Customer Reviews

Maya 5 Fundamentals

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

 

 

To start I'll let you know I own Maya Fundamentals 4.5, 5.0, and Learning Maya 5: Foundation books. I only bought the Foundation book because it was required for a college course I took.

I recommend 4.5 book over the 5.0 for two reasons:

1. The CD is much better, in that the lessons are a playback resolution of 800 x 600. The 5.0 is higher and thus "fuzzier" and harder to read when exact numbers are given for tutorials and you pause to make sure you have exact coordinates.

2. The lessons do not flow as well, in my opinion, in 5.0. For example, there is an instructional error in extruding a surface in chapter five in the first lesson. If I was totally green to computer graphics, I'd have not figured it out. The first tutorial you need to extrude the face on the "Y" not on the "Z" axis as intructed in print. (Yeah, it's kind of a "duh" moment.)

I do like the tutorial covered on Polygons in Chapter 5. I think the demonstration of using the sculpt polygon tool is great. This book does hit modeling with polygons harder, which I do like.

However, I suggest Maya Fundamentals 4.5 if you are brand new to Maya. The CD is much more helpful, the lesson flow very well and I do find the narator much more "in-command" of the subject matter being presented (it doesn't sound like he is following a script laying on the desktop).


I do think that if you wish to pursue more modeling instruction, this book does offer more for polygon modeling.

I have to give it the additonal star for the coverage of polygonal modeling.

I do suggest Maya Fundamentals 4.5 first, regardless of which verision of Maya you are running.

First off, the reason I bought the book is because it's required text for a Maya class I'm taking and the instructors decided on this book before it's release - big mistake! This book is loaded with inaccurate, vague or mislabeled information and the DVD isn't much better, in one of the DVD tutorials the instructor stops and backtracks several times because his "script" is off. Please save yourself the complete frustration if you are learning Maya, and look elsewhere for something more helpful.

Buy this book for the DVD not the text. I have read many books written about Maya and this is the worst. It fails for two or three reasons the first being cheap production values. Trying to follow the tutorials is like finding a white duck in a snow storm. You are supposed to follow the intricate instructions by looking at example screen captures from the actual program. The printing is so flat in contrast that trying to figure out what the authors are referring to is impossible in many examples.
The second reason for this not so positive review is that the authors instruct you on how to re-create the tutorials from a very non intuitive approach. You are to type numbers in fields to get the desired affects in the tutorial. I found myself more curious how they came up with the numbers as that would have given me more useful information than plugging in abstract ( as far as the reader is concerned) numbers. It was like following a food recipe exactly word for word only to find there was a typo and the amounts were incorrect.
As a last resort, I put in the DVD of movies of each tutorial to see if I could get a better idea of what was supposed to be happening. I thought this was the solution until I got to Chapter 5 and then I experience the strangest thing I had ever seen on a training video. It becomes apparent that the person doing the tutorial demo is NOT one of the authors.
The other thing that becomes apparent is that the lessons are filled with mistakes in the data you enter and in process. I am trying to follow along with the tutorial and I am now hearing the speaker say " I can't figure out what the author meant by this"" or " these numbers do seem to be correct". I felt sorry for the guy. He was reading from a script that seemed to follow the book text but he was wandering in the woods at midnight. There were times when he just stopped talking and I knew he was trying to figure out how to continue the demo.
I must blame whoever produced the DVD because the the person doing the tutorials obviously had never seen the "script" before. There were no second takes. There were instances where even I could see where following the instruction was going to cause a problem with the model. He couldn't get it close to what was intended in many instances. When I went to the next movie the problem was corrected - no explanations.
This was such an amateurish production from beginning to end that I felt I had to write this review. Maya is such a deep program that any help furthering your skill would be a welcome one- as long as it doesn't make the complicated more obtuse as this book does..... SAVE YOU MONEY or buy it for the DVD or better yet buy a better book. (The actual cover art is different from the photo in this listing)

First off, I'm no stranger to 3D work. I do still art, not animation, so granted a lot of the animation-related training is helpful but not absolutely necessary. However, I got Maya and this book because I wanted to do much more detailed, more powerful render jobs for my artwork. I've sold numerous book cover designs and my abstract art has appeared in a number of artshows. I wanted to finally step up to the big boys and do quality work at a new level of ability.

