ISBN:0735713448Book Description
A unique, in-depth approach to creating realistic characters in Maya. Maya Character Creation: Modeling and Animation Controls' author, Chris Maraffi, has expertise in the field and in the classroom that translates to the knowledge and solid teaching skills needed to make this book a "must-have"!
The current trend in computer graphics is greater organic realism. Many of thetop-grossing movies today, such as Spiderman, Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park 3 ,and Star Wars Episode 2, all feature realistic 3D characters. There is a majorneed in the 3D community for educational material that demonstrates detailedtechniques for achieving this organic reality. Maya is one of the main packagesused on such cutting-edge films, and has an established toolset for creatingbelievable 3D characters. Maya Character Creation: Modeling and Animation Controls is designed to take you through the process of designing, modeling, and setting up animation controls for complex 3D characters. The concepts, techniques, and Maya tools used foreach step in the process are presented in each chapter, followed by manyhands-on exercises. NURBS, polygon, and subdivision surface modelingtechniques are shown for creating the character's skin, and skeleton-basedanimation controls are covered in detail. You will learn how a character'sskin should deform when the skeletal joints and muscles move. AdvancedMEL scripted animation controls are also covered extensively.
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Reviews From AMAZON.COM
It's okay.
We're using this book for my advanced rigging class at the Savannah College of Art and Design. That said, I think it is most certainly not a book for someone who has no experience in 3d.
I skimmed the modeling section, and the instructions are for a character modeled in NURBS. NURBS are certainly not what I would suggest modeling in if you're a beginner. If you've never modeled anything before, I would suggest finding a book that teaches you how to model with polygons first, which I consider much easier to begin with.
As for the rigging section, I will reiterate that you should probably have some idea of how to rig before attempting this. It has some really good MEL expressions for controlling the rig. The drawback is that there are some errors in the book that my professor has pointed out and given us solutions for. This could be a problem if you are trying to teach yourself, as your rig may function strangely or not at all if you don't already understand the basics of rigging. I know some examples of where there are severe problems with the rig presented and that was with the stretchy spine and the breathing expression (which you annoyingly can't turn off).
I probably wouldn't have bought the book if it hadn't been a requirement for the class. The instructions and notes that our professor gives us are more helpful than any book and no book can replace actual instruction from another human being.
Things are not at first what they seem.....
Being new to Maya and having difficulty getting my characters to act properly, I purchased this book. When it arrived, I thumbed through it and thought that it was a little beyond my comprehension. I would read it from time to time before I went to sleep.
I continued trying to make my characters work properly (failed miserably) so I took out the book to give it the ol' college try. What a great book!
Coming from a background in Poser, I have invested a lot of resources in content; that said, I'm not creating my own characters at the moment. I began creating a rig for my character using the exhaustive chapter on creating character controls. I got about 1/3 of the way and bound the skin and skeleton just for kicks. I gotta tell ya that I felt that I had really accomplished something. The controls did exactly what they were supposed to, had more flexibility than I would have thought to create and looked really cool. I am very excited to complete the chapter and see what happens.
There are a couple of mistakes in the text that were frustrating at first, but applying logic after re-reading solved them. The author's style is as exciting as a saltine cracker, but it's clear that he knows how to create a great rig (that looks somewhat chaotic in the hypergraph, keeping in mind that I still have not completed it yet).
I would recommend this book to someone who is pretty familiar with Maya. Some parts are a little beyond me but I keep plugging away to become more than the novice that I am now.