Maya 4 Fundamentals (Fundamentals (New Riders)) [Paperback]

Jim Lammers (Author), Lee Gooding (Author)

Book Description

Series: Fundamentals (New Riders) | Publication Date: February 18, 2002

Maya 4 Fundamentals will takeyou from a review of 3D fundamentals to a working knowledge of creating content in Maya 4. Topics covered include the interface and primary tools, modeling with NURBS and polygons, applying materials and textures, lighting, using modifiers and deformers, animating scenes, using cameras, rendering stills and animations, and using particle systems, dynamics, and paint effects. Special appendices also cover making the change from other software like 3ds max or LightWave to Maya. Video-captured movies on the accompanying CD supplement the tutorial foundation of the book.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This beginning to intermediate guide covers 3-D animation fundamentals then moves on to step-by-step tutorials introducing Maya's basic techniques. A tear-out hotkey page is useful for home users but irksome for libraries. The CD-ROM includes project files and video guides to each tutorial. While not as smooth or thorough as the videos in the "Virtual Classroom" series, these guides are helpful in illustrating techniques and providing information not available in the book. For large public libraries and academic libraries serving graphic design departments.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Jim Lammers and Lee Gooding have done it! They've created a book that makes Maya easy to grasp for those new to Maya or to 3D. This book will help readers learn how to use Maya Complete and the new Maya Personal Learning Edition.

Jim and Lee worked hard to devise an interesting project that would allow them to expose readers to the key functionalities of Maya 4. They created a series of "Spooky World" tutorials we hope you find valuable.

In their efforts to provide readers with a truly valuable learning experience, Jim and Lee also put together over 13 HOURS OF TUTORIAL MOVIES, which are provided on the book's CD. Every step of every tutorial is illustrated through CAMTASIA movies to help get you up to speed quickly.

If you are looking for a book to give you a solid foundation for working with Maya 4, Maya 4 Fundamentals is definitely the place to start!

In order to continue developing our line of Maya books, it's important to me to hear what you think about this book. Please share your comments by emailing me at [e-mail].

Linda Bump Senior Acquisitions Editor

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press (February 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735711895
• ISBN-13: 978-0735711891
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,653,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kickstart your Maya Skills, March 2, 2002

By 

Michael Brennan (Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maya 4 Fundamentals (Fundamentals (New Riders)) (Paperback)

I purchased the first three books published for Maya 4 (this one, "Maya" by Danny Riddell/Andrew S. Britt, and "Exploring Maya 4: 30 Studies in 3D" by Maximilian Schoenherr), and this one is definately the most useful, especially if you're a newbie or intermediate. Just the acompanying CD alone is worth the money! (It comes with video tutorials not unlike the popular Gnomon series that visually demonstrates the main points of the book, helpful info for Max users trying to migrate over to Maya, and includes an improved and extremely useful hotkey/marking menu system that I'm permanently going to use.) In 2 days I consider myself much more profficient than I was, and the Maya workflow seems to make more sense now. Cheers to Jim Lammers and Lee Gooding for writting a superior manual on this complicated program!

Summary: Experienced users may end up skipping some of the chapters, but you're bound to learn something. Newer users will get a lot out of it (including confidence in your skills and professional working habits). If you get only one Maya book, make it this one.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for a beginner, December 21, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Maya 4 Fundamentals (Fundamentals (New Riders)) (Paperback)

Having bought this book a while ago, I have mixed feelings about it. I think overall I would say that this book is best focused to the Maya (and perhaps 3d) beginner. If you're transitioning from another 3d app and already have 3d experience, this book might frustrate you somewhat from the simplistic exercises. If thats you, then skip this book. If you're getting into 3d for the first time, and Maya is the app you got, then this book might be a good place to begin.

Things I liked in this book:

1. The beginning chapters discuss and implement custom marking menus which can be very handy. This was a cool item for sure.
2. Overall, the book covers basic functionality of Maya that IMHO does a better job than the tutorials that shipped with Maya (Instant Maya). And it tries to implement the concepts in applicable (albeit very simplistic) scenes.
3. The video tutorial (chapter overviews) on the CD are excellent, and you could almost go through the book just watching the videos. Very helpful in making sure you don't get confused in a step.
4. having accompanying files on the CD was nice.

Ok, things that I didn't like:

1. The exercises in the book are basically targeted to the beginner. the modeling exercises never cover anything intermediate to advanced. Since I already have 3d experience in other apps, I didn't find this very useful and left me frustrated cause it answered none of my questions.
2. The chapters covering texturing IMO were again way to basic. It had a couple of good tips for procedurals applied to a House project, but it just didn't go very far.. Mapping methods were the most basic, and shader structures in hypershade were very simple. basically everything you saw in the shipped Maya tutorials was here. Don't expect a thorough explanation of shading networks here...
3. The book frequently has you start off from a file on the CD. This really frustrated me, since you're not taking your own work literally from start to finish. Ok, well you can if you dig in somewhat and merge some file elements together. But like when they cover animating the twisting of the house, you have to start from a house file that already has deformers applied to it. Why doesn't the author just take you through it?? argh.. so I found that a bit annoying albeit its not a big deal.
4. The part I looked forward to the most was incomplete, the creature creation project. it only covers the basics of modeling the head. They went step by step with so much else in the book, I was a bit disappointed that they didn't follow that though for the whole character. An attempt to continue the tutorial was online on the CD (in HTML form), but it was simplified and made pretty big leaps between steps. So it assumes you learned alot doing the basic head... hmm from newbie to expert I guess
5. Character rigging was completely omitted. This was definitely unfortunate so even if you had finished the creature, you wouldn't be doing much with it. Also, UV unwrapping was ommitted so texturing a complex object like the creature was left out. again unfortunate.

Well I can see many people were pleased with the book, so its up to you how to take this review. Overall, I'd say its an ok book, I got some useful tips out of it. But if I had it to do all over again, I'd probably go with Mastering Maya 3, it seems alot more in depth. If you're a newbie, this book will get your feet wet. If you're intermediate, hmmm you might get frustrated... I'd say simply go to forums like highend3d.com or cgtalk.com and you'll get the equivelent info for free. If you're an expert looking for a new twist on things... well ok this is definitely not for you. This book is literally living up to its subtitle. ** FUNDAMENTALS **

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible, finally a book that is easy to follow., March 3, 2002

By 

Vikki (Chicago, Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maya 4 Fundamentals (Fundamentals (New Riders)) (Paperback)

As an instructor in the Media Arts and Animation field, it is one of the hardest things assigning text in a classroom that you feel will serve as an excellent resource to your students new to 3D. Not only does this text allow for an easy understanding of the interface, it also supplies you with movies so that you may follow along with the tutorials. I have yet to find any book on the market so complete and thorough. For many students, especially those new to Maya and 3D, this book and its accompanying CD are a true gift in the classroom. This book is a real supplement to any instructional material and demonstrations offered in any beginning level 3D course. It is straightforward with concepts and offers a real down to earth understanding of Maya and its amazing tools. I also believe that those interested in 3D, but not interested in attending a college or classroom environment, will be able to work through this text and completely hone their skills using Maya. Great work guys!