Create positively dazzling effects with the unique insights and practical advice in this innovative guide from a working professional Maya artist. Need to create plasmatic energy by lunch? Animate a field of sprouting daisies before tomorrow’s meeting? Fashion a force field by Friday? With Maya’s flexible toolset and the unique tutorials in this book, you’ll learn how to solve real-world problems, improvise, and finish your professional assignments on time and with flair.

* This full-color title shows animators how to thrive in a fast-paced creative environment by showing them how to create amazing visual effects and solve tough animation problems as if their lives depended on it

* Provides insight to using specific tools in unique ways, such as procedural textures (including adding secondary motion with fractals, animating streaking energy, or creating complex particle motion), Paint Effects (creating twitching nerves, sci-fi computer displays, bacterial hair), joints (mastering the inverse kinematic spline tool, combining joints with deformers), blendshapes (faking time-lapse video effects, layering blend shapes, combining blend shapes with lattices ), Maya Unlimited tools (using hair to create a collapsing bridge, animating fur attributes), incorporating MEL scripting into your everyday workflow, and more

* The step-by-step tutorials are presented in a fun, engaging style

* The CD-ROM includes Maya demo software, scene files, and beginning and ending files for every project in the book

Very readable and technically excellent

I’ve only been interested in Maya from a purely hobbyist point of view - it’s good fun, if sometimes overwhelming.

Eric Keller is obviously very familiar with the software, and from his writing style in the book I can only assume he’s an excellent teacher. He manages to write about a deeply technical subject in a way that makes reading fun and interesting.

The book is broken up with plenty of screenshots, illustrations and examples. I particularly liked the way that each scenario is treated as a real life situation "Your art director has just handed you a napkin with vague instructions of some 3d effects involving a mad scientist and a wriggling 3d tentacle scribbled on it. He wants a playblast movie by lunchtime..." is a typical scenario from the book and you are taken through the scenario step by step.

One of Maya’s strengths is its flexibility in allowing you many ways to accomplish any one task. Taking this further, Eric delights in using seeming disparate parts of the program to do weird and wonderful things with other parts of the program, and producing some amazing effects as a end result.

Fantastically readable and probably the best Maya book I’ve bought, having bought a further 6 ’learning...’ maya books. If Mr Keller writes anything else, I’m buying it!

Could be more advanced

While containing some interesting ideas, I strongly wished it had been more in-depth and advanced. Many of the techniques used are rather simple and obvious. Unless this is one of the first Maya books you read, you’ll probably know at least half of the contents.

There is some good material here: Keller shows the readers how to use things in some unobvious ways and challenges them to look for solutions in unexpected (and fast) ways. If you’re a beginner, some of these techniques may help ingrain things you’ve learned, but haven’t had much cause to use, making you a better vfx person.

I’d recommend this to self-learners who are looking to extend their knowledge, but aren’t ready for more technical material. If you’re already comfortable with visual effects, this book probably isn’t for you.

what can I say?

not really worth the money I spent, there a few things that are worth taking note, but not what you would expect with a title like that, the online forums and tutorials are one’s best bet to learn neat fx.

Great idea for effects artist that want to go beyond the basics

This is one of the best effects books I’ve purchased. It’s not intended for people that just start out with effects, it’s meant for people that want to learn to do actually work. I like the realworld format of the book, with projects that are similar to what you would get in actual production. Great Book!

A must have for Maya users.

This book is a must have for Maya users who are interest in becoming VFX artists or Generalists.
I’ve bought many Maya books and I must say that I feel I’ve gotten the biggest bang for my buck with one.
Looking forward to Eric Keller’s next book.
Rudy Sarzo

A must have for Maya users.

This book is a must have for Maya users who are interest in becoming VFX artists or Generalists.

I’ve bought many Maya books and I must say that I feel I’ve gotten the biggest bang for my buck with one.

Looking forward to Eric Keller’s next book.

Rudy Sarzo

Interesting read

Its not as boring as other manuals, and it explains how to accomplish things, while bringing the ideas of how to use them in better situations. I really enjoy the reality of client speak that is presented in it.

Go beyond Maya

This is an excellent book for advanced maya users, teaches some great tricks with latices and light effects.

Has some nice little Gems!

If you are interested in taking your existing knowledge of Maya to the next level then Eric’s book is a great place to start. The book is laid out logically and easy to follow. The step-by-step examples have plenty of color images makeing it easy to understand. Eric has touched on very broad areas from texturing to rigging some complex setups. There are plenty of Mel and expression examples that add some more complexity with nice results. Many of examples Eric shows can be used for an array of other projects that you may encounter later on.

