Customer Reviews

Maya Secrets of the Pros (Maya Masters)

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

 

 

I have the first edition also, and the content of this second edition is ALL NEW material.

Chapter 1 - Maya Cloth - The tutorials include a skirt, a curtain, and accessories (using cloth for animating jewelry and bracelets). Unfortunately, there are no fully clothed figures (no shirts, no pants, etc) so everything is very basic, but explained clearly.

Chapter 2 - Non-Photorealistic Rendering - First example has textures sketched in pen, scanned, and then mapped onto animated models. It creates a unique "hand-drawn" effect, and with some interesting rendering styles. Second example is how to create an impressionistic rendering style. Emit particles from object, make those particles strokes, and play with the render settings. I haven't seen a tutorial like this one before, and it does a lot for making very basic shaded object into a more intriguing render.

Chapter 3: Realistic Camera Movement - The basics of CG cinematography (if you want more on this, I recommend Digital Cinematography & Directing by Dan Ablan). Also goes briefly into camera lenses and focal lengths. The good parts are the long tutorials on Creating Camera Shake and Creating a Handheld Camera. At the end there is a brief tutorial on capturing motion with Maya Live.

Chapter 4: Radiosity, HDRI, LDRI - This is the best and most thorough tutorial on this subject that I've found in a Maya format. Rendering tutorials on a spaceship, a robot, and a katana sword. The chapter ends with a brief tutorial on how to render a detailed, complex scene.

Chapter 5: The Character Pipeline - The information is here is so basic, I think the only reason it would be included in an "of the pros" books is that it has a few MEL scripts. Naming conventions, character sets, and some rigging scripts by the author. Certainly one of the least interesting chapters.

Chapter 6: Hair Systems - This very unique chapter that talks about using Maya Hair for alternative purposes. Octopus tentacles, Rope/wire, Character's secondary motion, and shark animation. Great tutorials for all these examples, which can obviously be applied to nearly anything.

Chapter 7: Dynamics - This is all very basic stuff, with very basic examples (ie a torus lands on a plane, boxes interacting with eachother). Has a couple pages on using Maya Hair and dynamics to make car suspension.

Chapter 8: The Art of Maya Noises - Basic dynamics tutorials. I have no idea why this was in the book. You WILL find better online tutorials because most of the examples are clones of things you will find elsewhere. 1) A water fountain, 2) spinning particles to create a "vortex", 3) a "hermite electric arc" (two spheres with electricity flowing between them). MEL scripts are included for these examples.

Chapter 9: Polygon/Subdivision modeling a character head (cover of book) - Starts out talking about edgeloops -- which has an interesting twist because the character has a "third eye". Draws curves in the front and side viewports using the EP curve tool, thus creating a skeletal/basic cage that will be used as outlines for poly faces (so, it's like NURBS modeling, but poly). Has a few pages about filling in the curves-wireframe, pointing out problem areas (triangles, five sided polys, and "stars") and how to fix them. The tutorial stops at completing the trapezius and neck muscles. No texturing/lighting/rendering discussion is included.

Overall, I was slightly disappointed in this book. Sure a complete beginner would be lost, but for the average/intermediate Maya user many of the tutorials are not worth the pricetag. Before buying this, go to the bookstore and browse through the chapters that sound interesting and see if its worth your money.

Between this and the first edition, I think they should pick out a few chapters of each and make a "Best of" :-)

I am an industry pro animator who has been working with Maya software since 1999. I've read tons of books and on line tutorials and try to keep up with every aspect of the program to stay competetive. So with that in mind I rate this book 5 Stars! It's one of the best I've read.

This book is by pros for pros including an excellent chapter by Habib Zargarpour from ILM on "Complex Particle Systems" which uses a shot from "Perfect Storm" to demonstrate the water particles. Aspects of how they analyzed the wave and figured out how to emit particles at the right place are still evident in movies like "Day After Tomorrow".

There's also "Photo Real Facial Replacement" by John Kundert-Gibbs, Dariush Derakhshani and Rebecca Johnson which illustrates, step by step, how to create the mouth shapes, textures and comp onto a picture of a cat, thus creating a talking cat. This is an excellent work flow for getting very near to close results that have garnered success for studio's like Rhythm&Hues for films like "Cats & Dogs" and the upcoming "Narnia Chronicles".

I wasn't a big fan of mocap, however the company I'm working for is using it in a big way. I've read about it in previous articles and such, but haven't found much usful info for practically using it, except in this book on the chapter by Robin Akin and Remington Scott titled "Animation and Motion Capture -Working Together." After reading this chapter I have a new respect for the art and science of this technology. The results from films like "AniMatrix -Flight of the Osiris" and "Lord of the Rings" demonstrates that this is powerful new medium with characters like Gollum raising the bar. Working through the tutorials, I've gained a stronger command of the medium which has helped greatly at work.

I wouldn't have posted this except for a rebuttal to one of the reviews you have posted for this book by "Ilya from Israel" who has obviously not even read the book with comments like "The easiest go like: make a cylinder, shape up a horse out of it, now you'll do the lip-synching." -It's obvious that she didn't even read it. The chapter on "Modeling a SubDivision Horse" by Peter Lee goes into extreme modeling detail and tutorials where the modeling starts with nurbs, gets converted to polies, then details such as the mouth, eyes and ears and every aspect of creating a cg horse model is shown step by step. If you work through this chapter you will end up with an excellent subD horse model.

