Customer Reviews

Mastering Maya 8.5

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

 

 

I bought this book along with "Learning Autodesk Maya 8: Foundation" here on Amazon, and have found Mastering Maya 8.5 to be a much better help. I am relatively new to Maya, but have a 3D background (and 2d of course), applying it to mechanical engineering applications using other Autodesk products for around 10 years.

My work experience (even though it is in a different field than what Maya is used for) has given me a leg up on learning Maya (sort of, as Maya is its OWN world entirely compared to all the other programs I've learned, as they are just for modeling, not animation, texturing, lighting, etc.). Just so everyone knows that my review on this book is also tainted by my work history.

Using this along with Gnomon Workshop DVD's has made me a lot more proficient at what I need to do for work in the real world a LOT faster than trying to use "Learning AutoDesk Maya 8, Foundation".

I would recommend it for the intermediate 3D modeler/artist over all the other books I've looked through in friend's libraries, especially if you are actually USING 8.5 as opposed to older versions of Maya, of course :)

Very very good advice immediately in Chapter 1, regarding learning Maya in general, "The Maya interface can be a bit intimidating, and it's not fair to expect yourself to pick it up right up and remember where everything is"... also "Try not to rush it.." Maya is a large mountain of a program, and this book has helped me along my path quite a bit.

For the new Maya user who has a 3d background in other programs, I would recommend this as a first book, even though it has the word "mastering" in the title. Also, the Gnomon workshop DVD's on Maya are very good also if you can afford them or borrow them from a friend.

This book isn't bad but you don't really get to Master Maya with it. Mastering Maya 8.5 does provide a pretty thorough overview. I had to fly through this book in 10 weeks because the college I attend is on the quarter system. It's a decent reference book, however, it doesn't give specific answers but gives the reader a more general idea. I bought Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting for the next quarter and it goes into detailed explanations for every project. Maya is an extremely intensive program and time is needed to really understand it. Mastering Maya 8.5 is a great foundation book that takes you through the most basic steps everyone should know before continuing further.

This is a great intermediate-advanced book for those who have some knowledge of Maya. It teaches all the techniques you need to know to use Maya 8 to the full. Probably too advanced for a beginer.

I bought this book to help understand nCloth in Maya and it was very helpful with explaining the different properties and how to create different effects. I can't speak for the other sections in the book but the chapters on cloth were very helpful for me.

Hi I recently purchased Mastering Maya 8.5 for my son who is doing animation. The book is very informative and helpful to his studies. I was also very pleased with the delivery time and service.Unfortunadly I can not go into any more details or specific because the book was not for me and have no idear about the books topic.

I have gone through this book page by page and done all the exercises. It is full of errors. They say one thing when they mean another, refer to illustrations that aren't there, tell you to do things that don't work. There isn't a single chapter or exercise that doesn't have some sort of error in it that takes forever to troubleshoot and circumvent. This book needs some serious editing. The only reason more people haven't given it a bad review is that I don't think anyone has actually read the whole thing in detail.

This is THE book to have for the beginner and expert alike. I found its written explanation very easy-to-follow, and the illustrations are helpful as well.

I was actualy surprised at the way my items where packaged. Mastering Maya8.5 is a pretty big book and it ended up being shrink wrapped with another item and these items weren't boxed. In putting these two items together and packaging them the way they were the book ended up with horrible corner damage. This is the first time I have ever been dissapointed with Amazon.