(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best digital art books

Okay, so, let's be frank-

One class is not enough to learn digital painting. Ever.

That said, if you're looking for what you can do to accomplish the most in a single class, this is what I would look at:

http://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Digital-Painting-Photoshop/dp/0955153077

Best book on digital painting ever written. Ever. a solid 80%+ of my digital painting understanding and tools mastery came from this book.
This book covers tons of techniques, shortcuts, and tricks to paint effectively and rapidly. Studying and applying everything you learn in this book alone would bump your skills dramatically.

Perspective:

Arguably the most important fundamental skill in painting and drawing. Any good class in digital painting or concept art should spend at least 4 to 6 weeks exclusively studying 1, 2, and 3 point perspective, performing dozens of sketches, from simple studies to fully finished portfolio pieces. The trickier the perspective, the better. The best resource I have ever found for studying perspective in depth comes from Scott Robertson. This DVD is a good place to start-

http://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Scott-Robertson-Perspective-Drawing/dp/1930878818/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404610130&sr=1-2&keywords=gnomon+scott+robertson

The next most important thing any concept art class needs is a strong understanding of value, and how light alters it. If perspective is the bones of every drawing, value is the muscles. The best way to practice value is to perform master studies by going into photoshop, converting images of masterwork paintings to greyscale, and attempting to make exact copies of them just from sight. Doing a half dozen of these does wonders or your eyes ability to recognize value change. I suggest at least 4 weeks of intense study. And if you wanna understand how to accurately paint or draw values from memory, Scott Robertson is again your absolute best bet. A good place to start is with his Rendering Matte Surfaces series-

http://www.amazon.com/How-Render-Matte-Surfaces-Shading/dp/B000GETV6O/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_10?ie=UTF8&refRID=17MGSE75N3Q0BAGD0GYJ

Next in importance is color, which gives a piece life, but is utterly useless if value and perspective are wrong. Spend less time on this, but I wouldn't do any less than two weeks of intensive study, on both how light affects color, and color theory.
As far as color and light goes, Jeremy Vickery was the best source I could find. He works for Pixar and is the mastermind behind their unbelievable rendering. This DVD is a good source to check out-

http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Application-Jeremy-Vickery-Practical/dp/B0013TPNPY/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1404610239&sr=1-1&keywords=Jeremy+Vickery+Gnomon

Last, but certainly not least, you will want to learn anatomy. Now, fitting anatomy into a single class by itself is hard enough. Doing it in a combination class is even harder. The best way to start is by learning the key landmarks and proportions that will make a figure look correct without requiring much understanding or detail, and then go back and do intensive comprehensive study later. A minimum of 2 to 3 weeks of meaningful daily study will give you enough time to get the braod strokes down, anyways.
If you wanna learn human anatomy at a boss level, starting with the most essential proportions first, Go to Alienthink.com and buy Riven Phoenix's anatomy videos. All of them. They're worth ten times their cost easily. You cannot still be bad after learning his methods. I'm serious. It's literally impossible.

http://alienthink.com/

Finally, If you wanna learn from one of the best artists in the industry about everything possible about digital painting, go to Youtube and look up Feng Zhu Design Cinema. Start at #1 and watch every single on in order. You will get the kind of design education most artists only dream of. I cannot tell you how much I have learned from him. Hell, this painting right here was an experiment with a new painting workflow I learned from one of his videos. Check him out and see. Watching one of his videos a night, and making notes of what he does and talks about will make excellent homework.

So yeah, I hope this helps!

If it's learning in your free time try loomis and expand from there. An often overlooked aspect of art is composition. If you aren't familiar with the subject check out framed ink. It's film/comic focused, but reading this will give you an immediate step up on the subject and a greater appreciation for visual storytelling. Also makes for a great bathroom/coffee table book.

If you haven't gotten all that far with pixel art this book, while poorly written, is a reasonably comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals (not art fundamentals, but pixel art specific issues like lines/circles, anti-aliasing, dithering, ect). If you do go a more traditional route and have some cash I would recommend looking into getting a cheap graphics tablet and trying digital art instead. This guy has some great free videos on making the transition (he uses photoshop, but most techniques can be adapted to other software with a bit of effort) with a little introductory material on drawing in general. I've found making good pixel art as time consuming as drawing by hand, but ymmv.

