Customer Reviews

Maya for Games: Modeling and Texturing Techniques with Maya and Mudbox

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've gone through all the Autodesk books on Maya and while they were pretty good, that's all they were - pretty good. They just give a grand tour of every single feature of Maya and about half of them are of questionable use for someone aiming to learn about making game assets with Maya.

I say making game assets because the author covers not only modeling in polygon mode with some unique methods that I found make things much easier, but he also extensively covers ways to UV map and special Mudbox and Maya tricks that are going to cut down on my production time dramatically. He also covers baking occlusion maps into textures and other texturing tricks that make it much easier to create good textures without spending countless hours handpainting textures.

In addition, he has lots of practical advice. For example, while many books offer suggestions for customizing GUI, most of them seem questionable or esoteric to me - not the sort of things that are going to help most people and more preference than anything else. I found that the GUI customization tips alone almost justify picking up the book, though.

Overall, the biggest thing to recommend this book is simply that it will save you time. Everything is laid out in an efficient and easy to read way and likewise, it lends itself to an easy and efficient workflow that yields better results than any other techniques I've learned.

The only thing lacking is covering animation and rigging much (beyond the scope of the book) and the mudbox version used is the previous version with no 3D painting. That was a dissapointment because I really would have loved to see some 3D texturing tips as well, but the uses he made of mudbox were very surprising in their effectiveness and creativity; it's obvious he is a truly top notch artist, but unlike many of the other authors out there he's able to get across to you how to get results yourself and get them quickly.

I'm currently using this book for my Intro to Maya modeling class in college and I have to say this is the most frustrating book I've ever read in my life. My professor even said that this book is such a terribly written book because of how vague some of the instructions are and how the layout of the book is just messy (pictures that belong with the author's instructions are not in the same page as the instructions). Some files are also missing in the CD and the website to find these said files is no longer existing, but luckily previous students who have taken the class found the files and are now sitting in our school server.

My professor only assigned it to us because he thought that the tutorials would help the class with getting comfortable with Maya and it's the reason that I gave this book two stars instead of one (I would have given it zero instead, but I can't). As vague as the instructions are, finding out solutions to solving what the author was talking about made me feel much more comfortable with how Maya works. I just find it irritating that in one of the tutorials I was going through, the author states that the instructions will get a bit more "vague and generalized" because he thinks that the reader would be comfortable with the tools and techniques of the program. Yet, in a few pages after he says this, he introduces how to make a UV Layout for texturing and he clearly misses a few steps. You'd have to waste time to figure out how to get to where he is at (in the pictures) and then continue with the tutorial.

It is ridiculous how an intro book for Maya is so terribly written and how it got published in the first place.

Having just entered a review for Lee Lanier's excellent and absolutely exhaustive treatise on "Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting" (and rendering), I came over to review Michael Ingrassia's book, which I bought at the same time to help me to get up to speed on Maya after an update to Maya 2009.

This book is completely different in approach. I would describe it as an attempt by a long time game asset modeler to convey his own approach to modeling and UV layout, and his own usage of Maya to do this work. The book does not pretend to be nor is it an overview of Maya's extensive modeling toolsets, and its discussion of texturing (shading) is for the most part limited to straight-forward image-based UV mapping. Given the game asset creation context, the author focuses on the specific polygonal modeling tool and techniques he prefers, and then goes into great depth on UV mapping, what your overall objectives are, and what tools and techniques he uses to accomplish them. I think this is probably the most in-depth treatment of that complex subject I've come across. I thought it odd that there was little (no?) discussion of some of the more automated tools for unwrapping UVs (provided by the Maya UV Texture Editor, or 3rd party Roadkill, Headus UVLayout, etc.).

I always enjoy it when professionals show me their creative tools, techniques, and workflows, and share their knowledge of how to produce high quality work. The author worked hard to do this, and it made for a worthwhile read. He does include some material on what is emerging as a critical workflow -- Maya to/from a sculpting app (Mudbox, in this case), and that's a plus. It at least gives you a flavor of that, though you will need to seek other resources to get into that topic in depth.

As pointed out in earlier reviews, the text could have used more extensive editing/proof reading, and online resources mentioned in the text were not available at the time I started to work through the book (annoying, but I believe that has since been corrected).

So, the book pretty much lives up to its title, and I would recommend it for late beginners to early/intermediate folks wishing to learn the ropes of creating game assets. Anyone expecting a more general treatment of Maya modeling tools or shading/texturing should seek other resources.

This is the best maya for games book I have ever seen. Though there are a few pictures in wrong places, it's still a nice book teach you every step you need to build models for games.

btw, does anyone know what to do if I lost the DVD?

Thanks.

I liked the materials shown in this book. It's a good jump start to learning how to create gaming 3D objects...etc. It shows you efficient ways to model your objects and texturing it. The simplicity of the objects also allowed me to easier follow the authors steps he takes and why. Of course you can always take these foundational skills and create more complex objects with them. All in all, I like this book. Actually saw it at a book store and found it sold cheaper here.

I have to say I agree that this is a great book, it simplifies things for the novice and even gives us seasoned modelors some valuable tips.

The Good:

Teaches you valuable workflow information, that you cannot find anywhere else. It is the best game asset book I have ever used and I have been around the block a few times.

The Cons:

1. Minor page mixup, but nothing major!

Conclusion:

If you really want to learn how to create game assets in Maya you simply "must" purchase this book.

*There are a few files missing from the CD that comes with the book, but the author has provided a link to download them from his website.

-Great Book! Go Get IT!

This book is a godsend as far as modeling is concerned. I purchased this book for the hand modeling tutorial but I have gotten so much more out of it than I expected. The book touches on many aspects of UV Mapping and Modeling as well as Mudbox techniques. I thoroughly enjoyed going through this book also because it is not designed for someone who knows nothing about the program and that is also what attracted me to it in the first place. Great buy I would recommend it to anyone.

The book doesn't go very in-depth. This book is for entry level students who have never used Maya before. This book hardly scratches the surface of what Maya can possible do for game modelling or just modelling in general.

This book is great, teaches you many things, very good design quality, projects are interesting.

I never write reviews, but this time I've decided to because I'm only page 50 of this book and I already ran into at least 4 errors, one paragraph is on the wrong page, if you're stuck, the top paragraph on page 18 is supposed to go on page 22. A number of images are not a the right place either, the text explains something the image shows something else (usually the image is one or 2 steps early), plus for the second project, the template image is missing from the dvd. Wonderful! And at the url given by the author [...], the domain name is not even registered! This is not serious at all!

So basically no websites for this book so no way to find this missing image somewhere.

I'm very disappointed, feels like the author quickly wanted to finish it without reviewing it...

when i read it and following the book it was the most confusing book on earth. direction is so bad. picture doesn't even match very disappointed.