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View Full Version : How far can you go without advanced courseware?

Lunatique
05-05-2002, 12:51 PM
I'm on my way to finishing the Learning Maya 4.0 book, but the kind of stuff you learn from it is so basic compared to the kind of stuff I want to be doing(game cinematic or film quality stuff).

My question is, is it possible to experiment on your own and still get to advanced level WITHOUT spending tons of money on all the advanced courseware? I mean, 3D is not like drawing and painting, where everything is intuitive, and all you have to do is draw/paint a lot and you'd get better. A software as deep as Maya requires PRECISE knowledge, and you simply can't just guess your way through hundreds of commands/settings for complex scenes.

Online tutorials are always either very basic, or very vague, so they are no help either.

So, is it possible to become an advanced user WITHOUT spending more money on advanced courseware?
rsalonen
05-05-2002, 02:06 PM
IMO I think you could learn all the tools in Maya by experimenting.
But learning MEL and Expression is a different thing, it's not as easy to experiment with and would require some precise knowledge I think. I'm also wondering a good way to learn MEL and Expressions, is there a book for ONLY MEL and Expressions?
svenip
05-05-2002, 02:25 PM
i think, there is no really good book outside. sure, for beginners they have some informations you can use, but if you wanna go further to intermediate or to advanced it's not very helpfull.

best way to learn will always be to try try and try. most of the time you still know all the tools you need but do not recognize to use a specific one for that specific problem to solve. your strength will rise on your tasks. but do not start with a great project. you will become frustrated very soon i guess. better way is to start with as many as possible little tasks. try to recreate some things you have seen on features or so. this will help you maybe to understand maya in a better way.

and of course "LEARN MEL !!!". Mel is "the force" in maya.

maybe it's also a good idea to start a tutorial section here and fill them up. haven't seen a very good one on the net so far.
Jhonus
05-05-2002, 03:59 PM
Originally posted by Lunatique
you simply can't just guess your way through hundreds of commands/settings for complex scenes.


You don't have to guess your way through. Read the help file if you don't know what a command/setting does. Its all there waiting for you to learn ;)

Theres some concepts in Maya which you will never understand if you just rely on tutorials and experimenting.
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