Exploring 3D Modeling with Maya 6

This book made me think. It is not a rote reiteration of buttons. There is a how and a why to the writing. I was able to get my drawings into model form after reading this book, something I had trouble doing with the books that center on spaceships and robots. It was fun, too. I highly recommend this book.

This book offers a unique introduction to Maya. It concentrates on Modeling, presenting the myriad of tools in a simple way for the beginning 3D Artist. I use this book to teach, and the students are very successful with it. I then add the 'bible' Maya texts to the library for additional reference, if required. We really don't need those in the curriculum, as they end to offer too broad a topic. We also reference this text in the advanced art classes because the tutorials are so good. The best feature of this book is how the tool used to create art, and the student examples supporting the method. I love how they brought in famous artists and arranged student productions them. Very good book.

This book is very good for artists. I did not have to model a space ship, a chess piece, or any other boring model. You can be very creative with the examples. I am especially grateful for the chapter on polygonal modeling. It is clear and inventive. The authors even answered my questions when I wrote to them. They were very nice and gave me some good links. I am very happy with my purchase.

I have never written a review - but I had to when I read the one preceeding this. I am a student at SCAD, and we gave input on this book (being students, I think that was smart). We wanted the 'don't go theres', because books often don't tell you common mistakes that happen when you try a new procedure. The don't go theres in this book help you through the common mistakes and how to get out of them, something other books don't do. I like it, and it really helped when I went through the exercises. This book is also great in that it covers new territory. Some teachers just recycle the Maya tutorials on the Alias website. This book covers some great shortcuts.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money to try Maya - so I bought this book for the price. I hate learning software. This book was actually fun. I feel comfortable enough to do some projects for work now. I also bought a thicker Maya book - but this book was much more to the point.