"Learning Maya 6: Foundation" is your key to learning Maya quickly and easily. Join the tens of thousands of other users who have proved their Maya skills by creating the Bouncing Ball, Jack-in-the-box, Primitive Man, Spaceships and, most importantly, Salty the Seal. Get hands-on experience with Maya’s key tools and techniques through project-based lessons while you learn to model, animate, render, and add dynamic effects to your creations. With "Learning Maya 6: Foundation" you’ll model with NURBs and Polygons, animate, texture map, add visual effects and render your scenes. We’ve also added instructor-led chapter overviews, presented by an Alias Certified Instructor to further demonstrate the concepts covered in the book. Get up to speed in Maya 6.0 with "Learning Maya 6.0: Foundation".With this book you will: become familiar with the Maya User Interface; work in 3D space; model with NURBS (Spline); model with Polygons; set Keyframes and Motion Paths; learn to use Trax Non-linear animation; apply Forward and Inverse Kinematics; deform surfaces; set cameras and lights; create Shaders and Textures; discover rendering techniques; explore particles and Dynamics; and, begin to use MEL (Maya Embedded Language).

’I’ve been teaching Learning Maya Foundation to my students for years and wouldn’t consider a substitute. This tool is ideal for you if you are new to Maya’ - Peter Weishar, Dean of Film and Digital Media, Savannah College of Art and Design. What you need to use this book: a working knowledge of 3D space; "Learning Maya Beginner’s Guide" or "Art of Maya" are excellent resources to learn about 3D space; and, "Maya Complete 6", "Maya Unlimited 6", or "Maya Personal Learning Edition"; and, a DVD-ROM Drive.

Learning Maya 6: Foundation is your key to learning Maya quickly and easily. Join the tens of thousands of other users who have proved their Maya skills by creating the Bouncing Ball, Jack?in?the?box, Primitive Man, Spaceships and, most importantly, Salty the Seal. Get hands?on experience with Maya?s key tools and techniques through project?based lessons while you learn to model, animate, render, and add dynamic effects to your creations. With Learning Maya 6: Foundation you?ll model with NURBs and Polygons, animate, texture map, add visual effects and render your scenes. We?ve also added instructor?led chapter overviews, presented by an Alias Certified Instructor to further demonstrate the concepts covered in the book. Get up to speed in Maya 6.0 with Learning Maya 6.0: Foundation.

With this book you will:

• Become familiar with the Maya User Interface
• Work in 3D space
• Model with NURBS (Spline)
• Model with Polygons
• Set Keyframes and Motion Paths
• Learn to use Trax Non?linear animation
• Apply Forward and Inverse Kinematics
• Deform surfaces
• Set cameras and lights
• Create Shaders and Textures
• Discover rendering techniques
• Explore particles and Dynamics
• Begin to use MEL (Maya Embedded Language)

"I?ve been teaching Learning Maya | Foundation to my students for years and wouldn?t consider a substitute. This tool is ideal for you if you are new to Maya."
?Peter Weishar, Dean of Film and Digital Media, Savannah College of Art and Design

What you need to use this book:

• A working knowledge of 3D space. Learning Maya Beginner?s Guide or Art of Maya are excellent resources to learn about 3D space.
• Maya Complete 6, Maya Unlimited 6, or Maya Personal Learning Edition
• DVD?ROM Drive

This official book is written by Alias, the creators of Maya.

Learning Maya 6: Foundation is your key to learning Maya quickly and easily. Join the tens of thousands of other users who have proved their Maya skills by creating the Bouncing Ball, Jack-in-the-box, Primitive Man, Spaceships and, most importantly, Salty the Seal. Get hands-on experience with Maya’s key tools and techniques through project-based lessons while you learn to model, animate, render, and add dynamic effects to your creations. With Learning Maya 6: Foundation you’ll model with NURBs and Polygons, animate, texture map, add visual effects and render your scenes. We’ve also added instructor-led chapter overviews, presented by an Alias Certified Instructor to further demonstrate the concepts covered in the book. Get up to speed in Maya 6.0 with Learning Maya 6.0: Foundation.

With this book you will:

• Become familiar with the Maya User Interface
• Work in 3D space
• Model with NURBS (Spline)
• Model with Polygons
• Set Keyframes and Motion Paths
• Learn to use Trax Non-linear animation
• Apply Forward and Inverse Kinematics
• Deform surfaces
• Set cameras and lights
• Create Shaders and Textures
• Discover rendering techniques
• Explore particles and Dynamics
• Begin to use MEL (Maya Embedded Language)

"I’ve been teaching Learning Maya | Foundation to my students for years and wouldn’t consider a substitute. This tool is ideal for you if you are new to Maya."
—Peter Weishar, Dean of Film and Digital Media, Savannah College of Art and Design

What you need to use this book:

