Customer Reviews

Introducing Maya 2009

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

 

 

First I would like to thank Wiley customer service for promptly sending me a new "Introducing Maya 2009" book after I called to inform them my book was falling apart. Like some other reviews on here stated, the binding started coming apart, and pages/chunks of the book fell out after a few days of use. They sent a replacement UPS Ground, and it arrived in perfect condition.

As for the book itself I found the tutorials well written, and easy to follow. I would recommend this book as the best starter book for learning Maya 2009. Using this book my transition from using 3DS Max to Maya was a breeze.

OMG.. This book is amazing. very easy to understand, even I wasn't supposed to enter in this complex 3 Dimensional world of Maya, but when I got this book and started reading, it attracted me so much. This book helps me to understand what 3D is all about and what Maya 2009 software can do to make an artificial 3D word-
CD included with this book is very helpful - also I want to appreciate the paper quality, I wasn't expecting a that good quality book in very reasonable price...

I just Love this book.

As the header suggests, this book by the seasoned Maya Veteran Dariush Derakhshani, is easily one of the best Maya books around. The rest of my review will explain why...
I am a film and animation graduate from Arizona State. I have received two degrees, one in film, and one in animation... Over the course of my education, I was privledged with the opportunity to help teach several animation classes over the course of roughly 3 years. Needless to say, there were many, many, many books that we attempted to use and all of which did not meet the kinds of needs we had for the students...
Maya is a complicated program. Actually, it is more like 7+ programs rolled into one beast of a program. Most people find that after a few tutorials (no matter what book) that they lose interest in the subject fairly quick. For those few that stick it through and fall in love with it, this book actually points you in the right direction to learn the basics, and push you to discover things on your own. Software tutorials present a unique challenge because when a student is in the process of completing the tutorial, comprehension is usually lost. There is no thinking, it is usually just a matter of following directions. This book challenges that by giving you instructions, and forcing you to learn what you have done through various forms of repetition. It teaches a foundation without sacrificing quality, which is something of a problem for most beginner books. As an owner of several books from the Sybex line, including this one, I would highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to try it, or anybody who wants to take it seriously. Our students created projects of much greater quality after using this book, and I can think of no better beginners book to launch anyone into the world of Maya.

I'm not reviewing the book, rather I'm just updating on the quality of the books binding. I contacted the Sybex customer support to ask them about the binding and whether or not it had been fixed yet. As of 8/09 (August 2009), the binding is reported to be fixed and should no longer have the problem.

[02:51:46 PM] Jay: Yes, the binding issues had been fixed as on 08/09.

Just thought I'd let everyone know.

The author does a reasonably good job in guiding the novice in using the endless tools of Maya. The main problem is this book literally falls apart. It reflects poorly on the book binder's workmanship. The shoddy nature of the book binding negatively impacts the ability to learn this very difficult application. Kudo's for the author, the Bonx cheer for Sybex.
Jim S

This is one the texts I used for a Graduate course in Animation. This text seems to be designed for intermediate users. If you are a beginner, then you should check out some other book (e.g: AutoDesk Maya Foundation) first or else you might be overwhelmed. As another reader pointed out, there is more text than pictures in this book, so that makes it a little difficult to follow at times. The comments about binding quality are absolutely true. Within 3 days of my using this book, pages started to fall apart, which was very annoying - hopefully this issue is fixed in the more recent releases of this book. You will need a fair amount of time (possible couple of months) to go through the entire book but if you are interested in understanding and using Maya at an Intermediate skill level, this book is something you should definitely consider.

Great reference material, a lil tough to go through as a teachers aid.. but a good reference non the less.

The book is fairly tough for a beginner stand point. It definitely is more text than photo tutorials. I believe it's deficient in that aspect. But again its not a bad book just tough for ones that are trying to pick it up.

I am on my second copy of the book in as many months and already it is falling apart. The minute you open the book the binding disintegrates and the resale value of the book plummets to nil. It's hard to work when one must keep picking up page chunks off the floor and putting the book back in order. Additionally, we found one of the files on the cd to be corrupt.

The text itself is fairly easy to follow but I can't imagine that it is so much better than other instruction books as to warrant putting up with defective binding.

THIS BOOK HAS ALOT of good issues covered and very nicely explained! MY ONLY ISSUE IS THE BACK PAGE HAS THE CD ATTACHED TOO CLOSE TO THE INSIDE FLAP THAT WHEN OPENED OR FLEXED AROUND CRACKS THE EXTERIOR OF THE CD. When mailed the CD is handled so it become flexed slightly and the cd which is so tightly attached to the inside of the book becomes cracked. You have been warned...the seller could package the book in a box as long as the book doesn't moderately bend the CD could be unharmed.