The Art of Maya: An Introduction to 3D Computer Graphics

The Art of Maya: An Introduction to 3D Computer Graphics
by Autodesk Maya Press

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Book Summary Information

Author: Autodesk Maya Press
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-04-30
ISBN: 189717747X
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Sybex

Book Reviews of The Art of Maya: An Introduction to 3D Computer Graphics

Book Review: Poorly conveyed information..
Summary: 3 Stars

Often Autodesks recommended path for learning Maya is not so hot, and this is an example of an innacurate assessment on their part of who should be reading this book. In fact there are aspects of many Autodesk books that I feel were not well planned, so you might want to explore other Maya books as well as Autodesks to see what works for you.
Apparently Autodesk sees this as an "introductory" book, and really it isn't, at all. Here's why. This book doesn't tell you "how" to do anything. It does tell you "what" things are and "why" you would use them in a very specific way, but nothing is explained in a user friendly way.
Essentially this is a book of quick overviews, but with almost nothing that will guide the reader through a step-by-step process to achieve any kind of end result. In fact many aspects of the book are almost stupidly ambiguous.
Here is a metaphor of how this book works. It's like if somebody was instructing you on how to build something but they only told you WHAT to do, but not HOW to do it. For example, say somebody decided to help you build a car. So the first thing they tell you is to "Put the engine together". You think great, here we go! Your first step is "to connect the transmission to the engine block." But you realize that the transmission isn't put together, so you ask "How do I build a transmission?" The response you get is, "put those parts together"... and that's all you get. In other words the information isn't wrong, it's just useless because it doesn't give you any genuine instruction. It doesn't tell you what parts go where or in what order, and often it doesn't even tell you where to find them. Much of this book works exactly in this manner.
With that said, if you already have an intermediate/advanced working knowledge of most everything Maya has to offer, this is probably a good book, because it gives specific overviews and general explanations on almost every aspect of Maya.
If you are new to Maya this book is completely useless. Maya calls this an "introductory" book, but it's so poorly thought out that the information comes across as being jumbled and incomplete.

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Summary of The Art of Maya: An Introduction to 3D Computer Graphics

This unique, full-color visual exploration of the theory of Maya is rich with diagrams and illustrations that demonstrate the critical concepts of 3D time and space, and helps explain the principles of 3D modeling, animation, dynamics and rendering. The book also includes a series of production notes detailing how skilled Maya artists have worked with the software to create production quality films, games, visualizations, and animations. The accompanying CD-ROM includes Maya Personal Learning Edition.

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