Customer Reviews

The Art of Maya

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The book starts off introducing you to the world of Maya and 3D, and how they are used. At first glance, you may not relize it, but this book is jam packed with information on Maya.
It explains Modeling, Animation, Character Development, Splines, Nurbs, Use of Maya for Games,and many other subjects. Now, if your a person that knows all of Maya, and has already made great 3D animations that could appear on TechTv's "EyeDrops", then this book is not for you. But if you need a detailed understand of how the program works with you and how you can get the most of of Maya. Then get this book.

It is 225 pages long, and includes Maya Personal Learning Edition, SO EVEN IF YOU NEVER USED A 3D PROGRAM, YOU CAN START RIGHT AWAY. If you are really serious in 3D, and you want to put in that effort to go the distance, then start here. Then I might suggest purchasing more books and checking out www.digital-tutors.com as well with the video tutorials. It is an awesome combination.

Warning: Buy this book from Amazon!!!! this book is tons cheaper then when I got it in the store, so please save yourself about 20 bucks and pick this one up online.

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The ART of Maya is just that, it is first about the art one can create using A|W's Maya software package. It is part coffee table book, part inspirational book, and a general how-to as well. It does not provide nitty-gritty details of how to accomplish many things, but rather gives a good overview and direction towards possible ways to accomplish certain goals.

This may not be the first book you want when studying 3D, but it is well worth reading for its inspirational qualities. This will apply to 3d artists using any software, though Maya users will of course gain more.

The point of this book is that most volumes out there are straddled with the obligation of teaching some hard and cold how-to facts. They get bogged down with numbers, workflow directions and lots and lots of dialog boxes. There is no way around this. But it leaves little room on the pages, nor time from the author to show what can be done and how beautiful your work can be. This book is specifically about those subjects, and quite obviously is not trying to be an instructional book.

Think of purchasing this book after you have gone through much of the learning curve and are looking to take your work to a higher technical and AESTHETIC level. At that point it will be well work your time.

There are dozens of manuals and "how to" books out there for 3D artists. However, there are very few that help the reader understand the fundamentals of how the software works and why the workflow is set up the way it is. The Art of Maya explains the process of working in 3D better than anything out there. I've been a professional animator and 3D artist for over ten years and this book blew me away. The illustrations are terrific, the text is very clear, and the illustrations are amazing. Nope, it's not a manual. You won't learn which button to click while holding down the alt key, but you will come away with a better understanding of the software and the field. A great book, buy it!

Don't buy this book if you are a beginner. It's not practical - The book looks beautiful, large format, all colourful, but no substance. If I could give it 0-star, I would, but the scale would not let me.

Rock

If you're looking for an in depth detailing on how to use Maya this book isn't for you, I'd suggest reading the Maya Saavy series instead. As hobbyist Maya user for the last two years I did find this very interesting though. Unlike many technically oriented books, it visually illustrates the different parameters of the tools and methods. The examples are vivid, large and well labeled. Such as the paint effects section, you can see the difference in choosing tube length and the possibilities you have by applying pressure sensitive strokes. The back is filled with case studies and the various ways Maya is integrated into daily CG work, such as the classic Bingo animation or the morph targets used in Vampire the Masquerade game.

I recommend that users with some degree of Maya experience, that are visual learners give this book a chance. Do NOT expect to learn how to deal with the interface or skin a character, purchase a book more specialized for modelling, creating shaders, etc..

Before I purchased "Art of Maya" I looked through it at a local bookstore. I was impressed with how clearly it laid out a series of quick tips and techniques. As others have noted, it is not a "manual" nor does it claim to be. But, it shows many important techniques that a new user to 3D and Maya can get going on creating with Maya in a relatively short period of time. In many instances, the techniques shown helped clarify areas of operation that I did not understand via the built-in tutorials that came with Maya. I still have much to read in this book. I highly recommend it.

This was the first Maya book I purchased. Being that the book claims to be for "beginners" I quickly became dissappointed. I didn't even bother finishing the book at the time because I wanted to LEARN Maya, not hear about what it is capable of. I bought another book and finally got over the learning curve. I then decided to go back and read this book again. Although there are some very general concepts revealed in this book, I still came away feeling like the time was wasted.

In order for me to explain how bad this book is, allow me to compare it to a cook book... You pick up the cook book and thumb through it's pages admiring all the beautiful pictures of the things that you could be making. Eager to make a great tasting meal, you pop open the book and begin to read. It doesn't take long for you to realize that there aren't any instructions listed near ANY of the pictures! This is much the same with "The Art of Maya".... beautifully decorated in full-color pages, but it lacks the most important aspect of a computer book... the "how to" part!! This book is nothing more than an overdone advertisement for Alias|Wavefront. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against A|W, I think they're doing some fantastic stuff, but this book never should've made it to the shelves. All this book does is tell you ABOUT the program. You don't learn HOW to do anything. I have come away from this book thoroughly disappointed. SAVE YOUR MONEY! THIS BOOK ISN'T WORTH IT!!

Don't buy this expecting a reference guide or an in-depth training manual, this book is neither. If you need a manual, go for 'Learning Maya 4' by Alias Wavefront instead.

The 'Art of Maya' follows in the footsteps of other titles by Alias Wavefont in being quite expensive, but if you are new to the Maya software and to 3D work in general then this book is probably for you. It has 226 pages of inspirational information which gives a great overview of what the Maya software is capable of, hints and tips on how to approach different modeling tasks and explanations of workflow and functionality. It succeeds in wetting the appetite of the reader, if you didn't believe the Maya tagline of 'Can you Imagine' you will after you read this book.

I'm an Animator and an Animation/VFX teacher and I find this book like an illustrated catalogue (printed on high quality paper) of what can you do with Maya. It goes through the production proccess of animation in a VERY general way. Recommended just for newbies and summer courses.