Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Who should buy this book?, September 9, 2004
This review is from: Maya 6: The Complete Reference (Paperback)
I bought this book recently and have read several chapters.
My opinion: -
There is some very good content for advanced uses of Maya in this book. Such as the camera projection techniques and the dynamics section is very good but fairly advanced (simulation of a an explosion and debris).
The chapters that I read would make me believe that if you cannot read "between the lines of an instruction" (if the instruction perhaps contains some kind of ambiguity) then you may be disappointed with this book.
I would say a MUST FOR ADVANCED USES OF MAYA (the camera projection tech/ and dynamics section are worth the price alone and the Nurbs patching techniques are quite detailed. The coverage of the book is quite broad...Using Mental ray with final gathering, fresnel effect texture mapping..using deformers with character animation, Pro ik rigs, ocean simulation example, crowd simulation example, re-target character rig example (the list is quite extensive).
BUT A DEF. NO FOR BEGINNERS...(There is a high probability you will get lost due to the possibility of unclear instruction.)
Advice for Maya users who get lost: USE THE ONLINE HELP ITS VERY GOOD. It contains some fairly clear tutorials. Also join some Maya help forums. Online questions/answers. Join Alias Membership schemes. Look to get advice online join some Maya help forums (post/answer questions/problems). Search Google.
Be careful which books you buy: There is not one book that can cover Maya as a teaching resource properly it's too complicated to explain. Too much detail is required. Go for a separate strategy, as Alias does with its education material. (If you want to understand Nurbs organic modeling then juts find a book on this topic only.) Make sure that you read all the feed back from people who have bought the material.
Finally: A good teaching book: requires clear instruction. Avoid any that you may
suspect has unclear instruction. Don't buy them. (You are looking for teachers of a subject not who they work for. Just because the author may be working at the top of his/her industry does not mean also they make a great teacher of the subject as well. This is a big mistake. Teaching requires great skill, experience and training. Look for good teachers not good industry reputations.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Some good, mostly bad, May 12, 2005
This review is from: Maya 6: The Complete Reference (Paperback)
I was going nuts, losing hair, etc etc. Read on. I am a fairly bright guy, especially in the world of computer design, so I have decided to tackle the monster that is maya. Having done so, I poured through a couple of beginner books, and I could tell they just scratched the surface... so I purchased this book. At an extended glance in the book store, this book was promising. Nicely printed pages, good examples, good formatting, CD with tutorial files, etc.
But then I started working through it, systematically. Generally, the structure is: a chapter describing the theory, then a chapter with extensive tutorials.
the first type of chapter, the theoretical brand, is where this book lies on solid ground. This book goes into more depth than others on HOW things work, not just showing you why they work.
But then you get to the tutorials and new concepts are thrown at you, things are poorly described, sentences are literally cut off and half missing... and worse than anything, some of the tutorial steps are just flat out wrong. EVEN more than that, as mentioned above, the files referenced to on the tutorial CD are either missing or named differently. If you open one of THEIR projects from the tutorial CD, maya wont even find THEIR stuff.
The worst for me right now is chapter 14, texturing. I literally had to disect their tutorial file and my own file created based on their step by step description to see why my nice floor tile texture looked like a fuzzy mess. Well, it turned out that at least 7 steps that I have counted so far are don't match up with THEIR OWN file. The instructions are just flat out wrong. The file names to the bitmap textures are all wrong. And sometimes they tell you to name a node something, and then two sentences later refer to that node with a different name then they TOLD you to name it.
It made me feel stupid, like I was doing something wrong, when all along I was fighting a losing battle.
This book has great potential to rock, sadly it doesn't. Hopefully they'll come out with a Maya 6.5 update... but I feel ripped, I want my money back.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
so so, not great . . ., September 8, 2004
This review is from: Maya 6: The Complete Reference (Paperback)
this book has some good info, but i'm finding it very slow going trying to decipher the often poorly worded directions in these lessons. this is an example from the nurbs modeling lesson:
step 3. Detach the surfaces and rebuild.
step 4. Rebuild the surfaces.
(didn't i just do that).
here's another . . .
step 1. Insert 2 isoparms in the U direction on both the top and bottom.
step 2. Insert 2 more isoparms in the V direction.
step 3. Detach the surfaces, you should now have a total of nine pieces.
if you follow these directions one way, then in step 1 you would insert 2 isoparms on the top and 2 on the bottom. then in step 2 you would add 2 more in the V, but you find that you're left with 15 surfaces. obviously what they meant to say is "Insert 2 isoparms, 1 on the top and 1 on the bottom . . . " then you look at the photo to see where to place them and the bottom is totally obscured, so you have to guess.
although when i just modeled something to look like the FINAL picture, ignoring the text, it came out fine, but then i'm kinda winging it.
i have learned some usefull tips, but i think you will need to glean through this book and take a little here and there, rather than follow it by examples.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
