Rating: 
Summary: This Is A Very Good Book
Review: Although all of us have practical experience dealing with the 3-D world around us, translating that experience into creating professional-looking scenes or animations is a potentially daunting task. Maya is a powerful 3-D modeling, animation and rendering program that has been used to produce numerous display ads, television commercials and full-length movies such as Harry Potter and Toy Story. Until recently, Maya's price and complexity have kept it out of the hands of the prosumer computer video/graphic audience and those simply wishing to learn the art of 3-D graphics. Both of these issues have been addressed this year. Alias|Wavefront lowered the price of Maya Complete by [Thousands of dollars] this February and offered a free, fully functional Personal Learning Edition of the program and New Riders Publishing has released Maya 4 Fundamental by Jim Lammers and Lee Gooding.Maya 4 Fundamentals is perhaps the "Gold Standard" of computer training material. It utilizes the educational philosophy of "tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you have told them." While this is a simple principle, it can be difficult to implement. Lammers and Gooding have succeeded beyond my expectations. Utilizing a framework of didactic material and tutorials reinforced by outstanding chapter-by-chapter videos and sample scenes on an accompanying CD, they have made the process of learning sophisticated 3-D graphics fun. By the end of chapter 4, the reader has created an impressive animation that anyone (who has just read four chapters of a 3-D textbook) would be proud to show their friends, family, a potential employer or a client. The subsequent chapters delve deeper into the complete modeling, animation and rendering process presented and integrated so successfully in chapter 4. The authors of Maya 4 Fundamentals even offer quick-start instructions for those familiar with other popular 3-D programs. The introduction states that the book is intended for beginners and intermediate users but stress that experienced Maya users will also profit. I believe it exceeds its intent. I highly recommend Maya 4 Fundamentals and, knowing what I know now, would have paid a premium to obtain a copy. Disclaimer: I do not know the authors or publishers and have no relationship with Maya 4's developers.
Rating: 
Summary: a book for beginners.
Review: Althought the title of this books is Maya 4 fundamentals, Jim lammers and Lee Gooding forgot to include a chapter with the new features in this version. In my personal opinion this books is only for beginners, not intermediate level. Take care about buying this book if you aren't completely sure what's in inside. The explanations are poor if you have some background in others 3d programs or just in Maya. So I only recomend this book for beginners with enough money to buy another one, once they finish this. Finally Maya 4 fundamentals it'snt a reference guide with all the fundamentals that there're inside of this program.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible, finally a book that is easy to follow.
Review: As an instructor in the Media Arts and Animation field, it is one of the hardest things assigning text in a classroom that you feel will serve as an excellent resource to your students new to 3D. Not only does this text allow for an easy understanding of the interface, it also supplies you with movies so that you may follow along with the tutorials. I have yet to find any book on the market so complete and thorough. For many students, especially those new to Maya and 3D, this book and its accompanying CD are a true gift in the classroom. This book is a real supplement to any instructional material and demonstrations offered in any beginning level 3D course. It is straightforward with concepts and offers a real down to earth understanding of Maya and its amazing tools. I also believe that those interested in 3D, but not interested in attending a college or classroom environment, will be able to work through this text and completely hone their skills using Maya. Great work guys!
Rating:
Summary: Simple, Articulate, Clear, and Thourough
Review: CG and 3D artists who have have had some experience with 3d modelling will fare the best with this title, however, the accompanying CD narrated by Lammers is visually helpful for the beginner, as well. Simple tutorials and practical methods will get you using Maya in about two weeks. The learning curve for Maya is well above the average 3D program, but with persistence this book allows the reader to interpret the daunting user-interface for Maya. Aptly named, "Fundamentals" this book is also an excellent reference for moderate users who are not using all of the available tools in Maya. I will look forward to another installment by Lammers and Gooding that tackles more advanced tutotials and methods.
Rating: 
Summary: Great purchase for begginers
Review: For a person that does not enjoy reading through what is close to a computer manual, the CD included was worth every penny. For thirty dollars, you get hours of video lessons on many of the function of maya that are parallel to the book. The videos go step by step and tought me the basics of maya is about 3 monthes (doing around 3 lessons a week). Simply - if you are just learning maya, or if you have been merely playing around with it, buy this book. I wish they would have covered character set-up though.
Rating:
Summary: Good for a beginner
Review: Having bought this book a while ago, I have mixed feelings about it. I think overall I would say that this book is best focused to the Maya (and perhaps 3d) beginner. If you're transitioning from another 3d app and already have 3d experience, this book might frustrate you somewhat from the simplistic exercises. If thats you, then skip this book. If you're getting into 3d for the first time, and Maya is the app you got, then this book might be a good place to begin. Things I liked in this book: 1. The beginning chapters discuss and implement custom marking menus which can be very handy. This was a cool item for sure.
