Rating: 
Summary: not for the couch potato
Review: How do I make an environment sky? How do I make a "green screen -or a blue screen", for that matter or how do I make a landscape?
Yes, silly enough for a seasoned Maya user but not for the one who's been through too many a frustration to find these solutions through tinkering and going through so called "Mastering" type of Maya manuals that apparently have a lot to offer but when you're just struggling to barely get off the ground they just keep you from soaring.
But here comes this little book, barely a few pages with as little text as is neccessary and,
my God! in color!, now here my heart takes a jump and, man! am I ever glad that this "little" book is just so great, that it does so deliver!!!
A year ago I saw "The Sphere" film which has quite a cool intro done by Imaginary Forces. At the time I was starting on After Effects and not only had I some material to work on (find out how it was done, the text effects mainly) but also material to research with: the Meyer's AE in Production book which is close to the bible, not only for it's invaluable amount of info but also for the way it's been written and the graphic layout of the book itself.
Six months ago I opened a Maya demo for the first time having provided myself with 3 well known manuals as an investment looking forward to emulate some 3d stuff that had inspired me to try Maya and almost 4 months followed in which I almost threw everything in the
garbage. But when I cooled down and thought about it all came down to the documentation, to the manuals. It was a situation pretty much like in school where not all teachers are actually "communicators"
I bought this book a week ago, and even when each chapter may be carried out in about an hour I took 2 days for ch. 29, the Magic Lens and 4 days for ch. 24, Wild Things.
This book is for the tinkerer, for the one that needs to quickly understand a basic concept with a basic yet practical example and then use these tools to experiment further.
I wouldn't recomend it for the non-imaginative mind, the straightforward thinker, this is not a "direct" book.
I used the idea of the Magic Lens lesson with different lens shapes, sizes, distances and combination of 2, 3 and 5 glasses emulating the positions and shapes of different lenses on my 35 mm SLR camera and, man! I could have spent a month rendering different results; then changed type, even replaced typography for objects...
And now for wild things, Paint Effects had never been introduced (to me) through bibliography in such a simple manner as 30 studies in 3D has: 4 days into it and with such a simple lesson here I am expanding, taking the painting idea in 2D and enhancing a texture here or a sky there, taking the 3D painting concept and exploring the concept of painting a realistic landscape, taking the Environment Sky and testing for optimal settings, taking the Depth of Field concept that up until now, I don't know why I could never understand and now it's all so clear, experimenting with creative focusing, and man!, this is the tip of the iceberg, I'm just a damn begginer!
Max, the only regret I have about this book is that it's only under 200 pages, I've only done 2 chapters, browsed through the rest picking up info and getting ready to dive in for them and I want more than I have ahead of me.
I wish I'd speak german so that I could read your other book. But I guess I'll have to wait for your next book, hopefully the MAYA WOW! Book.
I just wanted to say THANKS Max.
Rating: 
Summary: Very week book
Review: How this got printed I dont know. Wish I could have seen samples of the tutorials before I purchased online. (...)
Rating:
Summary: Oustanding Book to get some quick results
Review: I am a fairly new Maya/3D app user and have hit as many books as I can get on most of the apps out there ( 3D Max, LightWave, etc.) My goal was to figure out how to do a good, deatailed face, and then progress down to the character animation realm. This book teaches users ways to do great effects, as well as ways to model creatures and start a composition. I loved it. I found myslef learning more in this book than I did with the Maya 3 book. They are both good and show ways to do different things. Exploring Maya 4 taught me some things that I have been wanting to learn, and it was quick and easy. I seriously went through 10 chapters on a Sunday morning, and then went off and played with the ideas that were thrown out, just to see what Maya was capable of doing. A great LEARNING BOOK for those who do not have $$$ to go to the top end classes.... Highly recommended.....
Rating:
Summary: Avoid this book.
Review: I am a professor of computer animation in New York. I am constantly reading computer animation books. This is BY FAR one of the worst books in computer animation I have ever read. The publishing date was pushed back two or three times, they obviously were not retooling the book itself.
