Rating: 
Summary: One of the best Maya Books available.
Review: There are plenty of books on Maya, but like the other reviewers have said, this is one of the better ones. It seems like most of the books I've bought or looked through have been content enough to dwell on newer and flashier, "quick fix" aspects of Maya, such as fluids and hair. These are fun features, and they are quick and rewarding things to play with, but those of us who use Maya as more than just a hobby (or those hobbyists who can't afford Maya Unlimited) need something a little more substantial. This book takes you all the way through a practical production workflow, covering every step with examples and tutorials, from modeling to character rigging to dynamics to rendering. It even has a short section dedicated to compositing in After Effects. All in all, it teaches how to get things done.
I would recommend this book for beginners certainly, but for intermediate users it also goes into slightly more advanced concepts such as MEL scripting, rendering layers for a compositor, advanced particles, and even a tutorial for making a basic crowd simulation. For all users this book is a well-rounded and well-written reference, not just for the Maya software, but also for workflow and creating a feasible production pipeline. I would highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Who should buy this book?
Review: I bought this book recently and have read several chapters.
My opinion: -
There is some very good content for advanced uses of Maya in this book. Such as the camera projection techniques and the dynamics section is very good but fairly advanced (simulation of a an explosion and debris).
The chapters that I read would make me believe that if you cannot read "between the lines of an instruction" (if the instruction perhaps contains some kind of ambiguity) then you may be disappointed with this book.
I would say a MUST FOR ADVANCED USES OF MAYA (the camera projection tech/ and dynamics section are worth the price alone and the Nurbs patching techniques are quite detailed. The coverage of the book is quite broad...Using Mental ray with final gathering, fresnel effect texture mapping..using deformers with character animation, Pro ik rigs, ocean simulation example, crowd simulation example, re-target character rig example (the list is quite extensive).
BUT A DEF. NO FOR BEGINNERS...(There is a high probability you will get lost due to the possibility of unclear instruction.)
Advice for Maya users who get lost: USE THE ONLINE HELP ITS VERY GOOD. It contains some fairly clear tutorials. Also join some Maya help forums. Online questions/answers. Join Alias Membership schemes. Look to get advice online join some Maya help forums (post/answer questions/problems). Search Google.
Be careful which books you buy: There is not one book that can cover Maya as a teaching resource properly it's too complicated to explain. Too much detail is required. Go for a separate strategy, as Alias does with its education material. (If you want to understand Nurbs organic modeling then juts find a book on this topic only.) Make sure that you read all the feed back from people who have bought the material.
Finally: A good teaching book: requires clear instruction. Avoid any that you may
suspect has unclear instruction. Don't buy them. (You are looking for teachers of a subject not who they work for. Just because the author may be working at the top of his/her industry does not mean also they make a great teacher of the subject as well. This is a big mistake. Teaching requires great skill, experience and training. Look for good teachers not good industry reputations.
Rating: 
Summary: Great projects.....not for beginners.
Review: I have been 3D modeling for about a week now, and like to think that I'm progressing pretty quickly. This book, while giving some pretty neat goals (I so badly want to complete the ship!) the tutorials are very vague and the pictures don't help very much. It's very frustrating to be stuck on a tutorial for a whole day only to find that it's because the instructions are incomplete!
That said, I think this book would be outstanding for a group of people to learn with (such as a classroom setting) and in conjunction with other sources that better explain technique. This really is a complete reference, and excels in explaining how each tool works and making sure the reader understands this before moving on. All it needs is clarity.
I'm going to keep struggling through it, but I would definatly suggest that this text not be undertaken by itself. The internet and Learning Maya 5: Foundation are my other sources, and they make this book allot easier to understand.
Rating: 
Summary: God I hate errors..
Review: Read about 200 pages of the book now and I'm finding it quite hard go on with it. There are just soo many errors, missing steps and unclareties that the book is just a slow and killing pain to read. I am use to other Maya learning materials from various authers and publishers and where some are really good (MEL scripting for animators, Stop Staring etc.) this on really sucks up til now.
I really hope the rest of the book is better. To the authors credit I think what they are trying to get across is quite competent, unfortunately they don't get across all that well..
Ok. I'll edit this review when I have read the rest of the book. I just wanted to tell people who, like me, hate errous training, to think twice or maybe wait for the 2. editoin.
Rating:
Summary: so so, not great . . .
Review: this book has some good info, but i'm finding it very slow going trying to decipher the often poorly worded directions in these lessons. this is an example from the nurbs modeling lesson:
step 3. Detach the surfaces and rebuild.
step 4. Rebuild the surfaces.
(didn't i just do that).
here's another . . .
step 1. Insert 2 isoparms in the U direction on both the top and bottom.
step 2. Insert 2 more isoparms in the V direction.
step 3. Detach the surfaces, you should now have a total of nine pieces.
if you follow these directions one way, then in step 1 you would insert 2 isoparms on the top and 2 on the bottom. then in step 2 you would add 2 more in the V, but you find that you're left with 15 surfaces. obviously what they meant to say is "Insert 2 isoparms, 1 on the top and 1 on the bottom . . . " then you look at the photo to see where to place them and the bottom is totally obscured, so you have to guess.
although when i just modeled something to look like the FINAL picture, ignoring the text, it came out fine, but then i'm kinda winging it.
i have learned some usefull tips, but i think you will need to glean through this book and take a little here and there, rather than follow it by examples.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent book that sets itself apart from all others
Review: This book is awesome and one of the best out their. It covers certain things that other books fail to do. Like, the key elements of texturing, particle effects, and fully understanding the hypershade menu alot more in-depth, and it doesn't stop there. Their is also excellent guides and tips on hard surface nurb patching, compositing, and really good rendering tutorial tips. The overall book and tutorials are well written and easy to understand, even for maya beginners. Now, I have a wide selection of maya books in my library and I would have to say in my opinion that this is one of my top books, if not best because it sets itself apart from all others!
