Maya 5 Fundamentals

Book Description

With the powerful 3D modeling program Maya 5, you're limited only by your own imagination. To set it free, look no further than this indispensable guide! In these pages, veteran animator Jim Lammers (who brought life to the Sony/Tristar film Starship Troopers) takes you from a review of 3D fundamentals to full-blown Maya 5 content creation. In the process you'll learn about Maya's interface and tools; modeling with NURBS and polygons; applying materials and textures; rendering stills and animations; using particle systems, dynamics, and paint effects; and more. By detailing not just how Maya works but the 3D principles and fundamentals that guide its use, this volume will have your creating brave new worlds of your own in no time. Also included is complete coverage of all of Maya 5's new features, including improved rendering options and never-before-seen atmospheric effects made possible by extensions to Maya Fluid Effects. A companion CD includes video-captured movies that walk you through every tutorial in the book.

Reviews From AMAZON.COM

Not my first choice for learning Maya

To start I'll let you know I own Maya Fundamentals 4.5, 5.0, and Learning Maya 5: Foundation books. I only bought the Foundation book because it was required for a college course I took.

I recommend 4.5 book over the 5.0 for two reasons:

1. The CD is much better, in that the lessons are a playback resolution of 800 x 600. The 5.0 is higher and thus "fuzzier" and harder to read when exact numbers are given for tutorials and you pause to make sure you have exact coordinates.

2. The lessons do not flow as well, in my opinion, in 5.0. For example, there is an instructional error in extruding a surface in chapter five in the first lesson. If I was totally green to computer graphics, I'd have not figured it out. The first tutorial you need to extrude the face on the "Y" not on the "Z" axis as intructed in print. (Yeah, it's kind of a "duh" moment.)

I do like the tutorial covered on Polygons in Chapter 5. I think the demonstration of using the sculpt polygon tool is great. This book does hit modeling with polygons harder, which I do like.

However, I suggest Maya Fundamentals 4.5 if you are brand new to Maya. The CD is much more helpful, the lesson flow very well and I do find the narator much more "in-command" of the subject matter being presented (it doesn't sound like he is following a script laying on the desktop).


I do think that if you wish to pursue more modeling instruction, this book does offer more for polygon modeling.

I have to give it the additonal star for the coverage of polygonal modeling.

I do suggest Maya Fundamentals 4.5 first, regardless of which verision of Maya you are running.

This is where you learn how to use Maya!

Ok. Where do I start? People say this is not a good book, it's not well explaned, and a lot of other bad things about the book, but believe me, it's a great book, one of the best maya books for beginners 'in Maya', not in computer graphics.

This book teaches you how to use Maya as a professional, but there is no magic, you need to practice and study hard to become a good artist, not just go through pages and pages without getting the idea of how it all works.

Don't forget you'll have to read other books too, not only software books, so be careful before judging authors and their books for being 'not good explained.

There is bad books, but in my opinion this is not one of them.