Learning Maya 6 | Modeling

Rating:
Summary: Same "glossed over" instruction as usual
Review: I bought Learning Maya 5: Foundation about a year ago and was really disappointed. The book was basically a step-by-step approach to learning with little to no explanation about the concepts underlying the processes.

About six months later, I took a week-long Maya training class at Oregon 3D, and we used Maya 5: Foundation as the textbook. While the book hadn't changed, I was amazed at how useful it was! What was the difference? I had an excellent instructor (Jason Busby) pausing to explain concepts and point out idiosyncrasies. What a difference the human touch makes!

So when I saw that this book, Maya 6: Modeling was coming out, I had mixed feelings. I picked it up at Barnes & Noble and thumbed through it. Sure enough, there were some improvements. Discussion of relevant concepts was interwoven with the step-by-step tutorials and the progression of concepts made more sense. Even though it was $60 (no Amazon discount at B&N), I went ahead and bought it.

After working through the first two chapters, I've decided to return it.

Although it is a slight improvement over the Foundation book, it still glosses over important details. Because there aren't screenshots accompanying every step, it's easy to get lost, and since you don't have a firm grasp on where you're going or why you're doing things, you can't find your way back.

The accompanying DVD is nearly worthless (although Alias claims it's a $129.99 value). It steps you through the process of modeling a human head, but what I WANTED on the DVD was video of an instructor performing the tutorials in the book. That kind of instruction is truly effective. Paper-based instruction for something as complex and dynamic as Maya is inadequate and often misleading.

Rating:
Summary: You need this!!! Don't be Mislead by the 1st Poster!!!
Review: Well seeing that it only recieve one review and a negative one....i might as well add my review for people who wants to buy this book.....well i have ALL Learning Maya 6 books and this is the second best of the series (The First is the character Rigging book)...I bought the Character Creation by Chris Maraffi and Maya Character Animation by Jae-Jin Choi and they're all great modeling books but where could you get a book that teaches how to model a Human Character from Head to Toe USING POLYGONS AND NURBS COMPLETE!!! (except for the hair) This book has it all!! Human Modeling USING POLYGONS and NURBS, Car Modeling using NURBS CURVES AND SURFACES, SUBDIVISION MODELLING!!! An Ultimate Modeling Book!!! BUT......this book is not for newbies or beginners, get this book only if you had a good understanding of modeling or proffesional training like me because it has no chapter by chapter QUICKTIME MOVIES (which irritates me coz all 5 learning maya books has these tutorials)...it confuses readers a lot because you could easily get lost.. BUT it has a HOW TO MODEL A NURBS HEAD PATCH DVD which helps a lot....Hope this review helps....oh dont believe the last post because it has a lot of pics in the book!!