This book doesn't cover everything, with four parts, "Modeling", "Animation & Motion", "Complex Numbers", and "Surfacing and Rendering" with only 2 or 3 chapters in each section, it doesn't cover everything you need to know. Rather it's extremely focused on very specific aspects of 3D computer graphics in Maya and gets under the hood of the authors inventive methods of working in production.

for a professional out there, this book might not provide a terrible amount of insight into the areas it delves into, but for me, who just finished the Learning Maya book, this is an excellent continuation. i consider myself as a Maya newbie and so i'm getting an awful lot of help with this book, and i can easily see myself coming back to this book for reference.

and the print quality is superb.. colour pictures throughout!

I didn't actually buy this book but spent a lot of time reading it in the book store. I was specifically interested in the section for the particle systems used for a Perfect Storm and sadly found that to be the book's weakest spot. I'm relatively new to 3D animation and fx so maybe I was expecting more explanation then was intended but I would have preferred a specific step-by-step tutorial than the vague trial-and-error explanation that was given in that section. There was a nice simple one-page particle system tutorial in that section that was sort of helpful but other then that I didn't really walk away with the knowledge I was looking for. I did find the rest of the book very helpful. Especially the modelling, texturing and lighting, dynamics, and crowd animation sections. I may buy it some day for those sections alone.

1 star = particle system section
5 star = everything else
total = 4

Disclaimer: While I was a contributor to the first edition, I have no connection to the second edition. Therefore I believe I can speak objectively about this work. I am a computer animator and educator teaching at the college level for the past 10 years.

Maya: Secrets of the Pros-Second Edition is an excellent book! It is often hard to write a successful sequel to a good first edition, but Mr. Kundert-Gibbs and Mr. Derakhshani have hit this one out of the park. They have assembled a list of industry heavy-hitters who can and do speak with authority about the subjects they cover. If I have one criticisim, it is that I believe this book is misnamed. It is really a second volume, rather than a second edition because it contains entirely newly written content. But that is a small criticism.

It is true, this book is probably not for the new user of Maya, but the good news is that this information will stay relevant for a long time, so the neophyte should not hesitate to buy this book along side of say, Maya 5 Savvy. (Please note, I am a contributor to that book, so take that piece of advice for what it is worth!) Indeed, there are some real gems available for the beginner at the beginning of some of these chapters. For example, the beginning animator should read carefully Keith Reicher's CG Cinematography section while modelers will find Tom Capizzi's and Krishnamurti M. Costa's chapter on Advanced Character Modeling to contain bedrock solid information on the preparatory work necessary to create sophisticated models. I should say that most of the book is structured this way with excellent introduction material that rapidly accelerates into advanced instruction.

One thing to note, however, is that in several cases, the authors eschew a step-by-step approach in favor of a detailed concept description for their subjects-the section on creating Impressionistic images through Non-Photo Realistic rendering comes immediately to mind. It seems to me that in such cases, these descriptions are meant to inspire the advanced user, rather than serve as tutorials for the beginner. This can be frustrating for those who go into such a section expecting a tutorial. I believe the authors use both step-by-step and concept description appropriately throughout the book.

The book itself is handsomely printed with color images throughout. Sybex has done an excellent job of supporting the authors with high-quality paper and four-color printing.

I believe that the authors have written a unique compilation of interesting information which will remain relevant for a long. Maya users of all stripes will be taking this one down off of the shelf to find tidbits of information for years to come; I know I will!

I have reviewed this book on several occasions looking for items that could help me do some scenes. I have found that it does very little to help you produce any of the many renders that are displayed. If you are looked for a step-by-step tutorial on how to do these scenes, you are looking at the wrong book. Like one of the earlier reviewer, I too have taught Maya at one of the colleges in the North East.

Woah!....this books got lots of tip and tricks for effects used in a variety of movies. The print is nice and its in color. I was looking for more tutorial type information, and the book gives a little tutorials, but its more for you to build your knowledge on. For beginning effects artist such as myself, the chapters on Perfect storm to create realistic water is fantastic. As are the crowd simulation and animation GUI setup.

This book has wonderful descriptions on how to do what those in the industry can do with standalone Maya.

I bought this book the other day and the last reviewer was right. The section on the Perfect Storm covered about as little as what you see in the behind the scenes extras on many dvd movies with special fx. I was highly disappointed. Look around online and you'll find much better tutorials online for free. I also found that many of the other subjects covered in the book can also be found online for free as well. SAVE YOUR MONEY.

I was looking for a book on Maya that would come up with some useful modeling techniques. So I bought this one. The book does have tutorials. The easiest go like: make a cylinder, shape up a horse out of it, now you'll do the lip-synching. The worst was: 1. Make a person with motion capture. 2. Hire a hard working actor with a rich voice. 3.Proceed to production.
All in all, there were some tips and worthy tutorials, but all those will not help you to become a pro, and if you are a pro, those won't help you anyway.

I picked up this book due to the insights it gives. It is a great reference book if you have industry experience and want a different perspective on certain situations, that always occur in the wonderful world of CGI visual effects. If you want a sneek peek at the way its done at the grand end of the industry scale then you will probably not find a better book currently available, if on the other hand your wanting to filch ideas from the big boys and girls, and use them to be passed of as your own creative genious then Im afraid that the no book on earth will help you, and why should it.

JS