Maya Character Animation (Paperback)

~ (Author) "With the upgrade from version 3 to 4, many features in Maya have been improved..." (more)
Key Phrases: auxiliary joints, modeled using subdivision surfaces, polygon proxy mode, Attribute Editor, Texture Editor, Trax Editor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It is a great book and well worth purchasing and is the best character animation book available." -- Ian Cairns, Editor, MAYA Association

Product Description

Maya Character Animation is a one-of-a-kind book featuring more than 800 pages of full-color, step-by-step, heavily illustrated Maya instruction. It was written with beginning and intermediate Maya animators in mind--students and professionals who have already familiarized themselves with the Maya interface and basic Maya techniques. Topics covered include subdivision and polygon modeling, subdivision surface mapping, subdivision surface character modeling, NURBS modeling, facial expression, binding characters, character setup, and nonlinear animation. Maya Character Animation also features in-depth coverage of Deep Paint 3D, a premiere texture painting program.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 832 pages
• Publisher: Sybex Books; Bk&CD-Rom edition (December 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782141714
• ISBN-13: 978-0782141719
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 8.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #607,902 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book but not for beginners, January 12, 2003

By	Jason Fuhrman (Bakersfield, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is great for intermediate users of Maya, but if you're a beginner I suggest picking up Maya Fundamentals. This book does not cover learning the interface, but focuses on polygon, sub-division, nurbs modeling, character rigging, and animation. It is filled with full color images to help you along with the tutorials and explanations of the author. It even has a section on learning whats new with version 4.5 and takes you through the basics of creating your own animation. While it does have nice color pictures, I found some of them to be too small to clearly see what was going on. For example, in an earlier chapter focusing on sub-d modeling with edge extrusions, I found it hard to see what edges were supposed to be selected because of the small picture. Aside from that its a great book and well worth purchasing.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice book for intermediates, March 17, 2003

By	"mastergrid" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

I thought this book was helpful. It is not for beginners, however. Not all of the tutorials give step by step instructions, instead, the book just tells you to make the model like the picture shown, you're on your own as to how to get the model to look like it.

This book has fully colored pages throughout but some of the images are a little hard to read. One thing I found really useful was it's relatively detailed coverage of the various shader utilities (sampler info, set range, clamp... etc)

The CD-Rom accompanying this book as some scene files, but the author does not provide a sample scene for every tutorial. Coverage of the Deep Paint 3D isn't all that detailed, but does give you an idea of how to use it in conjunction with Maya.

Character animation coverage is very detailed, and on some levels, pretty steep. Overall a very good book, worth buying.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good information horribly presented, March 6, 2004

By A Customer

This book is in dire need of an editor, preferably one with Maya experience. While it is obvious that Mr. Choi posesses a vast knowledge of Maya, his skills at communicating this knowledge are severly lacking. Grammatical errors abound, and his prose is often repetitive and confusing, if not downright incomprehensible. Many of the images are utterly superfluous, and sometimes they even contradict the text. Also, on a number of occasions, the information given is just plain wrong. Going through the 800+ pages of this book was an utterly frustrating exercise, and as such, I have already advised several friends to stay away from this book.