8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, but not for beginners, June 6, 2005
This review is from: Maya Character Animation, 2nd Edition (Paperback)
I have found this to be a remarkable book which has helped me take my skills to another level. That said, if you're starting out, you will probably be overwhelmed and frustrated for awhile. It's less of a how-to book and more of a "looking over the shoulder of an expert" book. He illustrates how he does things and it's pretty much up to you to experiment with the concepts/techniques and adopt them as you see fit. Thousands of pictures and full color - very beautiful book. It also extensively covers areas like rigging and deep paint, which are difficult subjects to find books about, as well as modeling and animation. But, if you're just starting out in 3D, hold off until you have a solid foundation and good basic skills.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not for the Newbie, January 24, 2005
This review is from: Maya Character Animation, 2nd Edition (Paperback)
If you're looking for something to introduce you Maya... this ain't it. It is however one of the most informative books I've found on building characters using NURBS and Subdiv modelling along with excellent sections on rigging and binding. The texturing section could use a little extra work, but for what this book does that's just niggling. Readers should be warned that the author's native tongue is probably not english, so there will be occasional phrasing that may read oddly. Great book for intermediate and advanced Maya users. Definitely not for the newbie.
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17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ok. but non-native english a real minus, February 21, 2005
This review is from: Maya Character Animation, 2nd Edition (Paperback)
Look, I'm a fair-handed guy, so let me give this book an honest review.
The good to excellent:
First, the presentation is top notch. Over 850 pages of beautiful full color pages makes this book very easy on the eyes.
It comes with a CD that contains most tutorial items, which is also a plus.
And with that, the not so good.
I'm one of those aspiring MAYA guys who sits around all weekend learning this great program--I love it. So when I first tore into this book I was rife with hope. Honestly though, it's sort of a let down. For one, this book was authored by an incredibly talented person who simply doesn't speak English as a first language. The result is many passages that are just plain confusing.
Let me give an example. In one section Mr. Chio explains how to make a Reverse Foot. He adequately describes how to make the IK handles, but then this wonderfully confusing passages drops:
"Now make a new support joint and parent it to the support joints with the IK Handles. First of all, make the support joint in Side View as shown in Figure 7-6"
Huh? Anyone who has done this before knows this statement is like saying: "Lets make a peanut butter sandwich by getting some bread. Now lets make a peanut butter sandwich".
Examples of that caliber abound. There are also tons of spelling and usage errors, and coming from me, that's really saying something.
Hey, it's ok to be rough with your English, but when it comes in the form of an instructional book for one of the toughest programs around...well, you get the idea.
I also have a problem with the tutorial materials. For a book about character animation this book covers it all, but one problem is the supplied models seem to be way more complex than they have to be. For example, one model is of a man warning clothes. Not a huge deal, but when you see his mesh patterns because of the clothes and how you have to edit them to do things like painting weights and binding, it seems like overkill. Why not just a simple smooth mesh?
Lastly, I find some of the topics are covered too quickly. For example, creating and using an IK Spline Handle is covered in less than 3 pages-and that's including 4 huge illustrations (and the fact that most of the text is just step-by-step instruction stuff). As mentioned in another review, this makes understanding this books target audience really tough. If you already know how to make IK Spline's the section won't do you any good. If, however, your like me and never have, your left wondering what the heck you just did.
Perhaps the best way to say it is this book is like a professor who talks really fast and covers lots of stuff, but always leaves before you get to ask any questions. In the end I feel like a `knower of lots and a master of nothing'.
No matter, one cannot deny this books ambition or scope. Yet in the end it just seems that instead of learning anything, you simply see how to do stuff, leaving you to fill in the gaps.
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