[George_Maestri]Maya at a Glance(pdf){Zzzz}

Your Visual Guide to Maya

One look and you′ll see this Maya book is different from all the others. It presents core Maya features visually, using pages that are packed with beautiful graphics and loaded with detailed explanations on every crucial feature of Maya′s interface. Engaging step–by–step tutorials provide hands–on reinforcement for what you′ve learned.Maya at a Glance is the perfect introduction and reference to the Academy Award(r) winning Maya 3D animation and effects software.

From the Back Cover

Your Visual Guide to Maya

One look and you′ll see this Maya book is different from all the others. It presents core Maya features visually, using pages that are packed with beautiful graphics and loaded with detailed explanations on every crucial feature of Maya′s interface. Engaging step–by–step tutorials provide hands–on reinforcement for what you′ve learned.Maya at a Glance is the perfect introduction and reference to the Academy Award® winning Maya 3D animation and effects software.
About the Author
George Maestri is an industry veteran and founder of Rubberbug Studios. His clients have included CBS, Fox, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and he has worked on such shows as South Park, Rocko′s Modern Life, and Karen and Kirby. A noted author of five books and numerous articles, his Digital Character Animation book is an industry standard.

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; Pap/Cdr edition (8 April 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0782144047
ISBN-13: 978-0782144048

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Great for newbies 13 April 2005
By J. S. Monkey -
don't know anything about 3D? don't know anything about Maya? like pictures? this book is great! it has hundreds upon hundreds of color illustrations and explains in lamen terms what you are doing. there is more than one picture, and in most cases four or five, for everything explained and for every variation that he talks about.

if you know anything about 3D or Maya then this book may not be for you, but i have spent a lot of money buying books on Maya and 3D modeling and animation and this is the first one that i can actually follow. he explains everything very well and then moves on, but the book is laid out in such a way that if you need to look something up you don't have to read the entire chapter again to understand it! if my dog could read then he could learn how to use Maya with this book. definitely for beginners though... if you want to make the next "Gollum" this book doesn't do that, but if you want to start somewhere this is definitely the place.

Great book for any Animator 28 February 2006
By E. Velez -
I bought this book not knowing what to expect. What I found was a book full of valuable resources and tips to help out any aspiring or current animator. The book was simple to understand coupled with the tutorials at the end of each chapter makes this an essential for anyone interested in computer animation.

Great book for Newie! 18 January 2008
By Justin "The 3D Freak" Thomas -
I am an 3D Max user for 3 years. Now I'm straving to learn about Maya. At first, I wasn't sure I want to spend all of my time with big thick book like "Learning Autodesk Maya 8|Foundation" since I know nothing about Maya. When I first open the Maya PDE 8 and take a look thru the interface of it. It looks so complicated so I decided to stick with 3D Max for a while. Now finally I found at a store a book called Maya 8 at a Glance. After I took a look pages by pages, I knew its a great start for me. The book is thin and full of photos with simple descriptions. Great to start with! Instead of reading so much from a thick book. It'd easily turn me off.. Run out of patience. Anyway, now I've finished that book and am totally ready to buy Learning Autodesk Maya 8 Foundation" or "Mastering Maya" since I feel more comfortable with what I've learn so far with Maya thanks to that great book. So I recommend that book any newies to start off with! It's better off starting with basic thin book than thick book! You'll understand mostly what the author is talking about after reading Maya 8 at a Glance.

Very good book. 1 May 2007
By James Beswick -
This book helped me a lot, this book gives you a quick general overview of all the major functions of Maya, without going into too much detail. It's not too long and is full of lots of colourful pictures, which makes it easy to read compared to other Maya books which can be huge and daunting in their detail.
I recommend this book to people who have never done any 3d animation who are interested in trying it, as the name suggests it is essentially a beginners book; don't expect to be able to produce a short movie at the end of it. This book merely skims the surface of a giant program, but it'll give you an idea of how to go about creating an animation.
It's good to just start out with this book to give you an idea of what Maya involves, and after finishing you can start with one of the larger Maya books that are out there to explore it deeper and be able to produce your own short animations or models depending on what you want to use Maya for.