As a side thought on the art classes bit, make sure to check with other students before registering. It's common for a good art class to assign very time consuming assignments so make sure you know what you're getting into first. Whatever you decide to do college is a good time to experiment and learn. Be sure to go wild and have fun so long as the rest of your career and future are in order.

You may want to narrow that down a bit, but okay, here are some highlights, with amazon links to help disambiguate.

• Game Programming Gems series -- (8 books currently) Lots of snippets and articles contributed from developers across the game industry.
  http://www.amazon.com/Game-Programming-Gems-Adam-Lake/dp/1584507020/
  
  
  
• Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory -- Great intro to the details of how game engines are built. It's a good balance for detail and readability for a beginner. Even for someone just using engines such as UDK or Unity3d I would recommend this to understand what is going on under the hood.
  www.amazon.com/Game-Engine-Architecture-Jason-Gregory/dp/1568814135/
  
  
  
• 3D Game Engine Design -- More technical and detailed descripting of designing and developing a game engine, but not as noob friendly as Game Engine Architecture
  http://www.amazon.com/Game-Engine-Design-Second-Edition/dp/0122290631/
  
  
  
• 3D Game Engine Architecture -- Follow up to 3D Game Engine Design that goes in to lower level detail and general updates.
  http://www.amazon.com/Game-Engine-Architecture-Engineering-Applications/dp/012229064X/
  
  
  
• Artificial Intelligence for Games by Millington / Funge -- I believe this is the current "must read" for game AI. The only book I've seen that goes in to Behavior Trees and other modern concepts.
  http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Games-Second-Edition/dp/0123747317/
  
  
  
• AI Programming Wisdom series -- 4 books, like Game Programming Gems but for AI. Not a must have but I'd recommend them. They seem to be out of print though, so good luck finding them.
  http://www.amazon.com/AI-Game-Programming-Wisdom-CD-ROM/dp/1584500778/
  
  
  
• Real Time Rendering -- One of the better books on rendering. I'm not a big render guy but this is the book that everyone recommends to me.
  http://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Rendering-Third-Edition-Akenine-Moller/
  
  
  
• Real Time Cameras -- THE book on how to implement cameras well, written by THE guy when it comes to video game camera systems.
  http://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Cameras-Mark-Haigh-Hutchinson/dp/0123116341/
  
  
  
• Code Complete -- The only book not game related I'm listing, it's basic stuff to help you learn to write better code. There are parts that I (and many others) disagree with but in general it's a lot of good advice.
  http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670/
  
  
  There are many others, but looking at my shelf these are the big ones that stick out for recommendations.

I'm gonna sound like a broken record here, but it really does depend on what you personally want to end up doing in animation. Your portfolio can be flavored in many different ways - someone who puts a lot of animal/creature animation in their reel will probably end up doing a lot of that, combat/action will end up doing it professionally, etc. If you're looking for a generalized portfolio, I'd recommend this book. I think overall what matters when trying to get into schools would be showing a variety, and that your pieces look good and finished, even if there's only a couple.

Additionally, every school is different. Some animation schools don't even require a reel or anything to get in. If they don't, research them carefully and make sure you know what you're getting into. And don't worry too much about your reel being 'perfect' - that you have anything at all prior to entering school already gives you a leg up over other people.

Finally, once you're there, absorb everything you can. Take advantage of every resource available to you, and connect with people from all different majors and mediums. You never know who you can help and who can help you in the long run. I was often told when I was in school "It's not what you know, but who you know." Establish a good working relationship with people and you probably will always have a helping hand in the industry. Good luck!

If you want what amounts to a crash course, "Directing for Animation" by Disney veteran Tony Bancroft has a variety of good tips and advice for leading an animation production.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240818024

Most professional animators who've had industry experience or schooling will likely have a certain level of film-making experience as well; so they should be able to understand what you want in terms of film language without a litany of specific technical jargon.

However, even in light of your directing experience and with all due respect, you may want to consider hiring or promoting an Animation Supervisor to act as the point person between you and your animation team; especially if you have a crew larger than a handful of animators.

