Re:Book recommendation for Maya Nurbs modeling

[Pent]

Originally posted by MunCHeR

I recently bought Maya 4.5 fundamentals and the chapter on nurbs is essentially useless,

you can say that again, no offense to original authors but I had maya 4 fundamentals I bought and it was kind of ....
how should I put this .. not what I wanted ?

anyway
I recommend:
Maya 4.5 Saavvy (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0782141099/102-8683400-3772958?v=glance)
OR
Inside Maya 5 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735712530/102-8683400-3772958?v=glance)

I personally like Inside Maya 5 better... nice writeup on nurbs continuality, smooth surfaces ect...

or perhaps if you only wanted to learn some nurbs, check out gnomon dvds on nurbs http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com

and you might want to checkout http://www.learning-maya.com/modeling.php

[MunCHeR]

Thanks for the reply pent, looks like I'm off to the book shop. BTW Maya 4.5 fundamentals wan quite useful, just not the info I was looking for on patch modelling, still worth every penny, quite a good tutorial od modelling with subd's

Cheers

MunCHeR

[Jim Lammers]

No doubt working with Maya Patches is a more complex subject than we could bite off with the book. When writing a beginners book, you have to choose the target of what a person knows when starting the book. So the book enlarges as you assume less knowledge, because there's more to explain. The book is constrained on length by the publisher - about 600 pages is all we get. So I tried to make it for the newbie and give them as much as we could in terms of quality tutorials and depth of knowledge.

Most of the people here might find the book too "fundamental" since they bring a lot of knowledge to the subject at the beginning and the Fundamentals book explains more than they need. But it's a tough balance, because we risk alienating all the kids with PLE if we talk over their head. Anyway it's a balance and we tried to get it right.

The new book - Maya 5 Fundamentals - is a little more aggressive. But NURBS are not emphasized. Instead the tutorials are a little more unique and ambitious. For example a human head, modeled from polys and Sub-Ds. It's still a beginners book, so people who aren't beginners are unlikely to buy it. But hopefully we're improving the content and making it more fun.

My company recently produced a Maya training CD called Advanced Maya: Character Modeling that is more advanced. This one is all about modeling a human figure from photos. All the details at http://www.advancedmaya.com

best regards,

Jim Lammers
Co-author, Maya Fundamentals
Trinity Animation (www.trinity3d.com)
www.advancedmaya.com


Originally posted by MunCHeR
[B]Hi peoples, I have been a lot of trouble with Mayas nurbs toolset, well getting everything to work the way 'I think' it should :cool:
I recently bought Maya 4.5 fundamentals and the chapter on nurbs is essentially useless, just wondered if anyone could recommend a book that covers nurbs, basically the attaching/detaching workflow, getting clean surfaces etc

[Pent]

hmm human head..sounds interesting
I might have to pick that one up when it comes out... thanks for replying to this thread Jim ;)

[Jim Lammers]

Hey Pent, thanks, it's good to hear back from you also.

To show you a bit more of what I'm talking about on the new book, I've posted a couple of images. These are preliminary.

The tutorial was developed by Kenny Cooper, who is really good at organic modeling. He is the same guy who developed the character modeling tutorial on the advancedmaya.com web site.

Here's a screen shot of the tutorial near the end of the modeling in the book itself:

http://www.trinity3d.com/FTP/M5F-fig.jpg

The cover art uses the same head, and it actually looks a lot like the original female model who posed for us. Alyssia Kim (www.3dspacecadet.com) did the cover art and did an amazing job of getting it to look realistic and similar to the actual girl. At this point it is proposed cover art - New Riders has final say on this of course.

http://www.trinity3d.com/books/bookcovers/M5F-prelim.jpg

thanks

Jim

Jim Lammers
Co-author, Maya Fundamentals
Trinity Animation (www.trinity3d.com)
www.advancedmaya.com
www.mayafundamentals.com

[roger3d]

Hi Jim,

I have the Maya Foundamentals 4.5 and I think it's a great book for begginers, specially because it's videos.

MF 5.0's cover art looks great!

Please, create the videos for this book, too!