The book is poorly designed. The tutorials are one-two pages long and lack any artistic quality. Most of the artwork in the book is pixilated and jagged. I get the feeling the art director at the publishing company didn't get a chance to take a look at this book.
The cover over the book is very misleading with its pretty little picture. There are no pretty pictures inside the book (only extremely crude tutorials). I have a feeling that the cover of the book was designed with the intention of just selling the damn thing to people on Amazon who can't actually look inside.
By the way, if your used to mammoth-size books that give you an excessive amount of information; keep in mind this book only has about 200 pages.
The only advantage this book has is that it is the only Maya 4 textbook out right now. My advice is to anyone interested in buying this book, wait for a decent Maya 4 book to come out. There will be some by mid December, hopefully in time for next semester.
I will not be recommending this book to any of my students.
We have been using Maya 4 for quite a while; I am surprised there aren't more books on the software. The tutorials that come with the program are much better, and will have to do for now.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book for intermediate users
Review: I think that the reviewer that trashed this book because it doesn't have pretty pictures is misguided and just plain foolish. This is not a book for beginners, and its point is not to act as a showcase for pretty pictures. If you're an intermediate to advanced user, and want to see how different tasks are accomplished within Maya, then definitely check this book out. Read the tutorials that interest you first, and see how the author uses different tools to get the job done. But don't stop at the tutorials. Use what he presents and integerate it into your own workflow and build on the info in your own way. The reason I gave this book a 4 and not a 5 is because it only has 30 tutorials - if you have an insatiable appetite for anything Maya, 30 tuitorials leaves you hungry for more.
Rating:
Summary: Little chapters with lots of fun
Review: I was sceptical first when I opened this book because it is so thin! But it is filled with really joyful ideas. A car crash, a vulcano, a strange lense. I like crashes and erupting vulcanos and I can create other fire and special effects now by myself. Many other books are too special. This one is really wide.
Rating:
Summary: Early impressions
Review: I've had this book about 4 weeks now, and I highly recommend it for intermediate to advanced users. There's a selection of around 30 tutorials which are concise, easy to follow, and, at the same time challenging. They're also just entertaining to do. I found each one introduces some new concepts, or techniques, that I might not have seen before. The print quality and illustrations are first class, too. The CD contains all the lesson files, sample movies, some excellent AW tutorials, and some plug-ins. Maya produce their own set of excellent tutorials, but all the tutorials in this book represent a fresh approach. I mean, they're not just a re-worded version of a maya tutorial. I hope other readers will enjoy this book as much as I do.
Rating: 
Summary: Some useful information , examples are dead boring though.
Review: My only real beef with this book is the poly modelling examples are pretty dull although they've been designed to introduce you to all the features of maya, there's a good section on paint effects and use of constraints / dynamics. This will teach you a lot , I think you'd learn a lot more from the Mastering Maya 3.0 book though , even if you've only v.4.0.
Rating:
Summary: Not for anyone with ANY experience.
Review: No one with any experience will need this book. I returned it the day I bought it because it was simply too basic. None of the 30 "problems" in this book are problems at all, and can easily be solved with a brief look into the Maya manuals or help files (press F1), or even a quick look online. Problems this book covers include "how to make rigid bodies fall onto a passive rigid body" and "how to make a volcano with particle dynamics". Those aren't the actualy book titles, but those are the topics this book covers, and they are not difficult at all. The volcano doesn't even look that good, anyway. This book is simply too short and too basic to reccommend. I suggest Maya 4 Fundamentals instead.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Oh my....he forgot to put the how to make my bad models look good , or how to easily model the human head tutorial. guys sorry to break it to you but there is no easy way to model a head , car etc. your best bet is to practice. No matter how many books you read you wont master it until you practice. ok this was for the two appereantly newbie guys who gave one star ratings. back to the book : As the writer said in his post this is not another book that teaches the basics. Instead it gives you fresh perspective of what maya is capable of with simple examples. How farther you take those examples and apply them to your own work is up to you. overall i recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn more about maya.
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