Maya 8 at a Glance [With CDROM]

by George Maestri and Mick Larkins

Book Overview

The Visual Key to Maya One look and you'll see that this Maya book is different from all the others. It presents the core Maya features visually, using pages packed with striking graphics and loaded with concise explanations of the Maya interface. This expanded edition includes more tutorials; updated material on modeling, animation, rendering and dynamics; and new coverage of Toon Shaders, along with other exciting Maya tools. Engaging step-by-step...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470056576
• ISBN13: 9780470056578
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Sybex
• Length: 217 Pages
• Weight: 4.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.9" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Question about this edition

I'm looking for a particular edition for school. I need edition 5 but I can't tell from the listing which edition this one is. It's the only one that shows up. Can anyone verify if this is it?

Maya Means- Not Real; Maya At A Glance- Unreal

I've Been drawing since the age of 5 (my mommy says so) and started painting at 13. Making the transition to Digital Artist was very hard for me. One subject is digital sculpturing! If your a beginning Artist or an Old Timer like me, Listen Up! Get This Book!!! I Got It and started reading, studying & doing every single day almost none-stop, I couldn't put the book down, I fell asleep at my desk twice reading & doing, And, Get This; I learned Maya in 1 Month!!! This book is Awsome for beginners or Old Timers like me! It's made the transition from traditional to digital so much more easier for me! Simple yet powerful! Like the bullets for a gun, This book is made for Maya! I Love This Book! Isabelino Gonzalez

Great book for Newie!

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.

Great book for any Animator

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 for newbies

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.