Customer Reviews

Advanced Maya: Character Modeling

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a trained, certified Maya user I have never fully explored modeling human characters as my work never required it. But like most 3D artists I am always hoping to expand my abilities, and as a result I have completed just about every single tutorial online and none seemed to really get me where I wanted to be. This DVD, however, will get you there. The Author's technique is easy to follow, produces a clean and polished result, and just makes sense where other tutorials simply fall apart if you don't understand one step. I would definitely recommend this DVD to current Maya users, though new users might be lost early on since the Author assumes a working knowledge of the Maya interface and settings.

The only reason I give it a 4 instead of 5 is that the Author spends a lot of time moving points around and spinning around his model. While you too will be doing this in the course of building your character, you probably don't need to see him do it for 15 minute stretches to get the idea. There seems to have been no editing of the material, so there are one or two times where he makes a mistake and has to back up several steps, which if you were following along too closely means you too will have to back up and unlearn a step or two. Editing, fellas, editing.
They probably could have used this wasted time more wisely, perhaps giving a better overview of WHY you are doing this particular step, how it fits into the big picture, and less with the "how."

That said, the Author really does know his stuff and is a good teacher, so I still highly recommend this for anyone looking to learn character modeling.

The Advanced Maya: Character Modeling DVD is an informative collection of video tutorials designed for the animator trying to learn or advance their character-modeling skills inside of Maya.

I've never been good at modeling characters but I quickly learned from Kenny and Jim's on-screen tutelage the techniques and skills necessary to create the figure featured on the cover of the disc. The authors provide a good example of the craft that enabled this fumble-thumbed animator to build a complex subject with a program that I had little experience.

I'm a kinesthetic student so watching their examples was a great way for me to learn. It's like watching "New Yankee Workshop" for 3D artists working in Maya. I surprised myself to see how easily and quickly I created these complex shapes following their instruction.

I recommend this disc for every character modeler working in Maya whether you're a novice or have experience with the software. Kenny and Jim have created a solid curriculum that will enable any serious modeler to advance their craft.

This video is amazing. I struggle so hard for so long trying to make a decent human model and spent so much money on other books. This is great, its a perfect walk through on how to make a model. I'm on video 41 of 50 and its looking great and I've gained so much confidence that now I start to watch the videos and already know how to go about makeing the next part before he shows me. If you want to make human models then get this its perfect forget about wasting money on any of the books out there.

Advanced Maya: Character Modeling DVD

I agree with some of the points made by other reviewers. The movies need more of the "why" as opposed to the "how". I found myself wondering at many points, "Why am I doing this? What is the ideal shape and form for this part of the body? What is the end topology supposed to look like? Why is this OK? Will we fix this later?" There is explanation from time to time, but I found myself with a lot of other questions as well. While it still is cool to watch the entire model made from scratch to finish, I really wanted a more interactive DVD. Sometimes I found myself wanting to click in the movie player to try to spin the model around or zoom in, because sometimes it's not very clear what's going on, especially when vertices get crowded.

On that note, this DVD probably isn't best followed vertex-by-vertex. It should be used as a guide if anything, not entirely as a step-by-step start-to-finish tutorial. One annoying thing (especially when the model becomes complex and Maya slows down) is having to wait and wait and wait. An included speedup feature would've been nice. When I fast forwarded with the time slider, I was afraid of missing some of the dialogue.

So I ended up using MPlayer (free download) instead of Quicktime Player to watch the videos, because it offered a convenient way of speeding up/slowing down the playback time by 10% steps. Also convenient is being able to step forward or backward by 10 seconds at a time using the keyboard, not by dragging the time slider with the mouse. Watching it on fast forward makes the voice chipmunk-like, but it's better than sitting through a lot of slow, redundant vertex pushing and pulling.

I think the book (or booklet, I should say) should've been a lot more extensive, maybe include the full text of what was said in the videos. What really would've helped is a FAQ, answering why things are done and why things are OK or not OK, etc. etc.-- that type of deal. Also would've been nice to have a reminder list of techniques used to create and refine different parts of the body. It sucks having to sift through the videos to find certain parts.

The DVD is a Verbatim DVD-R, as opposed to a machine-pressed DVD, which is kind of disappointing since it cost $45. And not just that, it's a poor quality DVD-R. I'm guessing that's where the other reviewer was having playback problems. The DVD manufacturer is branded MCC (Mitsubishi Chemical Corp) which hasn't gotten very good rep in the past. I actually had to copy the movies onto my external drive on a Mac in lab at school. All the Dell desktop computers at my school lab refused to read it, and my PC laptop computer struggles with it from time to time.

But otherwise, this DVD is still a very valuable resource and a good watch. It's hard to come by people in real life who will sit with you through an entire model from start to end. I'm really glad I found this because character modeling for me is very difficult and it helps a lot to see these videos.

Kinda disappointed that it didn't continue on to texturing and hair and animation, especially since I'm curious what topology differences there are for animation, but I guess this is already a lot of content for one DVD. :P

I have been using the maya software for 5 months now and would say I am an intermediate user. Modelling the head and the body was something i never got right. I have tried it all, spend a lot on useless books.
then I came across this product Advanced Maya: Character Modeling while surfing the net. I read the reviews and said "yea let me try this" but I kept thinking this is going to be another failure.
I got the product,watched it and worked through all the movies.It took me a week ( every night during the weekdays and the entire weekend).
And finally I made the lady. I was so happy.
It has been a month since I got the product and I have produced several other figures of my own since then.
It worked for me.

Great material!! you get right onto setting up Maya for your efficient workflow and then, yes, modeling!! :D Although some almost intermediate knowledge of maya is needed, like for example, having already modeled for organic models: when using Maya 6, when you extrude the edges on the polygons you might get two separate vertex points under default Maya 6 settings. So it's good to already know what to do(like combine 'em) and not panic! Another situation with Maya 6, when converting from Poly to Subd's, having to cleanup first!! since it's modeled on Maya 5, such things change!! but don't panic. Overall great material, can't wait for the sequel volumes!!! kudoos Trinity for putting out such great stuff from Kenny!! Let's hope the texturing volume lives up to it's predecesor.

I'm not a big fan of writing reviews, but this DVD should have never been created. it basically takes you through the process of sculpting a character in maya. You'll end up with a character with geometry that isn't good for animation or anything for that matter. If that's what you want I would recommend getting a book on Zbruzh instead. There is nothing advanced about the material in this DVD, not only that, but the information is simply useless to someone who wants to model for production. There are a lot of cheaper and better resources out there than this. I gave it one star because there is no negative range on the rating. Please don't waste your time getting this!

It would probably help alot if there was a book that came with it. DOUBLE CHECK if you like a ONLY VIDEO TUTORIAL. The details of the video was kinda like most other reviews saying that it was more of a show you what is done process instead of how to do it and why.

Also, there needs to be alot of editing done on the videos to cut down the tedious process and get straight to the point of problem areas...etc. The clicking sound of the mouse was kind of annoying too. For a item at this price you would think they'd take a little more care in creating it.

With all said, I'd give it a 3 stars.

I purchased this tutorial to help me better learn maya and it really turned out to be great asset to me tutorial collection. it is very easy to follow along as long as you have a basic understanding of maya tools so I give it a good review. GF

This is by far the best and most comprehensive training product I have found. It covers everything in hours and hours of hi-res quicktime movies, with no unexplained gaps. I have read a lot of Maya books, tutorials and even done Alias' own patchmodel head DVD. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING compares to this. And the value is extraordinary.