This book starts out very promisingly--the first three-four chapters are great for giving you a primer on 3D history, the Maya interface (okay, for Windows users, but it's not a hard variation to figure out the Mac format). You can do the basic models and what-not fine.

Where this breaks down for me is around Chapter Five. First off, the WMV tutorial files wouldn't play on Mac's Windows Media Player (and I have the most recent version with all updated codecs). I tried playing the files through other media players--RealPlayer, Media Player X, etc., and all of them could only play the audio--pretty useless if I need a visual cue to see what the book is describing in a given step. Second, the Mac files in general are a mess. This was obviously developed by people who only used the Windows side, and did minimal research on what Mac users (who frankly make up the majority of high-end professionals in film and art who even use Maya) need to know to use this product. Given how many people out there purchase and use Macs for this kind of stuff (and despite PC defenders' popularity, it's unavoidable--Macs are more stable and user-friendly for graphic designers and power-users), I think the lack of support for these users in this book is a bit unprofessional on the authors' parts.

Also, the printed images showing the examples are in black-and-white...this is particularly silly in the section talking about primary and subtractive colors (Ooh, wow! A gray, darker-gray, and black circle mix to form...nothing!). But it's crucial when you start seeing problems with your steps and try to back-track. The contrast on these images is HORRIBLE--you can't make out a lot of them, especially important when so much detail is expected out of a given picture (try Chapter 5's project on building a room--you're expected to somehow make out the difference in moving a few microscopic vertices dots from one figure to another, when you can barely make out the black-on-gray images of what you're supposed to be working on).

I enjoyed this book about halfway through, and so it gets about halfway my stars of credit. There are probably better books out there, not to mention just diving in and using the product and learning on your own. Take this book with a grain of salt. I give it positive marks for effort, but it falls apart in simple presentation of tutorial materials in a clear and useful print or electronic form.

Also, I have to nitpick that there are the inevitable parts here and there where the book's steps are outright wrong (I'm not sure if this is related to the Win/Mac issue or not). A step would tell me to Extrude Face, except that the program is telling me it can't do it because I just subdivided the cube model into too many parts to just select one and extrude it like I'm told to. Or I was told by one step in the animation projects to open the Duplicate options box, only every time I clicked on it, the program wouldn't open this box, though the actual ctrl-d command duplicated fine. Just little bits and pieces here and there that made me think this book is a bit overpriced for what it ultimately delivers.

This is the only viable low-cost training resource for people new to Maya, as far as I'm concerned. I actually worked through the first edition when I was new to Maya myself, coming from other 3D software. I received a review copy of this edition from the publisher.

Features:
DVD with video tutorials illustrating the book content: Maya 5 Fundamentals bridges the giant expanse between the extremely expensive video products that have comparable quality information, and on the other side, a shanty town of lower-cost pedagogical materials that include books of widely varying quality and homemade CDR and DVDR videos that tend toward specificity and sophomorism.

Hotkey tear-out card: I happen to think it's better for the student to copy hotkeys into a notebook that is dedicated to Maya, but the fact that it is included shows that the authors know what is important.

Brief history of computer graphics: this book is covering the bases quickly to get everyone on the same page by chapter 2.

Tips on building a PC to run Maya: they hit this issue on the head. It really doesn't take a cutting-edge machine - just the right amount of power where you need it. CG beginners using this book as an entry point into a new world of creativity will find a friend in this brief section.

Extremely well organized overview for each chapter: this includes key terms, hotkeys to memorize, and a simple outline of the chapter.

I'd say that the order and pacing of curriculum is better than in the first edition. The student is up and running quickly with modeling and animation, but not too far ahead of the theory and technique that make them work.

Workflow tips: how to organize project folders, using auto-save, etc. This is valuable stuff. One of the hardest things on which to find good info is *how a program thinks*. M5F has this in spades.

Great introduction to rendering and Paint Effects: Maya isn't widely known as a great renderer for some reason - I guess because of its speed issues and quirks - but it has much more potential for realizing your imagination than any other integrated renderer of which I am aware. This book does a great job of getting you started toward *thinking* in terms of the renderer's nuts and bolts, plus it gets you started with Paint Effects.

Price: I am amazed that you can find *any* book on this subject with a DVD, color plates, professional editing and layout, and an index for this price. When you consider that this is by far the best book of its kind, it's a no-brainer.

Regrets: I would like to have seen a discussion forum on the book's support site, with the authors active in discussion (i.e. free tech support).

