Customer Reviews

Learning Maya 5: MEL Fundamentals

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Finding a MEL scripting book with useful, simple examples has been quite challenging for me. MEL Fundamentals does provide a good basic foundation for
understanding what MEL script can be used for, but it could show more...

The book is broken down into several chapters, which cover the basics of the following:

-Understanding what MEL Script is used for
-Using MEL Script to customize the Maya interface
-Using MEL Script to create custom GUIs to control nodes in your scene (Graphical User Interfaces)
-Variables and Expressions
-Conditional Statements (If Else, If Else If, If Else If Else)
-Loops (FOR and FOR IN loops)
-Procedures

The book was written for Maya 5.0 - and I have yet to see an updated text that reflects the most current version of Maya to date (v 8.5 as of this review).

There are several 'real world' examples that will further help students understand how powerful MEL Script really is. One thing I wish the book covered is how to deal with negative numbers in expressions. MEL Fundamentals is sparse in several areas, but this book's intended focus is to provide a quick introduction and nothing more.

The book includes a DVD with all examples already typed in. In addition, the supplied code works in all versions of Maya I have used it with (v5.0, v6.0, v7.0, v8.0 and v8.5).

If you're curious about MEL script and want to learn more, this book provides a decent introduction. Intermediate MEL developers should look elsewhere for in-depth coverage.

I have not bought this book till now but my friend has and he liked it very much. He should have given a review but he is lazy. So, I am doing his part. A very good book to learn MEL expressions and make use of them in animation. The DVD has some cool stuff focusing on Maya 5 Features and MEL Fundamentals!