Introducing Maya 8: 3D for Beginners +CD

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Manufacturer: Sybex

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.696
EAN: 9780470051351
ISBN: 0470051353
Label: Sybex
Manufacturer: Sybex
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: 2006-10-09
Publisher: Sybex
Studio: Sybex

Accessories
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Editorial Reviews:

If you're just beginning to dive into the world of 3D, this is the book for you."
Animation Magazine

The Academy Award® winning Maya® 3D animation and effects software is the first choice of film and video artists, game developers, and 3D design professionals. Discover how to build, render, and animate your own digital models and scenes, and begin to develop professional-level Maya skills with the latest edition of this popular bestseller.

Starting with the basics, the book builds from the ground up, combining straightforward text with practical examples that make it fun and easy to learn Maya's core features while introducing new Maya 8 elements such as improved polygon tools and enhanced rendering with mental ray. Clear-cut, engaging lessons let you experiment using the wealth of files provided on the CD-ROM. You'll also find an abundance of instructional and inspirational Maya creations in the full-color insert.

The accompanying CD-ROMs images, movies, and scene files let you view material from the book right on your own computer. Tackle all-new rendering and dynamics tutorials and much more. The CD includes Maya Personal Learning Edition software.

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Did anyone edit this book?
Comment: There are several sections in this book that were clearly not revised for version 8.0 of Maya. This includes both visual examples and the writing. Turn to page 252: "You can select the specific attribute and zoom in on its curve to see it better, or now with Maya 7, you can normalize the. . ." Inexcusable.

Additionally, it would really help if some of the instructional examples were in color, particularly those showing wireframe models. It's difficult to tell what's going on when what would normally be highlighted on the wireframe is grey like the rest of the model.

Otherwise, the author writes pretty well. I appreciated the sense of humor, too.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Not the best Maya book, and here's why..
Comment: This isn't a great beginner's book. If you want a better beginner's book, get the Maya foundation book. It costs more, but it's worth it.
Here's why this book doesn't work for a beginner. First it gives you way too many pages of overview at the beginning. Not that it's bad stuff, but you don't want (or need) to read for two or three hours when you are ready to start using the program. If you do get this book here is my honest recommendation of how to go about using this book. Start on Chapter 2 and read all about the basic tools. But then on page 53 when you get to the heading "Outliner/Hypergraph", skip directly to Chapter 4. Eventually you will want to come back and read the rest of Chapter 2, but reading about the node structure and all the editor systems for a beginner is dumb. It's good stuff mind you, but not what you want or need yet, so don't forget about it. Notice that I said skip to chapter 4. Personally I wouldn't read chapter 3 at all. Why start animating when you don't even know how to model yet? This book isn't bad, it's just poorly organized. If you follow the directions listed above, I think you'll feel much more satisfied not only with this book, but with Maya in general.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great Book!
Comment: I am new to using Maya, and this book is very informative. The only problem is that the Personal Learning Edition (PLE) included with this book is version 7.0. I wish they would have included version 8. For those of you folks who would still like to install the 7.0 version on your computer, the software key number is: 20617691

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great Info, easy to follow, just what the begginner needs!
Comment: Great follow through from beggining to end.Lots of examples and very easy to understand. Just what a NEWBY to 3d or MaYa needs!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Maya for the beginner
Comment: Excellent Book. I highly recommend it. I am extremely knowledgeable with Photoshop Illustrator and other graphic art software, but had no knowledge or understanding of Maya. The book is easy to follow and explains the layers and menus very well. I did find some hic-ups in the directions, but it was easy to figure out and continue the step-by-step direction. This is a bible for anyone who is interested in gaining knowledge with this program.

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