Share Your Maya Book References

[X-Tender]

"Complete Maya Programming" by David A. D. Gould

i learnd much 'bout MEL scripting and C++ API .. so its averry god start for everyone who wants to learn it ;)

[tropistic]

"The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams.

[M_Orlich]

The Alias 'Learning Maya' books are jammed with information, although it's usually not to in depth. I just got the Rendering book which has a section on UV texture editing, which I've been looking for forever. Avoid the Games and Interactive book though, it's crap.


The Mastering Maya 3 is my favorite as far as having in depth explanations on things, which i think is key to really learning this stuff.

Max has a lot of books that explain general 3D concepts very well. I got a couple of the Inside 3D Studio Max 3 for like $6 each and they have all kinds of great infomation.

Generally speaking, I think Maya has a very poor selection of training materials.

matthew

[mikefeil]

maya 4.5 savvy

i got it 2 days ago

and the rocket tutorial is hella cool !

hah

[Houkah]

I just picked up inspired 3d character setup. I 2nd animators survival kit and digital lighting and rendering they're both great books. I also have learning maya foundation, character rigging and animation, and rendering. (from the maya productivity package) So far I don't like them that much though. (granted I haven't really taken a good long look at them)

[hiddnfox]

i just bought 'Maya Character Animation' by Jae-Jin Choi.

good stuff! im new to the 3d animation world (been a LOOOOONG time level builder for games like Half-life and Quake) and this beek has helped me quite a bit to learn different ways to model and animate etc.

it says its a little more advanced but anyone with a little will can figure out the things they dont understand in these east as apple pie tutorials!

[X-Tender]

Hey! You mapped for HL? .. Did you have some shots of your work? :wip:
I'am also a small Mapper .. :rolleyes:

[hiddnfox]

lol, i wish. HL mapping was on my old computer. all that stuff is on there if i ever boot it up again.....

ahh the good old days of HL mappin. i screwed around with a little DoD stuff but most my mapping was with Quake 3. that was a fun editor!

[Maya Ayanami]

I dont think that you should get that new book Maya 4.5. i looked around in it and almost all of the stuff is exactly the same as the mastering maya 3 book. of course since it is for 4.5 it will have a little extra stuff on doing oceans and fluids.
and you should get the digital painting and texturing book.
there is this other one. I think that it is called Maya - secrets of the pros. i got it from a friend but didnt do much. but there are some cool things in it.
there is a huge load of Maya and other good reference books. you should just go to amazon.com and search for maya and things like that. It would also be a good idea to get that mel book.

[steveblake]

These are nice for maya character based stuff...

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1931841489.01._PE20_PI_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg
inspired 3d character animation

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1931841519.01._PE20_PI_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg
inspired 3d character setup

I have thoroughly enjoyed them both...

[ntmonkey]

Hey all,

Its me again. I did snag the Mel Scripting for Maya Animators (M. Wilkins), and its got some good stuff in there. Inside, I found some stuff that will help me out next month in class with particles and such. It's a good Mel reference book and a good companion with the MEL references in maya itself. The funny thing is that I consider myself more of an artist than a programmer though I did do some Comp Sci work at University of Ga, but I like to make things easy on myself and MEL can really ease things for ya.

BTW, anyone have the MEL/C++ book by David Gould (sp)? I saw that one too but I ran out of cash buying a Dreamweaver MX book (go ahead and laugh, I'll wait). Does anyone have that book that could tell me how it is? I've taken programming before so if its a tad technical then its cool.

Thanks,

Lu

[markbones]

Hey,

I just picked up Maya Secrets of the Pros (John Kundert-Gibbs). It's over my head, but I have been reading it over and over. Tackles quite a few different areas with great examples. Each chapter is a project on its own.

* Digital L&R [J.Birn]
* The Animator's Survival Kit (right on, Tropistic - it's a must)
* The Art of Maya (A||W) It's not that detailed, but it touches on so many different tools and options that can be forgotten if not used regularly.

I am a programmer who is trying to become an artist ;) I have been snapping just about everything that starts with "The Art of"... For me, using visual references is the best way to jump start the right half of my brain.

I was considering Mel Scripting for Maya Animators
by Mark Wilkins, Chris Kazmier. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

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