• A working knowledge of 3D space. Learning Maya Beginner’s Guide or Art of Maya are excellent resources to learn about 3D space.
• Maya Complete 6, Maya Unlimited 6, or Maya Personal Learning Edition
• DVD-ROM Drive

Learning Maya 6: Foundation is your key to learning Maya quickly and easily. Join the tens of thousands of other users who have proved their Maya skills by creating the Bouncing Ball, Jack-in-the-box, Primitive Man, Spaceships and, most importantly, Salty the Seal. Get hands-on experience with Maya’s key tools and techniques through project-based lessons while you learn to model, animate, render, and add dynamic effects to your creations. With Learning Maya 6: Foundation you’ll model with NURBs and Polygons, animate, texture map, add visual effects and render your scenes. We’ve also added instructor-led chapter overviews, presented by an Alias Certified Instructor to further demonstrate the concepts covered in the book. Get up to speed in Maya 6.0 with Learning Maya 6.0: Foundation.
With this book you will:
* Become familiar with the Maya User Interface
* Work in 3D space
* Model with NURBS (Spline)
* Model with Polygons
* Set Keyframes and Motion Paths
* Learn to use Trax Non-linear animation
* Apply Forward and Inverse Kinematics
* Deform surfaces
* Set cameras and lights
* Create Shaders and Textures
* Discover rendering techniques
* Explore particles and Dynamics
* Begin to use MEL (Maya Embedded Language)

"I’ve been teaching Learning Maya | Foundation to my students for years and wouldn’t consider a substitute. This tool is ideal for you if you are new to Maya."
--Peter Weishar, Dean of Film and Digital Media, Savannah College of Art and Design

What you need to use this book:
* A working knowledge of 3D space. Learning Maya Beginner’s Guide or Art of Maya are excellent resources to learn about 3D space.
* Maya Complete 6, Maya Unlimited 6, or Maya Personal Learning Edition
* DVD-ROM Drive

Great second book

I come from the engineering/computer field into 3D animation. This was the second book that I read. It is great. But it is not for the beginner - if you have never done 3D animation before, you will need a more basic book to start with, for instance "3D for beginners" by Dariush Derakshani. Maya Foundations contains 5 large projects for you to complete. All is explained step-wise and is easy to follow. The book lets you touch upon most of Maya. It takes some time to complete, but you learn a lot and you will be able to make small animated films after having completed the book.

shame on the author

Diving into maya 6 unexperienced, without an aid is terribly confusing, but diving into maya 6 with this book is not that much better -- it is like a nonswimmer being thrown into the deep end of the pool with a deflated lifesaver.

Sure, the directions are pretty easy to follow, but the problems arise when there are MISSING directions! I was having a headache trying to get something to work like it supposedly did in the book, when I realized that the author FORGOT to include a vital step! I would not have been able to get ahead if I had not figured out the problem on my own (through trial and error). Shame Shame SHAME on the author! Sorry we beginning users are not as professional and proficient in the program.

I give this book a C+ at best. Well-written simple directions mean absolutely nothing if they are not complete!

Great Book

This book, and entire series for that matter, is great you will learn everything you need to know about Maya and 3D modeling/animation in this series. it is geared more towards the novice/intermediate 3D modeler/animator, but it is very helpful to have some understanding of 3D and Maya before trying this book, especially if you want quick results.

This book takes you through the ins and outs of 3D but you don’t start any projects right off the bat. i would recommend Maya® at a Glance - by George Maestri for the animator who has never done anything before, but this book will do the newbie a lot of good as well. it is part of the best series you can get to go from beginner to advanced in 3D animation (and i know... i have the whole series and close to 30 other books).

I hope this review was helpful to you, and if you have any questions feel free to ask them.

Want to learn 3D? Then Get this book!

Nothing more to say, just order it. It is great, colorfull book with over than 500 pages and 5 awsome lessons (projects), although some people who don’t live in England or America and they don’t know English perfectly (because you will really need excellent understanding of English here) might have some problems with understanding certian parts of this book.
Along with The Art of Maya and Character Rigging this book makes perfect trio for learning 3D!

Want to learn 3D? Then Get this book!

Nothing more to say, just order it. It is great, colorfull book with over than 500 pages and 5 awsome lessons (projects), although some people who don’t live in England or America and they don’t know English perfectly (because you will really need excellent understanding of English here) might have some problems with understanding certian parts of this book.
Along with The Art of Maya and Character Rigging this book makes perfect trio for learning 3D!

An excellent book

This book leads the beginner to 3D graphics through the minefield of terminology and problems often encountered.

The book is well laid out with clear screen shots and diagrams and the use of simple english so as not to confuse anyone.

I would thoroughly recommend this text for beginners to Maya.

An excellent book

This book leads the beginner to 3D graphics through the minefield of terminology and problems often encountered.