2. Overall, the book covers basic functionality of Maya that IMHO does a better job than the tutorials that shipped with Maya (Instant Maya). And it tries to implement the concepts in applicable (albeit very simplistic) scenes.
3. The video tutorial (chapter overviews) on the CD are excellent, and you could almost go through the book just watching the videos. Very helpful in making sure you don't get confused in a step.
4. having accompanying files on the CD was nice. Ok, things that I didn't like: 1. The exercises in the book are basically targeted to the beginner. the modeling exercises never cover anything intermediate to advanced. Since I already have 3d experience in other apps, I didn't find this very useful and left me frustrated cause it answered none of my questions.
2. The chapters covering texturing IMO were again way to basic. It had a couple of good tips for procedurals applied to a House project, but it just didn't go very far.. Mapping methods were the most basic, and shader structures in hypershade were very simple. basically everything you saw in the shipped Maya tutorials was here. Don't expect a thorough explanation of shading networks here...
3. The book frequently has you start off from a file on the CD. This really frustrated me, since you're not taking your own work literally from start to finish. Ok, well you can if you dig in somewhat and merge some file elements together. But like when they cover animating the twisting of the house, you have to start from a house file that already has deformers applied to it. Why doesn't the author just take you through it?? argh.. so I found that a bit annoying albeit its not a big deal.
4. The part I looked forward to the most was incomplete, the creature creation project. it only covers the basics of modeling the head. They went step by step with so much else in the book, I was a bit disappointed that they didn't follow that though for the whole character. An attempt to continue the tutorial was online on the CD (in HTML form), but it was simplified and made pretty big leaps between steps. So it assumes you learned alot doing the basic head... hmm from newbie to expert I guess
5. Character rigging was completely omitted. This was definitely unfortunate so even if you had finished the creature, you wouldn't be doing much with it. Also, UV unwrapping was ommitted so texturing a complex object like the creature was left out. again unfortunate. Well I can see many people were pleased with the book, so its up to you how to take this review. Overall, I'd say its an ok book, I got some useful tips out of it. But if I had it to do all over again, I'd probably go with Mastering Maya 3, it seems alot more in depth. If you're a newbie, this book will get your feet wet. If you're intermediate, hmmm you might get frustrated... I'd say simply go to forums like highend3d.com or cgtalk.com and you'll get the equivelent info for free. If you're an expert looking for a new twist on things... well ok this is definitely not for you. This book is literally living up to its subtitle. ** FUNDAMENTALS **
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book - a Must for Beginners (like myself)
Review: Having decided to learn Maya (after a lengthy research and testing of many 3D Packages) I searched for a book to learn the basics. I work as an architect and have a solid grasp on 3D (working with 3D AutoCAD and Rhino and watercolors ), Everything I read regarding this book is actually true and it has some features I like a lot: the talked about CD is indeed a gem, Jim has a very pleasant voice so listening to him is not a burden on your ears, He knows what he wants to do and often (also in Lee's tutorials) you get many tips that are not in the text which is great as many times you can only see stuff when demonstrated and not written about. The written part of the tutorials is good and is not cluttered with theories - you just do the tutorials, maybe this is the reason for a very thin book. The tips that are given are very good and valueable. I like the fact a big tutorial was architectural related so I could relate to it very easily although I would try to solve the problems (modeling-wise) in a different way.
The book sits easily on the table and is also lightweight so you can read it in your bed .
The book definitely demonstrates how easy it is to work in Maya (I compare it to my little knowledge with LightWave which was my second best contender to be my 3D Package but lacked many needed features) All in All - a Great book , buy it and you will not regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Review about Maya 4 Fundamentals
Review: hello ppl..i think maya 4 fundamentals is a very good book, but it could be more extensive with more tutorials and stuff...
Rating:
Summary: The best Maya book for beginner.
Review: I am just only Maya beginner and purchased Maya4 fundamentals for study by myself. I found that Maya4 fundamentals book is very good. CD- Rom helped me more understood after finished tutorials.
I love the way Maya4 fundamentals book are than the others I had such as Maya complete2, Maya3, Maya Character animation, Maya
Learning from A/W, Maya quick start. The best is Maya4 fundamentals.
Sorry for the others with I stated like that. It's truth.
Rating: 
Summary: tutorials are of little help
Review: I am not certain how many users praising this book my have used an older version of Maya to work through the tutorials. While I do not have any difficulties with any tutorials released by Alias Wave-front, the exercises in this book do not match Maya 4.0. Windows that according to the book are supposed to pop up do not, and if they do, they look entirely different from the images in the book. I suspect that Maya 3 looked like this and the book was released without a thorough update, to match number 4. This does render the book quite useless.
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