You've mentioned how knowing the exact technicalities of camera photography is not an issue when relaying your vision to an experienced DOP, but those ins-and-outs are exactly what make the DOP valuable as the point person between you and the rest of the Camera & Lighting department; same goes with an animation department. You may already have a qualified animator willing to step up and perform this role.

A good supervisor will have the 'ins-and-outs' knowledge to keep the team's engine running smoothly (and therefore motivated), while letting you know what is creatively achievable under your budget and time constraints. For instance, you don't want one animator making over-the-top promises the team will be unable to achieve consistently. Or you may have a decision to keep-or-cut a cool FX sequence that is questionably relevant to the story at best, and you are on-the-fence about it because the difficulty is unknown. An animation supervisor will help you make informed decisions that could save you and your team from painful problems further downstream.

All this doesn't mean you have to give up your creative control, or the ability to review shots with animators or the like. What it will give you is a strong production ally who can reasonably guarantee a consistent level of production quality that may difficult for your team to achieve if you are unsure of the particulars.

My two cents.

Pipeline/Technical Artists are a fairly stable job, and has a lot of demand. The role itself is fairly vague and, depending on the studio, can range from:

• Data management
  
• Workflow tools
  
• Core Software development
  
• Infrastructure development
  
• Artist support
  
• Being a generalist to do certain artist roles
  
  ​
  
  Generally overtime isn't as bad as artist roles, but you'll still have overtime depending on the production.
  
  We usually try and spread the overtime across the team so that no one is doing multiple days in a row.
  
  ​
  
  In terms of skillsets, knowledge of various DCCs and specifically a strong knowledge of Python is a must. C++ etc is a bonus, but don't skimp on the Python and PySide/PyQt side of things
  
  ​
  
  A few resources to learn Python skills to become a TD:
  
  ​
  
  
• Python for Maya: Artist Friendly Programming (https://www.udemy.com/python-for-maya/?couponCode=REDDIT)
  
  
  
  Full disclaimer, I teach this course and have a few thousand students. The link above gives you discounted access at $10. You get lifetime video access and you can check out all the code on Github as well.
  
  It aims to teach you Python from scratch all the way to making UIs and workflow tools. I've had more than a few students who've been experienced TDs as well as people who've learned from it and gone on to become Pipeline TDs
  
  ​
  
  
• Maya Python for Film and Games (https://smile.amazon.com/Maya-Python-Games-Film-Reference/dp/0123785782?sa-no-redirect=1)
  
  ​
  
  This is a pretty good book if you prefer a book instead.
  
  
• Python Scripting for Compositors (https://www.fxphd.com/details/162/)
  
  ​
  
  If you're more of a Nuke person, then fxphd has a few good courses on it.

It's actually out now. The hardcover is out of stock on Amazon but there are digital editions. http://www.amazon.com/Art-Fallout-4-Various-ebook/dp/B017L0J1FQ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1449762475&sr=8-1

I agree with you on skyscrapers, but I've found a few that play around with verticality on the outside (which is pretty much new to the newer Fallouts imo).

The point about raiders is a good point, too. Personally I was hoping to see something like raider subcultures, like raiders wearing different kinds of armor or subtle differences at least like armor color based on where they're found.

I used this book to learn it

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Sculpting-Mudbox-Essential-Techniques-ebook/dp/B009W4F39I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1498971630&sr=8-2&keywords=mudbox

... but I will say that I am not an artist, and Mudbox is so intuitive, I learned more from studying books on anatomy, uh, I think, this one

https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1498971661&sr=8-4&keywords=drawing+anatomy

To prove it, check out this character I've got going:

https://odplot.tumblr.com/post/162498753586/beginnings-of-a-new-character

Again, this is like the fifth thing I've modeled, but mudbox is really just that intuitive. The thing that really made me decent at doing models like this is when I studied muscles and did some drawing. In the software I only use smooth, grab, pinch, flatten, foamy, wax, scape, fill, knife, and amplify, and those seem to do the job. The trick is learning that, for hanging clothing, the best thing to do is to do foamy, smooth out one side of the bluge, and then pinch to desired tightness ... but you won't know that until you need to do clothing in the first place. Best thing is to just figure out your method to overcome obstacles like that as you come across them, and the best way to do that is to play around wit the tools enough to understand what they all can bring to the table.