The book is well laid out with clear screen shots and diagrams and the use of simple english so as not to confuse anyone.

I would thoroughly recommend this text for beginners to Maya.

not what I was looking for

First off I purchased the entire Learning Maya 6 series from Alias directly. It’s been a long time since I’ve come across more incompetent people than the ones involved with their Learning Tools. They never were ever able to tell me what I had purchased, I had to wait until it arrived to find out. So if you are going to buy it, buy it here.

Second, I don’t know why anyone else hasn’t mentioned it (a reason why most reviews are worthless I guess), but the DVD is just about guaranteed to make you go blind. I am not an expert on how to make DVD’s, but they did a terrible job. The index doesn’t cover all the chapters (for starters), but most importantly the quality of the vids is so fuzzy that watching more than one chapter at a time makes me get a headache. What the vids show is just someone working with the Maya application itself, the vids are such poor quality that you can’t see what they are doing or what menu items, etc are being selected, which again makes them almost worthless.

Third, this is not the way I want to learn. I assumed that the "Foundation" part of a series would explain in detail how to use things and build up (hence the word foundation) to the more specific books that follow. Instead, they are all just "follow me" type tutorials without giving much detail, if at all, as to why you are doing things. So instead of understanding why and when to use certain tools, you end up mimicing someone else’s actions without really understanding why, not really learning anything.

This might be a good book to augment another book that I haven’t found yet, that explains the Maya application itself and 3d fundamentals. Otherwise I think it was a waste of time.

One of the best value for money

Great book.
Gives you an good overview of Maya and of 3D in general, and provides you with solid knowlege trough well design tutorials.
The DVD and the projects alone are worth the money.
If you are looking to go into Maya, buy it.

One of the best value for money

Great book.
Gives you an good overview of Maya and of 3D in general, and provides you with solid knowlege trough well design tutorials.
The DVD and the projects alone are worth the money.
If you are looking to go into Maya, buy it.

Excellent Getting Started Book

An excellent first book to use with the free download of "Maya Personal Learning Edition" from the Alias site.

This takes the beginning Maya user from learning the Maya 6 user interface through 5 projects of increasing complexity.

An updated edition of "Learning Maya 5 Foundation", the only difference is the minor changes in the user interface.

Clear, detailed and a joy to use!

OK, now this is what a teach-yourself manual should be like.

Firstly there is the fact that the book is big, full of clear colourful illustrations and got a good index.
Then take the fact that the 5 included projects not only will teach you loads of different and essential techniques, they are also FUN!
Finally, note that this book is written in a friendly, easy to follow style. Never patronising, never assuming anything it has not already covered and yet not labouring a point.

Top notch! I can honestly say that I have really enjoyed working through this book. The space ship tutorial is my favorite - I really felt I has CREATED something by the end.

Importantly, I now feel that I have been well-grounded in the basics (and more!) of Maya. The program has a reputation of having a steep learning curve. Sure, it is an advanced and powerful piece of software.

If you want to learn Maya - get this book. It is everything you could possible want from a tutorial book (sorry, I started with that, didn’t I?).

Clear, detailed and a joy to use!

OK, now this is what a teach-yourself manual should be like.

Firstly there is the fact that the book is big, full of clear colourful illustrations and got a good index.
Then take the fact that the 5 included projects not only will teach you loads of different and essential techniques, they are also FUN!
Finally, note that this book is written in a friendly, easy to follow style. Never patronising, never assuming anything it has not already covered and yet not labouring a point.

Top notch! I can honestly say that I have really enjoyed working through this book. The space ship tutorial is my favorite - I really felt I has CREATED something by the end.

Importantly, I now feel that I have been well-grounded in the basics (and more!) of Maya. The program has a reputation of having a steep learning curve. Sure, it is an advanced and powerful piece of software.

If you want to learn Maya - get this book. It is everything you could possible want from a tutorial book (sorry, I started with that, didn’t I?).

Incredible beginners book

I started at the very beginning of this book with no 3D experience at all, and unfamiliar with how to use Maya. By completing this book, I feel like a pro. Obviously in reality I still have a long way to learn studio effects, but this book makes you feel comfortable in the program and allows you to get used to the feel of all the tools. Great lessons, great description of ’why’ you are doing things, and covers all aspects of 3D graphics, from modeling to rendering. With this book by your side, you’ll land on your feet and start running w/Maya and the 3D World.

I am so angry!

I anxiously waited for this new release to come out and what do I get? Pretty much the same information I did with the Maya 5 Foundation book, but with a few added lines here and there and a DVD with movie tutorials of the chapters on it. The same exact color pictures and tutorials. This is really pitifull. If you have the Maya 5 Foundation book and you want to save almost $70 then do so. A good rule of thumb is to wait until you have read a few reviews on a book before purchasing it. Needless to say it is going back!