Customer Reviews

Mastering Maya Complete 2

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

With such a complex program as Maya, you really need all the help you can get right at the beginning. Unfortunately the official set of manuals, though very good, are not really the best way to learn this fantastic 3D package and tend to be better purely as reference. Even the Learning Maya book that comes with the package can be misleading and overly complex for the beginner. Ideally you'd have a tutor sat next to you - or the next best thing, a copy of Mastering Maya Complete. I learnt more in one hour reading this book, going through the tutorials than I did in several days struggling through the official manuals. Within minutes you can be creating models and getting to grips with the wonderful interface - all explained in easy to understand terms, with very useful tips and notes as you go along. Even though my copy of Maya is 2.5, the book serves extremely well and is a damn-sight more intuitive than the other manuals. Very highly recommended - put your official manuals on the shelf (where they look very nice Indeed) and get this book - it's all you'll need if you're a beginner - it's probably all you'll need for most things ... Great!

Our book is 880 pages with numerous tutorials PER chapter. We have included everything from making your character walk, run, grab objects, throw objects; to in-depth physics of setting up particle simulations, soft bodies, MEL scripting; to modeling, lighting, texturing, rendering; to PaintEffects (which no other book covers).

We also have interviews: ILM's Habib Zargarpour, who created the crashing pods for Star Wars: Episode One

Duncan Brinsmead of Alias|Wavefront, who wrote

95 percent of PaintEffects

Mark Sylvester, also of Alias|Wavefront Who founded Wavefront, and who now spends his time educating customers about how the software has been developed, and where they are going in the future.

We have tried our best to provide you with the tools, information and examples (on the CD) that will get you using and understanding Maya as fast as possible. Maya is incredibly complex, and therefore our book had to be twice as long as the others out there in order to cover it all!

We welcome contact with all who read the book who have questions, and have provided 2 support websites for the book.

If anyone has any other questions, I'll be happy to get back to you ASAP, and to answer any and all questions.

We hope you enjoy this book, it was our dream to make it the standard text on Maya.

We think we've succeeded!

This is an excellent book. I have already recommended it to my character animation class at the School Of Visual Arts.

Mastering Maya Complete 2 is a well rounded, well written presentation of maya that goes far beyond simple instruction. The authors offer that (unfortunately) rare commodity in books of this type: insight.

It is obvious that the authors have sorted through maya's extensive tool set and found what works ELEGANTLY. We are the beneficiaries.

This is a great, dive right in kind of book, that makes Maya much easier. However I had to write a review to warn people of numerous, frustrating errors. I'm surprised nobody picked up on them. Makes me think that everyone praising the book probably didn't work through the exercises in depth.

At first I thought it was just me. But over and over again I had to stop working because the authors failed to provide the correct sequence of steps. For instance, in the first exercise in the book, on page 13, you create a simple cone and then move some of its points to make a curved fin for a rocket. The book says: "press the F8 key to go to component selection mode. Drag a selection marquee around the point at the tip (it will turn yellow), and then move the point down..." Sorry, but this will not work. It should say: press F8 to enter component selection mode, press q to enter select mode, drag your selection marquee over the point at the tip (it will turn yellow), press w to enter move mode, and then move the point. If you follow along exactly as it is written you'll quickly get frustrated as the point stubbornly refuses to move. Why? Because the book never tells you to change to move mode. Unfortunately, this is only one of many errors that make it unnecessarily difficult on the beginning student.

However, since I do like the exercises I cut this book a big break. Its typical of highly skilled teachers (i.e.: the authors) to skip steps because they know the material so well that its become second nature.

I will say this: if you persevere and work through the authors mistakes, you'll crank out some great work in no time.

After going through the entire book and making notes in the borders of all the errors of explanation and omissions of details, I've come to the conclusion above. This book is NOT for the totally inexperienced CG person. I must conclude that this text was not given to a beginner for proffreading. However, this is not to disparage the software itself. Maya is not an easy program to master. Most of the exercises in this book are easy to follow, but some of the missed explanations and dropped details can be irritating to the extreme, e.g. there are numerous ommisions to use the Middle Mouse button for certain actions (Maya requires a three button mouse to operate). Overall, I give this book a "thumbs up", but the book reader MUST have an ability to problem solve.

It explains every tool and function. Most importantly it has "real world" tutorials to show how each tool fits into the modeling, animation, rendering, and effects workflow.

The offical maya manual explains functions well, but leaves you guessing as to when those functions can be actually used. I suppose that is part of the challenge of being a 3d artist, but if you're lazy like me and like to be held by the hand of professionals instead of wasting many hours/days experimenting, get this book. you'll cover ALOT of ground in very little time(compared to A/W's expensive maya encyclopedia).

I'm looking forward for the 3.5 Complete revision from the authors!

Mastering Maya 2 is the Bible of Maya, if you have Maya 2 you ought have this book because is essential. Maya 2 Character Animation is a book of knacks and Masyering Maya 2 is a consultation book. Any doubt is explained in this book.

As a newbie to the (often challenging) Maya environment, I have found this book to be indispensable. It's the kind of roll-your-sleeves-up-and-get-busy book which gives you plenty of hands-on exercises. Some of the exercises are very quick 'try this tool' examples, while others are large projects spanning several chapters. By the time you've worked your way through all the topics covered, and experimented with the concepts which are introduced, you can't help but learn a lot. I especially like the way that this book puts so many Maya tools in the context of a workflow (unlike the Maya manuals, most of which are very abstract). If the tutorials which accompany the software left you wanting more, then this is probably the book for you!

I have started using maya almost 3 mounths ago and I started it with this book right away. And although I am not new to 3d animation and I can say that I have read various 3d animation books but I have to say that I was realy amazed by the lights this book put in my way of using MAYA. And I sort of envy the authors for thair ability in using the software and thair ability in comunicating with others in a understandable way. They dont pay me to write this thing But for the efforts they have put in their job I just couldn't resist to share this with you guys.

I am in the process of reading this book and felt I needed to let every other student what a great book this is. Some people such as students do not have access to manuals, so learning the basics from computer books can be very difficult if not impossible. This book is very easy to read and understand for a software book, not an easily accomplished feat for so many. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn Maya plain and simple. The book covers every topic I wanted to learn thus far and I feel this purchased has only enhanced my knowlege tremendously.