Which book better?

[skigil]

i would say you need to buy the book that is from alias. Learning Maya is what got me started. also, the F1 key is an INVALUABLE book on its own..start reading.

-skgil

[FlexGiddy]

Originally posted by skigil
i would say you need to buy the book that is from alias. Learning Maya is what got me started. also, the F1 key is an INVALUABLE book on its own..start reading.

-skgil


I would agree.... It's a good book to start with.... even though they're not always clear and you're going to be confused as heck at some points too. But all in all it's good buy. The F1 key I would use when you don't understand the book because then you're looking for something specific.... Otherwise you could get lost cause the info there will be, at least it was like this for me when I first started, overwhelming...

Flex
:thumbsup:

[callon]

Ong:

I don't have the Fundamentals book you mentioned, but I do have the Savvy, and I highly recommend it. It seemed to go into more detail about the fundamentals of Maya than other books I've seen. The authors offer very specific step-by-step instructions that are quite helpful. It even goes into some advanced animation and modelling techniques. I think it's definitely worth it's price.

By the way, if you're looking for a good text on lighting and rendering, you should check out Jeremy Birn's "Digital Lighting and Rendering." It looks like it just might be a lifesaver. :thumbsup:

Hope this info helps. :)

Mike

[M_Orlich]

Wasn't a big fan of the Fundemental book, haven't used the Savvy one.

Also get Mastering Maya 3-Peter Lee.

It has a lot of explaination info that you'll need. Any you could pick it up used very cheap I would imagine. I got a couple Max 3 books for like $6 each a while back.

m

[TheHellmaster]

I bought Maya 4 fundamentals and it´s really good!

TheHellmaster

[fig]

actually from what i've read the maya savvy book is an update to mastering maya 3, done by the same authors :)

chris

[mattregnier]

It's a little more advanced but still has great walkthroughs, I just picked up Maya Character Animation by Jae-jin Choi last night. It's an amazing advanced book.

I also have the Maya 4 Fundamentals book. I would recommend it highly and the 4.5 book as well, mostly cause one of my classmates co-authored it :)

[Sanguis Mortuum]

I also bought Maya Character Animation and will also say that it seems like a brilliant book. I am a newbie to 3D really, but I still decided it was the best book to buy, as I looked through the other two, and they both seemed to be 200-300 pages of explaining stuff that can almost all be learnt by watching the 3DBuzz VTMs, whereas Maya Character Animation gets stick in with the practices of modelling some pretty cool stuff, but still has step-by-step diagrams of every step in their creation, which shouldnt be hard to follow, as well as having info on rigging, texturing, Deep Paint 3D, etc.

So I would recommend watching all the free 3DBuzz VTMs, and reading as many online tutorials as possible to get the basics, then possibly get Maya Character Animation.

I would recommend that you find them in a shop somewhere and have a good look at them before deciding which one to buy though. Im not sure what shops you would have near you, but near me Heffers only had Maya Savvy, Waterstones only had Maya Savvy, but I found in Borders that they had a great selection of books with Savvy, Fundamentals, Character Animation, etc.

[M_Orlich]

I just ordered the Maya Character Animation book after all your positive praise as well as the stellar reviews on amazon.com.

I also looked at the Saavy reviews which has several 1/5 star because it so much like Mastering Maya 3. Maybe you could save a few bucks by getting the Maya 3 book. I found the tutorials mostly to be undiciferable, but it's great reading for sitting on the can. I would be curious to find out if the tutorials were more precise in the Saavy book?

m

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