CGTalk - Learning Maya: Character Rigging and Animation

View Full Version : Learning Maya: Character Rigging and Animation

goosh

01-22-2003, 09:28 PM

Ok.. I went and bought this book (well work bought it for us)

All in all it's a nice enough book I guess.. but most of the stuff in here I've seen somewhere else on the web, and better.

BUT worst of all, (and I'm sorry) but I just can't stand the guy talking in the videos.. he irritates the heck out of me.

Every second word is a 'aaahhmmm' and he makes tons of mistakes... I don't know...

I personally, I don're really recommend this book.
The examples, I found to be pretty bad.. the deformations of the character are not what I would expect from Alias, the animations seem to be from a beginner. Even the acting on the few videos that show real life people doesn't seem good to me, like as if they just grab a guy and went to the back alley and recorded some things.

I found Jason's DVD (the first one, I haven't got the second one yet, so I don't know) and Inspired 3D character set-up way way better and even though they might be a little bit more expensive, they are worth the money a lot more than this book.

Goosh

jnglemeat

01-22-2003, 11:49 PM

thanks for the review Goosh. i bought that book as well a few weeks ago and was very dissapointed (sp), i sent it back right away. like you mentioned most of the stuff is available online or in Forums. im saving money to get the Maya Techniques DVD's
I think your review was hlepful to a lot of people who are looking to buy and are not sure.

bjarneheden

01-23-2003, 12:23 AM

Thanks for the review gosh!
I almoust bought that book.

I´m thinking about ordering "Maya Character Animation" by Jaejin Choi instead, but have not seen any reviews of it yet.

Has anybody read it?

/Bjarne

Wigaru Wiyamoto

01-23-2003, 05:44 PM

I just got Inspired 3D Character Setup. I have some mixed feelings. Minus the industry/school/intreview stuff at the beginning of the book there's only about 174 pages of actual rigging material. While that industry stuff is suprisingly good, I don't think it's really appropriate for a book on rigging. So that's $60 for 174 pages of useful information! There's really no reason to have ANY pages in color on a rigging book, nevermind EVERY page. This book is way over produced, and should have been half the price.

To be fair those 174 pages would be a 15 page section in a more general book. A lot of the information seems to be stuff that's important to know but frequently get's skipped over in other material.

Oh well, I've spent more money on less useful books before, so I wont get too upset. :shrug:

noisewar

01-23-2003, 07:03 PM

Actually I have both Jaejin's and the Inspired Character Setup... I like the presentation in Inspired much better, but Jaejin's is far more comprehensive. Both are worth a look though, but if you can only get one, get Jaejin's.

Lunatique

01-24-2003, 04:40 AM

I have all the Inspired 3D books(except the modelling one), and read all of them.

I also feel that they are over produced and doesn't have enough content.

First of all, using only one example scene for ALL the books is kind of...cheap and lazy. To really teach something, more examples needs to be given for different situations.

The industry interviews are nice, but they are not crucial.

At the price they were charging, I can't believe there was no CD ROM full of sample movies, scene files...etc. To make you go to the website to download files is really lame.

I have Jeremy Birn's book on Digital Lighting and Rendering, and it beats the crap out of the Inspired 3D book on the same subject. No comparison at ALL.

Wigaru Wiyamoto

01-24-2003, 05:35 AM

Yeah, the New Rider's Digital Lighting and Rendering and Digital Texturing and Painting books are good. I think the Digital Character Animation books aren't nearly as good however (many of the samples are down right crappy looking).

CGTalk Moderation

01-14-2006, 06:00 AM

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.