Understanding 3D Animation Using Maya

Rating:
Summary: A must for Maya users!
Review: I almost didn't buy this book because of the price, but I'm really glad I did! The tutorials were way more helpful than the ones I usually see because I wasn't just blindly following instructions - there were explanations as to why I was doing things. The book also covered set driven keys and the graph editor in a way that made me understand them for the first time.

Rating:
Summary: outstanding text
Review: I'm a programmer, but I have been interested in 3D graphics for a long time. I have dipped into both the dense academic texts that describe graphics and animation theory (too thick for a beginner, and frankly, too boring) and the fat books that describe a particular animation package (little more than a glorified user manual). This book is completely different: equal parts theory and practice with fantastic explanations backed up with tutorials you can follow through to demonstrate the ideas. In particular: Park's decision to cover all parts of the animation process (tool workspace, modeling, animation, shading, lighting, rendering) at each level means that you're working from complete examples at all stages (in programmer terms, it almost follows the Agile Process' 'integrate-first, build incrementally' model that works so successfully). First chapter alone taught me more about what those wizards do at Pixar and the like than anything else I've read. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: It Rocks
Review: This book is great -- I've been trying to learn Maya from the online manuals, and pretty much failing miserably. This book does a much better job. I recommend it!