Customer Reviews

Introducing Maya 2008

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have been doing visual fx for a living for 15 years and have read quite a few books over the years... This is definitely one of the better one I have used. If you have little or no experience with Maya and need to learn the basics, this is an excellent book. The tutorials are fun and very well explained. A great beginners' book.

This book just ROCKS! written in a telling style, with a bit of humor and generally easy to follow. I am happy that Dariush Derakshani explaines why he uses certain settings on functions, and what the results are if you don't do it that way.

only but a few small errors now and than, but nothing more than a wrong option button mentioned or so wich had more books about 3D programs I own so that is not realy a minus.

The first two chapter are nothing more but general information(naturally), wich may be boring and of point to some people, but thereafter the fun starts with especially chapter four in wich you will make a complicateted object of wich you can be proud of when you are finished.In that chapter also, you can find out that there is more than one manner to accomplish something. One time I could not find a function Dariush explained, and ended up using a differend approach, with the same result:P.

I am not yet finished with the book but sofar, I love it... I can see my understanding of 3D and Skills growing everyday.

This is an excellent book for beginners, weather you are taking a class or flying solo it has everything you need to learn the fundamentals!

Great info in this book from Mr. Derakhshani. Very up to date using autodesk's most recent Maya 2008 and info on lots of shortcuts to make things less overwhelming. Mr. Derakhshani has written many books on 3d and it shows from his ability to make quite a complex program so easy to grasp.

Joe

This book is pretty easy to use, but it has a main drawback and it is that it lacks of figures. For someone like me that learns through images it gets a little bit difficult to read all things written on it. But putting aside that small detail I recommend it. Nice practices and straight to the point, so you can learn what is intended to learn.

I purchased this book because I am taking a 3d modeling class that uses the Maya program. I have never done 3d modeling, although I have worked with many of adobe's programs like photoshop and illustrator. So I had an idea of how tools worked and that sort of thing. This book, does an amazing job at teaching how different "tools" work. First of all, this book is easy to read. You arent inundated with technical terms. Instead, the author slowly talks you through the process of how 3d modeling and animation occurs. Although I havent finished reading the book, I have already learned alot. There are tutorials that the book includes that really push you to learn how this program works. I highly recommend this book!

I was a little skeptical at first on whether or not to buy this book because I had heard from a professor of mine that it wasn't really worth it. He was dead wrong. This book has so much info in it and if you need to learn Maya or just look up how to do one thing, this is the book for you.

Do not purchase this if you are planning to use the support CD to learn Maya. The book claims to include the Maya Personal Learning Edition software with this book which is needed for the tutorials if you don't own Maya. The web site doesn't provide the key to unlock the software making the support CD useless. Don't waste your money if you are planning to use the CD

This book is a great start to MAYA. It is fairly limited but other books as expected give you the real meaty information.
Support from Amazon and the publishers was great with respect to the CD.

The online classes with maya springboard ([...]) updates the online tutorials at odd times and not reliable as of 2008 october and november course. The audio some time's lags with instructors due to my not so great DSL and i easily have been lost in my notes a few times.

I have never used Maya, but was savvy with XSI. This book is GREAT if you know the general concepts of 3d applications but still learning. With the syllabus from Maya springboard paired up with this book, ive been on track. I'm glad i made the investment with this book and find it to be a great value at [...](i paid full at a local store.) You wont regret paying for it at under [...] bucks here on amazon.