Exploring Maya 4, w. CD-ROM (Real World) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

How do I make an environment sky? How do I make a "green screen -or a blue screen", for that matter or how do I make a landscape?
Yes, silly enough for a seasoned Maya user but not for the one who's been through too many a frustration to find these solutions through tinkering and going through so called "Mastering" type of Maya manuals that apparently have a lot to offer but when you're just struggling to barely get off the ground they just keep you from soaring.
But here comes this little book, barely a few pages with as little text as is neccessary and,
my God! in color!, now here my heart takes a jump and, man! am I ever glad that this "little" book is just so great, that it does so deliver!!!
A year ago I saw "The Sphere" film which has quite a cool intro done by Imaginary Forces. At the time I was starting on After Effects and not only had I some material to work on (find out how it was done, the text effects mainly) but also material to research with: the Meyer's AE in Production book which is close to the bible, not only for it's invaluable amount of info but also for the way it's been written and the graphic layout of the book itself.
Six months ago I opened a Maya demo for the first time having provided myself with 3 well known manuals as an investment looking forward to emulate some 3d stuff that had inspired me to try Maya and almost 4 months followed in which I almost threw everything in the
garbage. But when I cooled down and thought about it all came down to the documentation, to the manuals. It was a situation pretty much like in school where not all teachers are actually "communicators"
I bought this book a week ago, and even when each chapter may be carried out in about an hour I took 2 days for ch. 29, the Magic Lens and 4 days for ch. 24, Wild Things.
This book is for the tinkerer, for the one that needs to quickly understand a basic concept with a basic yet practical example and then use these tools to experiment further.
I wouldn't recomend it for the non-imaginative mind, the straightforward thinker, this is not a "direct" book.
I used the idea of the Magic Lens lesson with different lens shapes, sizes, distances and combination of 2, 3 and 5 glasses emulating the positions and shapes of different lenses on my 35 mm SLR camera and, man! I could have spent a month rendering different results; then changed type, even replaced typography for objects...
And now for wild things, Paint Effects had never been introduced (to me) through bibliography in such a simple manner as 30 studies in 3D has: 4 days into it and with such a simple lesson here I am expanding, taking the painting idea in 2D and enhancing a texture here or a sky there, taking the 3D painting concept and exploring the concept of painting a realistic landscape, taking the Environment Sky and testing for optimal settings, taking the Depth of Field concept that up until now, I don't know why I could never understand and now it's all so clear, experimenting with creative focusing, and man!, this is the tip of the iceberg, I'm just a damn begginer!
Max, the only regret I have about this book is that it's only under 200 pages, I've only done 2 chapters, browsed through the rest picking up info and getting ready to dive in for them and I want more than I have ahead of me.
I wish I'd speak german so that I could read your other book. But I guess I'll have to wait for your next book, hopefully the MAYA WOW! Book.
I just wanted to say THANKS Max.

After seeing some of the negative reviews posted, I felt compelled to add my own experience with the book. This is easily one of the best 3d Books of any kind I've ever purchased. Those unhappy with the book are missing the whole point. The author is not trying to present tutorials that are an end in themselves. Those are a dime a dozen on the web. Instead he focuses on theory and the hows and why's so one can take that knowlege and create on their own. I enjoyed this approach and I will be looking foward to the author's next work.

This book is indeed short, being only 200 pages long, and it does not go into much detail on any of its 30 tutorials. However, I have found it to be an excellent reference manual for generating new ideas for my animations, and I've had a fun time executing most of its small projects.

When I bought this book, I had 9 months of experience with Maya, using the Mastering Maya 3 book and Alias|Wavefront's own Learning Maya 3 textbook. Both of those are excellent and teach you everything you need to know to create a solid foundation for Maya work. However, I wanted a book on Maya 4 and decided to purchase this one. So far, I've found that it is also very valuable, especially as a supplemental book to inspire new ideas and teach you special details of Maya that will take your projects to the next level, such as animating a glow or creating the simple turning of a page in an animated book.

If you are just beginning to use Maya, then I would not recommend this manual. But if you have a few months of experience and want to build on that, it is an excellent source of fun tutorials and neat ideas. Additionally, the author writes in an inspiring, encouraging tone that makes the book a pleasure to read. I do, however, wish that the publisher had put more quality into the book's physical production, especially its color pictures. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile purchase.