This
would be an awesome addition to my ongoing education. I am going for my BS in Game design and it would help immensely with advancing my drawing techniques needed for my degree and its under $20! lol
I hope to have the ability to one day finish my degree with the ability to change the way we think of games forever!
Much support and happiness to you!
I WAS SCHOOLED!

Ok, The best way I think there is to start off with is with Flash cs 5. It is easy to use and really fun once you get the hang of it. There are tons of tutorials out there for it too. I also recommend getting the books in the links below. They really helped me and I have been doing flash for almost a year now and love every piece of it. You can also start off with Stop Motion. It really gives you a sense of how frames work and timing works. Hope this helped!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284

http://www.amazon.com/How-Cheat-Adobe-Flash-CS5/dp/0240522079/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382186191&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+cheat+in+adobe+flash+cs5

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven Kent

Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered The World by David Sheff

Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds by J. C. Herz

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner

Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing by Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig De Peuter

Replay: The History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan

All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture by Harold Goldberg

Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time by Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton

The art of Gears 4

It's full of cool concept art and it just shows you they have plenty of ideas to work with but choose to do reskins instead. I wish they'd do different stages of armor just like they did with the Lucha Oscar. Like an IMAGO with three stages of his chitin developing would be amazing.

Maya Python for Games and Film is a great book to get started with, as well as Rob's book from tech-artists.org. The tech-artists site has a really helpful and friendly community as well.

Jahirul Amin recently created an awesome book about creating characters in Autodesk Maya, it's aimed at beginners and it's needless to say amazing. I been lectured by him through my University Degree and he was by far my favorite lecturer.

• Game Physics Engine Development - Ian Millington
  
• Game Physics - David Eberly
  
  Both are good books. The former is an easing into game physics, you develop a small physics engine and learn some of the techniques used in the simulation of physics in game engines. The later is more advanced, I guess, it is more of an "academic" approach. If you've ever read one of Eberly's books - its like that! Given that you're doing a PhD, I'd probably suggest the Game Physics book.

Do you have a goal in mind? are you trying to make your first game? You could spend months or years reading books and not get any closer to your goal.

I have this from years ago https://www.amazon.com/Game-Engine-Design-Interactive-Technology/dp/1558605932 If you wanted to make a 3d game engine from scratch it would be a good source (there is a newer edition). Some of it is very math heavy, but there's not getting around that, projections, transforms, quaternions, eulers, matrix operations, collision detection is math heavy.

If you want to make a game with an engine like unreal or unity, its not going to help you a lot, its interesting, there is some value in understanding how everything works under the hood, but you could make a game in less time it will take you to read and understand that book, and that assumes your calculus and 3d math knowledge is up to the task.

There is a mini art book that came with a special bundle edition and they have a journal , survivalist book out on Amazon that got great reviews.
Tom Clancy The Division New York Collapse

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Clancys-Division-York-Collapse/dp/1452148279/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482424240&sr=8-1&keywords=the+division+book

Agreed that the graphics are top notch and there should have been a bigger collectible book

UPDATE: found this
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Tom-Clancys-Division/dp/1783298340/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1482424283&sr=8-2&keywords=the+division+book

https://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Collection-Insights-Collections/dp/1608872475/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492996324&sr=8-1&keywords=world+of+warcraft+poster+book

enjoy my friend

So these aren't on canvas, but you might dig the World of Warcraft Poster Collection. It is a collection of 32 pieces of art, including some of the game covers (up to MoP). Dimensions are 12x16 inches (30,5x40,6 cm), and they're made of really thick paper with a glossy coating. Only disadvantage is: they used duplex printing (i.e. both sides of the paper). So you'd have to decide what posters you like best.

