One of the first “third-party” Training Books for Combustion V2.0 will be called Combustion Ground Rules, written by Todd Petersen (Published by Delmar Learning) and is scheduled for release in October 2002.
When when it comes to “learning” Combustion v2, there is not a lot of third party Combustion training materials out there, aside from the Discreet Combustion v2 courseware and the DVD/VideoTape from Ken LaRue at Technical Animations (www.techanim.com). So this book will be welcomed by the C2 community.
Amazon provides the following book description:
Master the art of using combustion to combine digital elements (such as a 3D Studio MAX rendering) with video footage or stills. The newest addition to the “Ground Rules” series, this how-to manual is one of the first resources available for computer artists and animators who want to learn how to make optimal use of combustion – a powerful Macintosh and Windows-based desktop solution from Discreet that provides a unified paint, animation and 3D composition environment in which to create cutting-edge graphics and compelling visual effects. Step-by-step tutorials based on real-world applications of combustion take center stage in this book, acquainting beginning through intermediate users with 90% of the features of their combustion software while introducing professional 2D and 3D compositing and painting techniques. Fast-paced and engaging, included tutorials provide a swift and effective means of gaining first-hand insights into the combustion interface and workflow.(end of excerpt.)
As for the author, Michael Todd Peterson, he likes to go by the name of Todd Petersen. He is the owner of MTP Grafx, an animation consulantcy firm located in Louisiana, that specializes in architectural animation, forensics, and multimedia. He has lectured in Computer Architecture at his old school, University of Tennessee, where he achieved a Bachelor of Architecture in 1992.
His MTP Grafx website is located at http://www.mtpgrafx.com/ where you can find background info and samples of his work.
Todd Petersen is also Senior Product Manager at Digimation in St. Rose, Louisiana, where he is in charge of many of the plug-ins for the 3ds max market. He serves as head of tech support and Systems admininstrator/webmaster and he supports a variety of the Digimation websites, including www.digimation.com, newsletters.digimation.com, www.maxusers.com, and beta.digimation.com.
In addition to the upcoming Combustion Ground Rules book, Todd has authored many others, including “3D Studio MAX Fundamentals” and “3D Studio MAX 2 Fundamentals”, and has contributed to “Inside AutoCAD 14,” “Inside 3D Studio MAX Volume II,” and “Inside 3D Studio MAX Volume III,” all from New Riders Publishing.