Game Character Design Complete: Using 3ds Max 8 and Adobe Photoshop CS2
by David Franson, Eric Thomas

A game is only as intriguing as the characters that inhabit its world. Game Character Design Complete demonstrates each step of modeling, texturing, animating, and exporting compelling characters for your games. You?ll learn how to model in 3ds Max from sketch references, texture in Adobe Photoshop, rig bones, and animate a character back in 3ds Max. Game Character Design Complete covers all aspects of character creation?from the technical to the artistic. Don?t worry if your artistic ability isn?t awe-inspiring. You?ll cover every aspect of the design process in easy-to-follow steps, including texturing and animating your character. If you have a working knowledge of 2D and 3D graphics, then you have all of the skills you need to begin creating cool characters for your games.

Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging and Deformations
by Brad Clark, John Hood, Joe Harkins

More than just a step-by-step tutorial on rigging in Maya, "Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging and Deformations" helps you develop the skills you need to successfully manage your rigging process from start to finish. You'll learn the reasons behind each step in developing a character rig and learn how that rig fits into the entire pipeline process. The authors provide a unique glimpse at the real-world problems and choices that professional Character Technical Directors face, as well as the solutions they have developed for dealing with high-end digital characters. A follow-up to "Inspired 3D Character Setup," this book takes this difficult and sough-after skill and provides in-depth explanations and techiques.

Better Game Characters by Design: A Psychological Approach (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology)
by Katherine Isbister

Games are poised for a major evolution, driven by growth in technical sophistication and audience reach. Characters that create powerful social and emotional connections with players throughout the game-play itself (not just in cut scenes) will be essential to next-generation games. However, the principles of sophisticated character design and interaction are not widely understood within the game development community. Further complicating the situation are powerful gender and cultural issues that can influence perception of characters. Katherine Isbister has spent the last 10 years examining what makes interactions with computer characters useful and engaging to different audiences. This work has revealed that the key to good design is leveraging player psychology: understanding what's memorable, exciting, and useful to a person about real-life social interactions, and applying those insights to character design. Game designers who create great characters often make use of these psychological principles without realizing it. Better Game Characters by Design gives game design professionals and other interactive media designers a framework for understanding how social roles and perceptions affect players' reactions to characters, helping produce stronger designs and better results.

* Includes extensive illustrations, game examples, interviews with game designers, and clips from popular games on the DVD to illustrate concepts and best practices
* Uses a non-technical approach appropriate for artists and designers as well as developers
* Introduces and explains key concepts from psychology and social science, including cultural and gender specific roles and perceptions, and includes design exercises to explore ideas further

Lightwave 3D 8 Cartoon Character Creation, Volume 1: Modeling & Texturing
by Jonny Gorden

Like almost all software books it comes with a CD containing project files, plug-ins, etc. You load em. Use em. Etc. I buzzed through the tutorals pretty quick and I gotta say they are easy to follow and thorough without being so basic you feel like you waste half a book getting people up to speed. We have all been there with that disappointment. This book does not do that.

It also does a great job on the process of texturing your models. Now, don't confuse that with how to create textures (there are other books that specialize in that.) What it does show you is how to apply textures to your models properly. In addition are instruction on how to test lighting, rendering and creating QuickTime VR files to view model.

Edgeloop Character Modeling For 3D Professionals Only
by Kelly L. Murdock, Eric Allen

Edgeloops are made for animation. They isolate and define major physical features, enabling you to add detail and mold the elements that give your characters personality, realistic form, and natural motion. You'll create one such character as you progress through these pages, guided by computer graphics expert Kelly Murdock and award-winning artist and animator Eric Allen. As your character grows and develops, so will your expertise in edgeloop modeling.

• Understand the techniques for modeling characters with edgeloops
• Learn to use edgeloop selection and creation features in 3ds Max®, Maya®, Softimage, and Modo
• Follow the modeling workflow to create a complete, detailed character from scratch
• Take a comparative look at point, box, loft, and other character modeling methods
• Model a detailed body form that is anatomically correct, including arms, legs, hands, and feet
• Learn which anatomical features are essential for good character modeling
• Create a realistic head with detailed facial features— nostrils, eyelashes, teeth, gums, and ears
• Enhance a character with hair and clothing
• Texture a character completely using high-resolution texture maps