Learning Maya | Character Rigging and Animation

Rating:
Summary: Needs A LOT of work
Review: ...There are too many mistakes, assumptions, confusing instructions, and very little practicle understanding of why you do things the way you do them. ... While I am learning things from it I know it's not enough and that I'm struggling far more than I should. It's extremely frustrating. ... These texts are suppose to make learning it easier.

Example: On page 69 under Adding Selection handles ... it says, "Select All Components Off selection mask and turn on the Selection Handles selection mask." ????????? I spent the better part of 20 minutes looking for the "All Components Off" command. I searched in the help files. I looked on the disscussion groups. Finally I just had to start randomly mousing over things and clicking random GUI buttons to find it! ...I still have to find the "Selection Handles" selection mask.

...The SDK tutorials assume too much and skips details in the step by step. It tells you to select things when you've got 3-4 pallettes open and no detail on which one to select in. Things are named so similarly it's difficult not to pick the wrong item. When you're asked to verify the Roll attributes it assumes that you know to click the base node that that attribute is assigned to even though you were just working on a different node in the previous step.

...

Rating:
Summary: A lot of great tutorials and concepts.
Review: I highly recommend this book.
PROS:
*It tries, through tutorials, to introduce you to the concepts, techniques and pipeline of animating a character from start to finish.
*2 CDs included have some great support files and videos
* The videos are very good for learning visually

CONS:
*You'll NOT find here advanced facial setups, or advanced rigging tips. It's not an bible.
*It's expensive

Rating:
Summary: good solid Book
Review: Im sorry but you shouldn't be reading this book if you cant find the "all components off" toggle, this book is made for a user who is beyond a beginner lever and more familiar with Maya and how it works. It lays down a good foundation on how to rig a character properly, for more advanced rigging I suggest a lot of experimenting on your own, there is no sing resource that will give you everything on a silver platter

Rating:
Summary: good solid Book
Review: Im sorry but you shouldn't be reading this book if you cant find the "all components off" toggle, this book is made for a user who is beyond a beginner lever and more familiar with Maya and how it works. It lays down a good foundation on how to rig a character properly, for more advanced rigging I suggest a lot of experimenting on your own, there is no sing resource that will give you everything on a silver platter

Rating:
Summary: needs to explain more precisely..
Review: Many peolple are tolking about this..

Example: On page 69 under Adding Selection handles ... it says, "Select All Components Off selection mask and turn on the Selection Handles selection mask."

what does this mean? where is that selection mask?
can some body tell me what that means?
this book is way to expensive and does not have any explanation

Rating:
Summary: If you're ready for character animation, buy this book
Review: The tutorials in this book will not only teach you everything you need to know to rig and animate characters in Maya, it can also serve as a model for a basic (if slightly heavy) rig that you can refine for your own needs as you get more experience. The Melvin character is easy to build and animate because the instructions are so clear. Also, with the included files on the CD, you can start any chapter independently of any other. If, for example, you want to skip rigging and go right to smooth skinning and weighting, you just open the chapter file and there is the character, ready to bind. I rated this book 5 stars because it's the best book out there for learning how to do Maya rigging and animation, not because it is perfect. There are some topics it does not address. There are some discussions in the Appendix on general issues such as the pros and cons of different IK setups in the legs and how to use Quaternion rotations instead of Euler space rotations, but to be fair, the in-depth discussion of options a rigger faces are somewhat out of the scope of a tutorial book. As noted by others, this is not a book for beginners. It assumes you know the Maya GUI, how to use the manipulation tools, navigate in the viewports, etc. I'd been working with Maya on my own for a year and a half before I bought this book, and I found it to be superb in addressing its subject.