Written for aspiring designers, modelers, animators, texture artist, and those new to 3D graphics, Introduction to 3D Graphics and Animation Using Maya explores the fundamentals of 3D. Using a variety of practical tutorials, you?ll learn everything you need to know about the techniques and theory behind modeling, rendering, UV editing and layout, texturing, lighting, animation, and character animation. And you?ll learn how to use Maya to put your new 3D knowledge into practice. To be a successful modeler, texture artists, or animator, you need to know when and why you should use certain tools and techniques. To help you achieve this, each chapter starts with a bit of theory, and the tutorials have frequent interludes that help explain the ?why? behind what you have just done. These ?whys? include some important tips on how to use a tool and explain why you used that particular tool. By using these sections, you?ll be able to move beyond just following a 3D recipe, to being able to create your own masterpieces. And at the end of each chapter there are additional practice exercises to challenge you even further. If you want to learn the fundamentals of 3D graphics and find out how to put them into practice using Maya, this is the book for you!

Written for designers, students, and hobbyists, Introduction to 3D Graphics and Animation Using Maya explores the fundamentals of 3D. Through a variety of practical tutorials, users learn everything they need to know about the techniques and theory behind modeling, rendering, UV editing and layout, texturing, lighting, animation, and character animation. And using Maya, one of todayâ??s most powerful & popular tools, theyâ??ll learn how to use the power of this program with their new 3D knowledge. Each chapter includes practical, easy-to-follow tutorials that not only teach how to do a technique, but also explain the "why" behind them. By using this approach, users know why they did a specific technique and how it ties into the overall goals of the project. At the end of each chapter there are also exercises for additional practice.

Another difficult Maya book

This book is an introduction to 3D with Maya as the software package. This book provides plenty of discussion on general 3D topics including modeling (polygonal, NURB and organic), rendering, lighting, and character rigging. However, the majority of the pages are dedicated to hands on tutorials. The included CD has tutorial files, high resolution images and Alias Maya 7.0 Personal Learning Edition (PLE).

Although this book covers a lot of good topics (especially a strong emphasis on clean geometry), the tutorials were too frustrating. The steps were very difficult and not just because of the subject material. The steps in the tutorials generally start out quite detailed, but they eventually get a little vaguer. I believe the idea of this approach is to allow you to finish part of the tutorial on you own. This approach works for some of the tutorials, however, most of the projects are just too large and complex. For example, the tutorials in the last chapters cover modeling, texturing and animating a complete Unreal 2004 compatible game character. Even though I was not able to complete all parts of this continuing project, I still learned quite a bit. The problem is, for a beginner level book, an arm or head would have accomplished the same with less aggravation. This book is simply not long enough to properly cover projects of this amount, size and difficulty. Maybe space limitations are another reason you are left to finish a lot of the tutorial steps on your own. Still, there are a few other reasons working through the book proved difficult. For one thing, the colorless photos in the book were pretty much useless. The high resolution images on the CD were a big help though. Sometimes these images were the only way to understand a given step. The book as a whole could have used more editing as it had plenty of mistakes. There were typos in the text such as repeated and missing words. Additionally, names for menu and dialog boxes differed a bit from the included version of Maya that I was using. Occasionally, a minor step was missing or an incorrect image was used (Check the CD for the correct images). There were also plenty of other little inconsistencies - many relating to layer and object naming.

If you are able to get through all the chapters in this book, you will learn quite a bit about 3D modeling that does not just apply to Maya. Still, it would have been nice if some of the harder projects in this book provided more detailed and complete steps. Instead, you are left to complete much on your own, which is an approach that probably works better in a simpler subject area. For 3D modeling, the tutorials and topics are probably a bit too hard for a true beginner and it is supposed to be a beginner level book. In the end, this is just another Maya book that tries to cover too much material without committing to more pages.

Rating: 3.5/5

Great Book

overall i think this book is great. if your into after effects or whatever else and have little knowledge of a true 3-dimensional software package but the ability to understand, buy this book. if you think 3d animation is neat and something you wouldnt mind learning, stop right now. Maya and most other 3d packages are not to be taken lightly. it takes a long time to learn the software and even longer to learn how to apply it. ive bought many other "maya" books by many other authors and the reason i really like this book is if your learning, it explains details about the little things that most other books skip past assuming you already know. dont cut yourself short, get the most out of each tool and start learning at the beginning.

The best book I know of for Maya

As you might guess from the title, this book is about designing 3D objects, rooms and areas, often used in the writing of gaming software using the Maya software system.

The interesting aspect of the book is the way that it is written. Each chapter starts with a bit of theory which is followed by a tutorial. Thus you get a combined approach that I find works very well. Sometimes you read the theory and are left wondering just what he was talking about, and the tutorial shows you what he means. And conversely sometimes when you get lost in the tutorial having read the theory allows you to get yourself out of trouble.

Make no mistake, 3D modelling is not easy. The amount of work involved to get the image you want is significant. A sophisticated software package such as Maya makes it easier, and completely understanding what Maya does is a big help. This book is a good one to help you get there.

The book comes with a CD which includes all of the designs that the book describes. This way you can work with what the author has already done and see professional quality work. The CD also includes the Maya 7 Personal Learning Edition.