Renaissance Center animator publishes book

Release Date: 9/6/2001. Expired: 9/30/2001

To say that Jason Busby is animated about his work is an understatement. For this 31-year-old author, animation is his life’s blood. It is the love of his life and he’s the first to say so in his new book, “Mastering the Art of Production with 3D.”

Busby, a Dickson transplant from Mobile, Ala., and director of Computer Animation at The Renaissance Center, never thought of writing about his animation fascination until a publishing company approached him after he began revisions on a previous book by another author.

“One of the software packages we teach at the center is 3D Studio Max and this book focuses on many of the professional topics that are taught here,” Busby said. “In fact, the book will walk the reader through the complete process of developing a 3D animated commercial for a fictitious company. Each section presented uses the same techniques used in the actual animation industry.

“Delmar Publishing approached me after I tech-edited several books for them. They know I do a lot of 3D types of things. They called me and told me they were going to do a revision on Michele Bousquet’s book, ‘Tutorials from the Masters’ and wanted to know if I’d be interested in actually writing it.”

Busby replied that he would be glad to do it provided he could make significant changes to the old format. The publisher agreed and Busby went to work on the revisions. However, the work became so detailed the publisher decided to forget the revisions and asked Busby to write a completely new book.

Bousquet came along for the ride and is co-author on “Mastering the Art of Production.”

“This has been the most challenging project of my life,” Busby said. “It was supposed to be a 450-page book and we had difficulty getting the project started at first because the particular software wasn’t out yet that we were writing the book for. We had to find a beta copy and that took a lot of time and it started hurting us on the timeline. They needed it by mid-May and by the time we got the green light and I got the software it was mid-March.”

Busby had two months to meet the deadline, fitting his writing in whenever he could when he wasn’t working day and night at The Renaissance Center.

“I teach day classes, I teach two nights a week and I also manage a staff of 15 or 16 people in the Animation Department and suddenly I had to schedule in time for writing,” he said. “I felt that the publisher would perhaps push the deadline back and make it a little more manageable. That didn’t happen, they still wanted it by mid-May.”

Busby began writing and by the time it was finished, the book was more than 1,000 pages. It took some major editing, and more money, to reduce the book to 650 pages.

“I wrote it very simplistic and I honestly think a 12- or 13-year-old kid could pick it up and read it,” Busby said. “On the flip side, a professional who’s been employed doing this kind of work for years could get great benefit from it because there are some programming chapters in the book that are extremely advanced that you don’t see people doing.”

The book entices readers to participate in the process of taking a full 30-second animated commercial for a realistic model company - Ion Z Batteries - from concept to completion.

Readers also develop project requirements by reviewing storyboards and planning a live video shoot for 3-D element integration in just the beginning. As they progress through the book, readers will also experiment with various styles of modeling and skinning techniques, gain expertise using IK controllers; develop user interfaces to simplify complicated animation techniques and implement MaxScript for further animation control, create and apply global illumination; use procedure maps and PhotoShop to generate textures for objects in the scene; apply proper rendering techniques; and complete post-production editing with Discreet’s Combustion.

“Mastering the Art of Production” also includes a 16-page full color insert.

The price of the book on Amazon.com is $34, Busby said, which is a bargain since books that are more than 500 pages and focus on animation are around $50 or more.

“The good thing is, the last time I heard from the sales department, over 2,000 copies have already pre-sold,” Busby said. “That’s very exciting.”

Busby said without assistance from friends and co-workers at The Renaissance Center, the project could never have been completed.

He said Phillip Prahl, Joe Clark, David Aguilar, and Dustin Parsons are teachers and production artists who volunteered their time on weekends and after hours to help with step-by-step production of a 30-second commercial as Busby wrote about the process.

“For one person to sit down and actually do a professional production that’s 30 seconds long while writing a book would have just been impossible,” he said. “These guys volunteered and didn’t get anything out of it. It was fantastic of them to do that. They got their names in the book and huge praise from me because I surely couldn’t have done it without them. They were wonderful.”

Busby said the book should be available for sale in bookstores by October.

“I’m just so happy that it’s over,” he said.