Customer Reviews

Maya Techniques: Hyper-Real Creature Creation

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

 

 

This is among my favorites of Maya reference books. Admittedly, I was not at an appropriate level of knowledge when I first bought it; however, once my understanding was sufficient, I was incredibly pleased with it. I this book is NOT for absolute beginners. It does not hold your hand and tell you how to do every little thing; if this is what your looking for, I would recommend a more basic intro level book. In terms of techniques, it fills in many of the gaps left by other Alias publications, and is certainly a far cry above Autodesk's lackluster publications.

This book is written presupposing some knowledge of the program and surrounding concepts. When I first began teaching myself Maya, a friend had shown me this book-at the time, I was utterly lost trying to follow it. However, within a month or two my knowledge was sufficient for this book to begin making sense to me.

If you have never used maya and are trying to learn, hold off for a while before buying this. If you are an intermediate level user (confident + comfortable with basic concepts, and a general understanding of most major areas) interested in learning more about professional modeling and rigging techniques, this is for you. A great aspect of this book is the fact that the DVD provides scene files in different stages of tutorial completion, which allows the user to check their work against a "solution," or examine concepts and workflow in greater detail.

This book is extremely helpful for anyone seeking insight into the professional CG world and the workflows and processes thereof.

It is a good book but it has a little problem. Into the book they do not say how can we work, how to do the things, they just show the pictures some of them with explanation but not all of them and it is a problem.

This an amazing reference for advanced digital sculptors, but it just covers far too much inside information and techniques from the edge to really go into step by step detail. The sticky lips techniques are priceless and came at the right time for me. Again, if you don't have atleast 2 years experience using Maya hold on to this book until you do OR get one of the fundamentals books or delve into the numerous instructional DVDs that are available. Once you are very familiar with the Maya interface conventions and have atleast intermediate knowledge Poly modeling characters and character rigging this book will pay major dividends.

This book is a terrific resource for those who want to refine their skill set. It provides information on the structure of proper topology for your characters right up to rigging and animation. For those who want a detailed book on modelling a character. . .this is not it. This book assumes that you have advanced modelling skills and does not provide step by step instructions. It would be an extremely awesome book if it did.

Thoroughly Enjoyed it!

There is a lot of valuable information in the text, but there are some major problems. It seems as if during proof reading they failed to follow along step-by-step. I first noticed these problems well into the book when attempting to rig the creature I've spent so long modeling. The book instructs you to rename certain joints to a specific name, however, when cross referencing my scene against a supplied scene, I notice my own logic was correct. Like I said, during proof reading they must have just made sure there were no spelling errors and not that it made sense. Be warned you cannot trust that everything in the book is accurate because it's not.
Further more some of the mel scripts that they instruct you to use do not do all they say they'll do and you'll be left to do it yourself (be prepared to problem solve). I have yet to complete this book but after hours of frustration trying to figure out why it wasn't all adding up they way they say it will I figured it out....I wasn't using my own logic and trusted that the book was accurate. Upon realizing this, I became irritated and decided to finally write a review. Too Bad.
I don't understand how anyone gave it 5 stars, by no stretch of the imagination is it a 5 star book...seriously.
I don't want to detour anyone from purchasing this book, but if you're not familiar with this program don't buy it. Besides, there are newer versions available.

P.S. I only gave it 3 stars because I was able to step up my modeling in the process. Other than that, I'm irritated.

I think this is an awesome book! I work in Maya and this just made me better after using this book to get more real effects for my animations, and character designs. Loved It!

I found this book a good overviewer for people who want to practically work in the area of hyper real characters. Its truely is a good reference and practical guide. Although it isnt for beginners, it gives overview of hyper-real character workflow in maya.

I'm not new to maya, but I had some questions about easier UV mapping tool, and this book tells me the hint, contains other useful information that I need to know as a good modeler and animator!

Some Maya books are unclear about the real "need to know" steps on creating a model and this is one of those books. It is well known that most really good books about Maya topics come with a DVD with video tutorials that help reinforce the book and further your knowledge. I am sorry to say that this book did not have much to offer in that area.

Unfortunately, I need to give this book a negative rating. The companion DVD was full of interviews that were pointless and about non related topics. Creativity and imagination was definitely not important, as the book did not pay attention to important details.
Directions at some points were to just copy and paste a part of the model and skipping steps. It's like the people who made this book did not want you to learn anything from it and just rushed though making it to get some quick cash.

This is a great book if you are serious about learning Maya