Rating:
Summary: Clear as mud.
Review: This book is not for beginners. 75% of the instructions are clear, its the 25% that will stop you dead in your tracks. They say things like connect this to that and snap this to the other thing. What is "other" thing supposed to be? I would not recommend for beginners, you will get disappointed once you get through 50% of the tutorial and be completely lost half way through.
Rating:
Summary: ok - but not focused
Review: This book is ok - but a lot like the manuals of the 90's that try to do everything. Maya is a huge subject, and I would rather a concise volume on one subject in depth. This touches a lot of areas without really making an impression. Due to overwhelm a beginner . . . and be too jack of all trades for an exerienced user.
Rating:
Summary: Could be brilliant, but...
Review: This could be an outstanding book. The scope is quite broad and there are loads of interesting, helpful and exciting tutorials, tips and hints that should help to broaden your Maya horizons. And that's just it - 'should' help. But most of the time they don't really, because... you get stuck. Stuck in tutorials, for instance, that are so riddled not only with spelling mistakes but also factual inconsistencies that the mind boggles how this book was allowed to be released to the unsuspecting reader eager to learn. And at that price! Did nobody proof-read the darn thing? Meade credits Alex Tang as his technical editor. The guy must've been stoned when he proof-read the book, or simply not interested - same difference. For instance in Chapter 14 'Texturing in Practice' Meade early on exhorts you to bear in mind that "it is essential that you keep the project organized by naming the nodes as you create them". Sound advice - and he invites you to stick to his naming convention. Trouble is, he himself doesn't - through the course of the tutorial he starts renaming the nodes, e.g. a node 'tFloorColor' later becomes 'tCheckerTexture' or 'mTank' becomes 'mTankTile'. These may sound like small niggles, but as anyone knows who had do wade through dozens of nodes in a project, a precise naming policy, as Meade correctly advocates, becomes vital, especially if you are following a tutorial where you depend on it even more. Shame that Meade doesn't practise what he preaches. This means that you spend ages trying to 'read between the lines' (as reviewer kirei90 has said on these pages).
In Chapter 14 alone I counted no fewer than 14 mistakes, inconsistencies or ambiguities in the text. Files on the accompanying CD are named differently from those referred to in the text, at times making it difficult to be sure which is what without opening them in Photoshop, say. Pictures meant to illustrate the text sometimes do not show exactly what's being talked about, e.g. you may get a picture of a render from a much later stage than where you currently are in the tutorial or things like where you are asked to load a Driven in the Set Driven key window where the attribute you are meant to select is different in the image from the one in the text. And on and on.
In a nutshell. Great potential, broad scope and aiming high but very time consuming and at times frustrating if you don't feel extremely 'forensically' inclined. And it should have never been published in the state it is currently in. Simply no polished product. And definitely not for the novice. Look to Alias|Wavefront's own Maya tutorials first, if you want to know how it's done.
Rating:
Summary: great book!
Review: This is truly one of the most easy to read Maya books out there that demonstrate a wide range of production level techniques. The book is so well written that I could simply follow the instructions and never get lost, not to mention I can always find the information I need FAST. Personally after reading many Maya books, I think this book offer the most balanced topics from 3D concepts, Maya basics, 3D modeling to advanced rigging, animation, rendering and VFX. All chapters are technique driven, with step by step instructions, along with the most up to date information. I'm writing this review because I think this is truly one of the better books on Maya that is worth the money. Don't buy the official Learning Maya series, get book like this one instead! Several chapters and examples in this book also make it quite unique. Unlike most Maya books out there at the moment, which all deal primarily with organic models, this book actually has tons of hard surface modeling techniques (plus your usual: how to build a human head etc). The hard surface modeling technique is a great reference I truly appreciate since in my personal experience, building an "exact" hard surface model (i.e. jeep, ships) that matches the blue-print design often requires a greater modeling skill in precision (because you cannot use proxy too freely). This book will be a life savor for someone like me, a traditional sculptor turn 3D modeler, who mostly model organic characters. It also has a good chapter on Deformers that is very lean and practical; within minutes I was able to understand and apply them to my models and animation. Again, I find this info very well organized and saved me time from reading pages and pages of Alias Manuals. This book also has some of the best chapters on rendering, PaintFX and VFX. These tips provide good inspirations on how to further apply the knowledge I read from the official Maya Manual. I especially like the author showing how to render heat-wave FX with the ship landing. However, my personal favorite would be the character set up chapters. The notes in these chapters are well worth the money! This book simply offers the best kind of character set-up work flow which is inspired by Jason Schleifer, a proven industry-standard way of rigging that is visual, simple and advanced enough without being overly complicated. It's all about getting the job done efficiently and FAST. This is one Maya book that you can flip through, either learning or working with it side by side as you fight to keep your deadline. Considering a Maya class costs more than $100 per class in conventions or colleges, a book this detailed and expertly written, plus the CD/files. . . this is like a virtual give away.
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