Seconded, Game Engine Architecture is the best book for an overall view on engine development. I've also found these books useful for implementing engine subsystems:

• Real-Time Collision Detection
  
• Game Physics Engine Development
  
• OpenGL Superbible
  
• 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development
  
• Introduction to Networked Physics

+1 for [Art and Science of Digital Compositing]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HHOC8I)


Heres a few more I can recommend:

Digital Compositing for Film and Video

[Production Pipeline Fundamentals for Film and Games]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IOPYVIU)

[Maya Python for Games and Film]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005OI23OO)

[Introducing ZBrush 3rd Edition]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118244826)

[Digital Modeling]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006QRYPC0)

[The HDRI Handbook 2.0: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VB46ACG)

[Professional Photoshop: The Classic Guide to Color Correction, Fifth Edition]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004USQQOC)

[Understanding Exposure, Fourth Edition]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0104EOJSK)

This beautiful book The Art of Titanfall

As far as I know, there were two versions. One was the super limited edition, and the other was the standard edition that anybody could get. I got the latter on Amazon.

EDIT: Amazon link

If you want more information about the aircrafts check out "The art of Titanfall" and "The art of Titanfall 2". There are entire chapters about spaceships and more. I have them both and I really recommend them!

The art of Titanfall: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Titanfall-Andy-McVittie/dp/178329194X

The art of Titanfall 2: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Titanfall-2-Andy-McVittie/dp/1785653695

Here you go! :)

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Tom-Clancys-Division/dp/1783298340

Not entirely blue, but has a space invader on the cover. http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Games-Insider-History-Influential/dp/0240811461/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324609700&sr=1-9

There are a couple of other books called "Game Over" by David Sheff that you may have been thinking of as well. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=game+over+david+sheff&x=0&y=0

What type of art are you aiming for? Theirs plenty of tutorials on youtube that can show you concept art, speed painting, work flow etc. Check out Sinix, Ahmed Aldoori, EverydayJames and Walid Feghali if you want to do concept art. Ctrl-paint is another channel that nearly everyone recommends to learn photoshop. Books on the subject tend to skim over a lot of stuff I purchased Beginner's Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop by Aleksander, Nykolai and It was pretty useless except for the process photos because I had learned more in depth online.

the art book is only 30. game is 60 + 10 for the poster = 150+ $ model. yeah, i think i'll just buy the game and art book separate. Then pic up the OSt later on and i got the Collectors edition i wanted, now i dont have to waste 150$.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/178329194X/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=1535523702&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00DTWEOZ8&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=00CPCKA4SQPYNYEAHF9C

i learned from this https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Character-Creation-Maya/dp/1909414204

it has some in depth of character rigging....it helps me a lot

> Plenty of FPS or 3rd person adventure style cameras but nothing that deals with the complications of an orbiting camera that also orients the character's targeting

You mean because you need to horizontally offset the player character so you can shoot down the centre of the screen?

The only good camera stuff I've found is this book and this talk (available for members in the GDC Vault). (Both are about game cameras in general.)

3D Game Engine Design by David Eberly.
If you want to know the math ... he will learn you the math.

There already is a book based in The Division universe that's part diary and part survival guide. You can see pages from it in-game, in the April Kelleher intel.
There's also an art-book, though that one "focuses on the art and making of the game, and includes over 300 images, sketches, and concept art, and in-depth commentary throughout from the artists and creators."

Hello, those raid posters are from the World of Warcraft Poster Collection book, and I chose the ones I wanted up and framed them myself. The book is here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1608872475

AMAZON

BLIZZARD STORE

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0955153077/

I used codeacademy as an intro to learning python. When I finished that course, I bought this textbook. Then to actually put what I learned to use, I set projects for myself. My brother recommended this website for projects to do.

Edit: I've been making my own scripts in Maya. I unfortunately don't have the funds to buy any products from raspberrypi yet.

During the Titanfall 1 days, my sources were:

• The original Titanfall website
  
  
• The Titanfall Companion App ("Universe" section)
  
  
• Insignias
  
  
• The Titanfall 1 multiplayer campaign (so many hours spent on YouTube, increasing video quality, turning on subtitles, pausing, playing, pausing, playing... argh)
  
  Though I never actually bought it until recently, "The Art of Titanfall" has a lot of great information, much of which you'll find on the wiki. Definitely worth the buy. "The Art of Titanfall 2" is also good but doesn't contain as much straightforward lore as its predecessor, despite having some beautiful concept art and tragically excluded models and environments.