Overview
"If you're just beginning to dive into the world of 3D, this is the book for you."
—Animation Magazine
Alias' Academy Award winning Maya 3D animation and effects software leads the industry in technological innovation. Film and video artists, computer game developers, and design professionals rely on Maya to create brilliant digital imagery, animation, and visual effects. Now you can enter this exciting, imaginative world and learn to build, render, and animate your own digital characters and scenes.
Brought to you by Maya Press, a publishing partnership between Sybex and Alias, Introducing Maya 6: 3D for Beginners is the ideal initiation to 3D and Maya. Written explicitly for the Maya novice, the easy-to-grasp text offers a practical and fun approach to learning Maya's core features. Clear-cut, engaging lessons let you try out these features using working files provided on the CD. You'll also find an abundance of instructional and inspirational art on the CD and full-color insert.
Enter a New Dimension
• Get a solid grasp of the core Maya and 3D
• Learn to navigate the new Maya 6 interface
• Experiment with Maya modeling
• Explore the basics of NURBS, polygons, and subdivision surfaces
• Discover the nuances of shading and texturing
• Try your hand at animation
• Get a feel for Maya lighting, rendering, and dynamics
• Find out how to use Maya and Photoshop in unison
Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewMaya has evolved into a breathtaking tool for 3D animation and effects, but not quite intuitive. Thankfully, there’s Introducing Maya 6: 3D for Beginners. This step-by-step tutorial assumes nothing. It covers 3D concepts. The updated interface. Workflow. And a taste of pretty much everything Maya offers -- so you can use it for anything from movies to ad layouts.
You’ll kick off with a simple, quick project; then learn the basics of modeling objects and characters with NURBS and polygons. Dariush Derakhshani demystifies lattices, textures, and shaders; keyframes and other animation techniques; skeletons, kinematics, lighting, and rendering. The book’s projects range from simple to sophisticated (human hands, walk cycles). There’s even a solid introduction to Maya’s impressive dynamics system.
Reviewed by insiders, this is an official Alias book. Official or not, though, we’ve seen no easier way to get started. Bill Camarda
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2003 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.