Books

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CG

Way, way back in the day I had the pleasure of contributing to two books on 3D Studio Max with Jon Bell and other friends. I contributed 3 chapters in both books dealing with lighting, natural material creation and ray tracing. With the advent of newer rendering technology some of this material is becoming obsolete but I am looking forward to creating some online resources to cover these exciting new techniques.

 

 

 

 

 

3D Studio Max R2.5 f/x by Jon A. Bell

 

 

 

 

 

 

3D Studio MAX R3 f/x and design by Jon A. Bell

 

The Renderman Companion - Steve Upstill

Advanced RenderMan: Creating CGI for Motion Pictures – Anthony A. Apodaca, Larry Gritz
Digital Lighting & Rendering – Jeremy Birn
The Art and Science of Digital Compositing- Ron Brinkmann
Principles of Digital Image Synthesis – Andrew S. Glassner
Andrew Glassner’s Notebook : Recreational Computer Graphics
Jim Blinn’s Corner : Dirty Pixels
Jim Blinn’s Corner : A Trip Down the Graphics Pipeline
Computer Graphics : Principles and Practice - James D. Foley, Andries van Dam
Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques : Theory and Practice – Alan H. Watt

 

Color and Light

Color in Nature : A Visual and Scientific Exploration - Penelope A. Farrant
Color and Light in Nature - David K. Lynch, William Livingston

 

Surface and Patterns In Nature

The Self-Made Tapestry : Pattern Formation in Nature – Philip Ball
On the Surface of Things – Felice Frankel
By Nature’s Design – William Neill
Journeys in Microspace : The Art of the Scanning Electron Microscope – Dee Breger
Magnifications : Photography With the Scanning Electron Microscope – David Scharf

 

Surface and Patterns In CG

The Algorithmic Beauty of Sea Shells – Hans Meinhardt
Texturing and Modeling – David S. Ebert

 

Morphology and Biomechanics

Life’s Devices – Steven Vogel
Cats’ Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People – Steven Vogel
Vital Circuits : On Pumps, Pipes, and the Workings of Circulatory Systems – Steven Vogel
The Simple Science of Flight : From Insects to Jumbo Jets – Henk Tennekes
Exploring Biomechanics : Animals in Motion – R. McNeill Alexander

 

 

Design and Structure

Lightness - Ed van Hinte, Adriaan Beukers
Structure in Nature Is a Strategy for Design – Peter Pearce

 

Robotics

Robo Sapiens: Evolution of a New Species – Peter Menzel
Mobile Robots : Inspiration to Implementation – Joseph L. Jones

 

Mathematics, Computers, Complexity and Other Fun Stuff

Flatland : A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin A. Abbott
In the Beginning…Was the Command Line – Neal Stephenson
Polyhedra Primer – Peter. Pearce
Chaos : Making a New Science – James Gleick
The Blind Watchmaker : Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design – Richard Dawkins
Complexity: the Emerging Science At the Edge of Order and Chaos – M. Mitchell Waldrop
The Emperor’s New Mind : Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics – Roger Penrose