemu Mäkinen demonstrates steps in drawing a woman from primitive forms up to final.
Steven Stahlberg - His Virtual Model Gallery includes popular virtual women.
Figure2Productions - "The Figure on CD, " a CD of multi-angle photo reference of the human figure, made with the 3D artist in mind. Scroll down to read a full review at the bottom of this page.