Alias Learning Tools,Marc-Andre Guindon
The Barnes & Noble Review,The best way to learn Maya 7 is hands-on, through projects. But this isn t just any project-based tutorial. These aren t toy projects: they re based on an animated short, ,Blue,, which has earned top prizes at five film festivals. ,You ll learn core Maya 7 skills by following ,Blue, through its production process, crafting its robot star, and constructing his entire outer-space environment. You ll start with modeling simple shapes -- rooms, solar systems, and so forth; then master the fundamentals of working with shaders, textures, lights, effects, and particles. Next, you ll learn how to use dependency graphs to understand the connections between Maya entities and the shading group elements that determine how objects look.,The authors then walk you through building your first creature from primitives, starting with a polygonal cylinder for its body. You ll master the basics of NURBS modeling and texturing; use skeletons, skins, and inverse kinematics; move on to organic modeling; even do some simple programming with Maya s MEL language. Rigging, deformers, Maya s non-linear TRAX editor, paint effects, subdivision surfaces, rendering: they re all covered. ,In addition to sample files, this book comes with Maya 7 Personal Learning Edition. Maybe you expected that: After all, you ,can, download PLE from Alias s site. But you didn t expect ,this:, a free, permanent (yes, non-trial) copy of SketchBook Pro 1.1.1, Alias s impressive paint and drawing application for use with digitized pen tablets. (Which, by the way, retails for a lot more than this book.) ,But, then, this full-color book ,does, come from Alias Press, Maya s creators -- so it includes Alias s expertise along with its software. ,Bill Camarda, from the October 2005, ,href=",http://www.barnesandnoble.com/newslet..., Only
Textbooks
Learning Maya 7: Foundation: A Hands-On Introduction to Key Tools and Techniques in Maya Based on the Award-Winning Short Film Blue [With CD-ROM]