Cheers,

Roger

[ME3D]

Hello there,
Well just wanted to chime in here. hmmmmm-I was thinking of leaving out the NURBS chapter...well I better not....lol

Well seeing as the forum is a place to speak out, maybe I could get a few suggestions as to what you think would be valuable additions to the Nurbs chapter for this edition that is nearly finished featuring Maya 5.
Add to my list and I'll check it out. MunCHeR I'll start with your suggestions:

1)attaching/detaching
2)workflow
3)clean surfaces

-Garry Lewis

[ntmonkey]

MunCher,

Here's good site that deals with 3 different approaches to patch-modeling in NURBS. I hope it serves you well.

http://coldfusion.art.msstate.edu/camenisch/thehumanhead/NURBS.html

main site is: www.thehumanhead.com

peace,

Lu

[ME3D]

Other specific items to suggest for the NURBS chapter in Maya 5 Fundamentals book?
c'mon guys its not everyday you have the chance to say what you'd like to see in a Maya book right. So add to my list and I'll even put your name in to thank you for the suggestion if I use it!
Its not much I know but heck its your name in print.
Now suggestions?:
9-15-03-

[ntmonkey]

I know I'd like to see a good NURBS hand modeling tutorial that shows a couple of ways to stitch seams together. Isn't there also something in Maya that allows you to tweak out the stitched edges after the stitching process? I dunno, a good explaination of that would help.

I think a concise NURBS car modeling tutorial would be cool if it used all the tools in the NURBS toolset. Lots of good theories behind those types of models that could be elaborated upon. But that might not fit into a Fundamental catagory.

Just rambling....

Lu

[ME3D]

ntmonkey,
Good suggestions. Unfortunately the car doesnt really fit into Fundamentals. Mainly due to level of detail and number of steps it takes to create something like that in writing would be more than the size of a chapter.
Although there is a full tutorial on building a realistic human head in Sub-D that is covered over two chapters so the detail is really there.
I already have a small project for NURBS but the question is really more regarding what techniques I use to build it. I believe the approach may be better to focus on the list of features you've just contributed in order to show all the necessary tools NURBS has to offer in a very straight forward way.
1)attaching/detaching
2)workflow
3)clean surfaces
4)Stitching

I added in stitching and we could do several more. So more suggestions...?? Keep em comin.

[mark_wilkins]

Yeah, focus on actually making Maya's stitching work! The problem is that models have to be extremely carefully built to stitch well and nobody, so far, has really discussed what one has to do to get there.

So, either one learns modeling from an expert instructor or just bumbles around wondering why stitching in Maya is so troublesome.

Or they buy or develop a stitching solution...

-- Mark

[ME3D]

Hi Mark,
No pressure then eh? I could feel the weight decend upon my shoulders as I just read your post.

Thanks, I totally agree though so in order to keep within my page limit for this I think I'll do like I mentioned and focus on something simple for the project, but spend more time focusing on what you really need to know. I still have to do the definitions as with all the rest of the Fundamentals, but in the tutorial I can add more notes and tips to help keep those nasty nurbs in line.

Thanks again.
Garry Lewis

P.S. My first paragraph should say something like " hey what are you thinking of working with nurbs? Go build in sub-D its easier!"...lol
(Just kidding there for anyone who didnt catch on.)

[mark_wilkins]

I'd say that to address the matter that I raised, getting the principles out there on paper is probably a big step forward -- examples don't necessarily have to cover the entire space of problems one would encounter, but just describing the problem-solving involved in making it work would be a big help.

I know what you mean about the page count thing, btw. :)

-- Mark

[MunCHeR]

Wow, quite a response, guys yeah the stitching thing would be a great place to start, and i guess getting the workflow correct from the start is the hard part, there are quite a few books out there and at nearly $100 a throw for some one wants to make good choices. I dont think it would be necessary to model a whole car with nurbs, maybe some good axamples of what to avoid, better workflow choices and especially getting a clean surface which is unfortunately the plroblem i'm having:wip:
Ofcourse when i venture into MEL I'll know where to look :thumbsup:

Cheers guys

MunCH

[ntmonkey]

I remembered in an advance lecture not too long ago where my instructor patch modeled a hand. It was a lot like detach, rebuild, attach, detach....next patch....detach, rebuild, attach, detach. Almost brain-numbing repetative. However, at one point of the whole process, there was this little attribute to tweak out seams that didn't stitch quite right. It seemed like some sort of tolerance setting, and well, I forgot where it was.

Couldn't you get away with the page limit by including a .pdf file of a few tutorials? I guess that's one way of sneaking info unless of course there's no accompanying CD or its content is already full. I've bought books many a times just because it had a particular chapter or section that I really wanted to have. I'm not rich, but I'm a sucker for a good book, especially the ones with cool CG pictures in them.

peace,

Lu

[mark_wilkins]

the page limit is for authors' benefit as much as for the publisher's. :)

-- Mark

"No PDF Files for You!!" :D

[ntmonkey]

the page limit is for authors' benefit as much as for the publisher's.