Thinking about old tools in new ways... Highly recommended

It’s rare to find a book that challenges you to think creatively about Maya’s incredible toolset - this was definitely a pleasant surprise in that regard! "Maya Visual Effects: The Innovator’s Guide" does not aim to replace the "Maya 101" books out there, but instead tackles something infinitely more interesting: how to adapt and use Maya’s expansive toolset to create novel effects. As the author says in the intro: "Every tool in Maya has three or four common uses, and about a billion possibilities for uncommon solutions" - this pretty much sums up the premise of the whole book. Particle collisions grow Paint Effects strokes - particles are used to control cameras. A skeleton controls a lattice that controls a blendshape sequence... you get the idea: not your typical, vanilla-flavor "let’s make a walk-cycle" or "model a race car." Not saying those aren’t important, but it’s refreshing to pick up a book that doesn’t rehash those same topics. Instead it does a masterful job at suggesting novel ways to put these common tools to work.

The "Innovator’s Guide" also happens to be written in a very approachable, friendly and enjoyable tone - the author had a good time coming up with the concepts and writing about them, and it shows. You won’t be bored as you work through this material. You also won’t be frustrated: the tutorials are cleanly laid out and, as a non-programmer, I also thought the MEL examples were excellent - thorough and well explained (clearly some thought went into the technical editing). Every tutorial is also presented in the context of a production environment - every project starts with an imaginary "art-director" who challenges us to create a specific visual. Even if you are NOT actually part of such a team-oriented work environment, it’s fun and useful to be thinking in those terms. Many of the book’s tutorials have an emphasis on building flexibility into your workflow and the final implemented project... indeed, the art director often changes his/her mind (in the book, but also in the real world)!

In the end, having been through much of the Gnomon & Digital Tutors DVD collections (which are excellent), it’s pretty safe to say that this book covers different ground. It leaves you with more of a ’philosophy’ to approaching problem-solving in Maya... something I hadn’t encountered anywhere else. In short, I highly recommend it to anyone who not only wants to take their Maya skills to "the next level" but, more importantly, who is interested in thinking about old tools in new ways. A guaranteed great buy.

Finally...

I accidentally stumbled upon this book while searching for a great tips and tricks manual. Usually, these things begin with a very basic extrusion tutorial and finally end up with a soft body fluid dynamic spring loaded bouncing ball particle simulation. Frustrating. With this book though, the author nicely provides information of a good level for the working professional / enthusiast. It’s full of deeper Maya knowledge that I can use to make my work that much more visually pronounced. Basically, a good leg up on everybody else. I’ve only been thru half of it so far, but it’s perfect for at least what I need.

A unique find

I just got this book and couldn’t be happier. Not only does it cover the topics and concepts that nothing else does, but it does so in an entertaining manner. The author does a great job of explaining the why behind the what, something that many books don’t cover, leaving the reader guessing why they just set this paramater to 30 and checked that box.
This is definately not a book for beginners, though. Without a firm grasp on Maya’s fundamentals and core concepts, this book will probably sit on a shelf collecting dust. I would strongly reccommend going through "The Special Effects Handbook" cover to cover to get a good handle on those concepts, expecially Maya’s dynamics.
Also, many of the tutorials in this book rely heavily on expressions and/or mel scripting, and this book is not a great intro to that. But if you are looking for something to guide your mind into developing good problem solving skills, this book is an essential.

Great book for taking your next steps in Maya

I consider this book to be a rare find. An instructional Maya book that knows exactly who it’s for, and the writing reflects that. By this I mean, that certain things the book assumes the reader understands and knows about, and it does not bog itself down with explaining all of that vocabulary. However, every time a tutorial asked me to do something I wasn’t quite sure why I was doing (often to do with MEL), the very next paragraph would explain what I had just done, and how to manipulate it for purposes other then just that of the tutorials.
I’m a professional working in the field of motion graphics, and it is nice to see a book dealing with cool effects that can be achieved through Maya, instead of another book on character modeling / rigging/ texturing / animation. The approach is quite innovative as well, as all of the projects are presented as problems in a production environment. Some you get to start from scratch, some you have to jump into an already created scene, and most have serious time constraint. There is also an emphasis on flexibility, this is really important, as in Maya there is more often then not many ways to achieve an effect, but this book offers many short cuts to get effects done fast, and in a way that would be easy to implement changes.
I would recommend this book to most Maya users, if you are truly a beginner, get up to speed else where and then get this book. Besides broadening ones understating of what all these Maya nodes can be used for (I myself am looking at the hypershade in a whole new light), the tutorial are really cool, and fun. The book itself is written in a pretty funny tone.
Lastly, though I’m not sure it is this books intention, it is a good introduction to MEL. I use to be quite scared of it, and would end up doing tidious busy work as a result, but this book is helping me get over this phobia.