The poly modeling section chooses an approach and sticks with it. I guess this is fine, considering that the main purpose of the book is teach *Maya* - not every technique in all of 3D. However, I would personally rather see students learning box modeling, rather than the piece-and-stitch method presented here. I know a lot of people get good results from this method (as does the author in the female model example), but I just don't agree with the philosophy of this modeling method. My advice is to work through this section anyway to get a feel for the tools in Maya, then search for "box modeling" and "spiraloid" on the web to start learning the true art of digital sculpture.

First edition had Jim Lammers performing most of the video demonstrations. The new edition features an artist from Lammers' animation & VFX company. The demonstrator in M5F is knowledgable and pleasant enough, but I more enjoyed Lammers' spur-of-the moment insights and exposition. It is apparent, though, that Lammers - or someone similarly talented - was responsible for outlining the book and composing exercises that illustrate a great number of concepts clearly and efficiently. There is absolutely nothing *wrong* with the video tutorials; I simply enjoyed them more in the first edition.

Summary: If you are coming to Maya for the first time - either from another piece of 3D software or as a complete beginner - and you have less than a couple grand to spend on training, this is the only option, as far as I'm concerned. It is a noticeable improvement over the first edition, and a head-and-shoulders winner over anything else in this niche.

I don't know where the venom in the negative review for this book is coming from. I have plenty of experience with both Maya and publishing, and this is an impressive effort. If you have any doubts, ask around on some online Maya forums.

Ok. Where do I start? People say this is not a good book, it's not well explaned, and a lot of other bad things about the book, but believe me, it's a great book, one of the best maya books for beginners 'in Maya', not in computer graphics.

This book teaches you how to use Maya as a professional, but there is no magic, you need to practice and study hard to become a good artist, not just go through pages and pages without getting the idea of how it all works.

Don't forget you'll have to read other books too, not only software books, so be careful before judging authors and their books for being 'not good explained.

There is bad books, but in my opinion this is not one of them.

It is a tutorial book. In order to get answers to your questions, you need to comb through a step-by-step description of how to build a lobby or create a coat; and you never know why you are asked to do thing in one way and not the other. If you need information, explanation or basic understanding of how and why Maya works - do not buy this book.

The tutorials appear to be really neat when you first look through them, however after trying to go with them step by step you realize that the author has occaisonally skipped a step or is unclear about excatly what you are doing in that step making it hard or even impossible for you to continue the tutorial.

When you watch the videos on the dvd to clear up your misunderstanding with the tutorial, you find that the narrator to the video is having the same problem witht he tutorial as you are and you find yourself having to backtrack your steps with him until you can both (or he can) figure out what went wrong or what the author was being unclear about.

I would consider myself somewhere between an amateur and intermediate Maya user, and have only a few maya books...but I would suggest NOT going with this one. It will confuse and frustrate you more than it will teach you and while the first tutorial may prove promising and somewhat helpful, the rest of the book makes its purchase not worth it.

So, I was required to buy this book for my 3D modeling class at RIT, and I hope you learn from my forced misery. This book lures you in with neat tutorials for the first few chapters, but even then, you're given all the information necessary and don't learn WHY you're doing anything. Chapter 5 is downright terrible. The tutorials are actually WRONG, and the narrator of the demo video says something along the lines of "uh, the book is really unclear here, so we'll just hope this is right." It's kind of funny provided you aren't trying to finish a project on time.

The best part of this book is some cool art that's been done by MAYA artists, in full color in glossy pages in the middle. Go to a bookstore, pick this up, look through those, then set the book back down and start looking elsewhere for tutorials and help.

I agree with pswoods review on this book.

Three D animation is a whole new universe, which requires an enormous base of information and a very long learning curve. Currently acquiring skills with Maya requires a steep investment in classes or expensive company learning cds. There are few comprehensive books for new Maya users. The book's enclosed CD is also a vital part of getting answers to difficult and complex questions.

This book is more than just fundamentals, though it does that very well. I have Maya 4.5 Fundamentals, and was eagerly waiting for the new material in Maya 5.0. Maya 4.5 has the same slow foundation, and fewer projects. Maya Fundamentals 5.0 is a rather ambitious collection that quickly moves from the basics to new and complex projects. (modeling the human head and the office building)

Indeed, this is a good value and will give more "bang for the buck" that one would expect.

My only regret is not having another cd with Jim Lammers' relaxed and insightful presentation.