I figured as much. It just appeared that the page limit was a hinderance instead. Not being able to express fully what you want in writing is like being interrupted mid-sentence.

peace,

Lu

[ME3D]

Mark, Thanks I knew you have experienced the issues of page counts and would understand completely. I wanted to mention what a great book you wrote. I look forward to reading it in its entirety. So far I'm skimming and looking over different chapters of specific interest. Very cool work!

Guys, The repetitive nature of NURBS is why it takes so many pages. Since a big focus of the Fundamentals books is to take you through as a bigginner then the steps are not skipped or glossed over. This really makes it tough for us to author something like a car, or like I mentioned the head modeling tutorial.

So in saying that. I'm really glad to get this insight about what would be best to focus on for the NURBS section. I'll work on keeping the project simple so we dont clutter up the process with the repitition, while at the same time spend time showing the really important methods to nurbs modeling.

For instructional video past the fundamentals book check in at www.advancedmaya.com currently a 14 hours of in depth character modeling is available. Soon you'll also find advanced texturing, and character setup and rigging.

[MunCHeR]

Hey ntmonkey, thanks for the link that is about the best one i have read explaining patches, thanks...:beer:

Regards MunCHeR

[CraigT]

I was wondering if the release of Fundamentals 5 is still a ways off. Amazon showed Sept. 2003 but I have a feeling that isn't going to be the case. No big deal really but I wonder if I should get Fundamentals 4.5 in the meantime- or will they be different enough to be worthwhile having both anyway? Thanks.

Craig

[JasonA]

I realize this may not be within the scope of what ME3D or Jim had in mind with their upcoming book.

But what I think is really lacking is tutorials on how to model industrial objects well using nurbs. Stuff thats complex, not bone simple like creating primitives or distorting them with artisan. Creating multipatch surfaces, dealing with tesselation. etc. I really feel like someone could really do the Maya community a big favor by writing a solid book about nurbs modeling in Maya, covering organic modeling and industrial surface modeling (ala Rhino??) both. I think that this is being neglected in a big way.

I'd like to see some effective car modeling tuts, along the lines of what Mike Thompson tried doing with the subaru wrx 99 tutorial (with better explanaytions of steps and problem solving techniques).

[wgreenlee1]

I forgot who it was but there is someone coming out with a big .pdf tutorial on modeling with NURBS in Maya.
I will have to look it up and find it but this was just recent.
If I find it I will bump it up or post a link in this thread.

[ME3D]

Craig T,
You guys will see the book on shelves in December. So no its not that far off, but I would say that if you can get Jims previous version (4.5) do. You will find it pretty different from the new version (5).

Maya 4.5 Fundamentals was pretty much just Jim. Its a really valuable book for beginners into the intermediate I think.

Then Maya 5 Fundamentals has been rewritten in the same manner, but not just for a new version of Maya.
The new one includes all new tutorials and a new Co Author. I am covering about 3-5ths of the book so both books will take the same approach leading you through projects. Then it explains what you should look to next, as well as things to lookout for, and tips for other methods.

In essence they will be two entirely different books so twice as many tutorials if you like. :)
I'll post some details later on, but I have the Nurbs suggestions you guys made to attend to now.
Later,
Garry

[JasonA]

Originally posted by wgreenlee1
I forgot who it was but there is someone coming out with a big .pdf tutorial on modeling with NURBS in Maya.
I will have to look it up and find it but this was just recent.
If I find it I will bump it up or post a link in this thread. That would be cool, I'd like to see it :applause:

[CraigT]

Thanks for the reply Garry and you told me what I needed to know-looks like I'll end up with both books. :-)

Craig

[wgreenlee1]

Originally posted by JasonA
That would be cool, I'd like to see it :applause:


No probs L...

I'm currently working in the Noth of England on a project (where sadly, Broadband is non-existent!) so Bye-bye to London for a while!

Bursting at the seams when the order for M% was satisfied, but like yourself have plumbed for sticking with M4.5 (still)

If you remember(seems like a long time ago now!) I was going to do a comprehensive Maya Patch-modelling Tutorial; chiefly focussing on the areas not breached 'workflow-wise'aka 'Help' files, Gnomon etc. and keeping things less 'techie' than Siggraph papers ....

well, it's nearly done now, but it's reached 220-odd pages, with only smallish images - 'spose I just wanted to get it more or less right, but got kinda carried away, and research led me into untapped realms of discovery also!

At the editing and then converting to PDF stage now.... hmmm...

Atwooki



From this thread->http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=830668#post830668

[CGTalk Moderation]

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.