Anyone know of good books for a beginner in these programs?

3/4/2007 6:23:26 PM

yes...i have tons

i will post the names for you later tonight..

[Edited on March 4, 2007 at 7:40 PM. Reason : fda]

3/4/2007 7:37:28 PM

which of them would you recommend for an absolute beginner?

Interested in getting rid of any of them?

3/4/2007 7:39:21 PM

the really good oens that i like and are easy to follow for beginers are the

"Learning Maya X"

X being the version of maya that you bought the book for. It comes in a whole serious that covers everything from foundation, to rendering with mental ray, modeling characters, animating characters etc etc...

I haven't used 3d Studio max in about 7 years now...i've been strictly maya since release 2.5

[Edited on March 4, 2007 at 7:41 PM. Reason : fda]

3/4/2007 7:41:25 PM

thanks

3/4/2007 7:46:18 PM

np

3/4/2007 8:02:15 PM

there are some books in DH hill on it. try the 3ds max bible (that is a good book)

3/4/2007 9:37:48 PM

the bibles are good books...i have the bible for 3d studio max from 7 years ago i think....

however the bibles are good for reference not really trying to learn from scratch and leraning the basics.

3/4/2007 10:02:32 PM

what do you want to DO with these programs?

Because 9 times out of 10, Rhinoceros or Solidworks are better application specific options.

3/4/2007 10:12:25 PM

character modeling and animation... i know solidworks, it can't do what i want to.

i'm not familiar with Rhinoceros, what features does it have?

3/4/2007 11:37:17 PM

Quote :

"which of them would you recommend for an absolute beginner"

Those are not programs for the absolute beginner. Those programs are very complex and they are designed for the experienced professional. If you don't have a background in digital modeling and animation, you're looking at a serious uphill battle to do any real learning. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but it would be really hard and time consuming. They're not programs for a hobbyist.

Take a program like AutoCAD. At it's core, it has about 1400 basic commands. To become productive in a professional environment, the learning curve is on the order of months assuming formal training. Note that I said productive and not that you would be an expert. 3dsmax has somewhere near 40,000 basic commands. That's and order of magnitude more complexity. The learning curve for professional competence is on the order of years.

Now, I don't mean to put you off learning or to say that you can't do it, but I do want you to know what you're getting into if you're really interested in learning those programs and not just interested in fooling around with them.

3/5/2007 12:12:36 AM

i know AutoCad and Solidworks, have played with very basic animation software in the past. So it's not as if i know absolutely nothing about the stuff, i just haven't used these programs before. And i'm not looking to do this stuff professionally. I'm looking to put my free time into it and see what i can come up with. If i'm interested in something, i'm very good at sticking by it through the learning process. I'll be taking an independent study course this summer under a professor who teaches a course in animation here. So come summer i will have some guidance in my learning, but surely it can't hurt to look at it on my own.

[Edited on March 5, 2007 at 12:24 AM. Reason : .]

3/5/2007 12:19:34 AM

Having someone to guide you will be great to have. I took a course that served as an introduction to 3dsmax. I learned just enough to know that it would take me years to learn everything.

3/5/2007 12:48:47 AM

^you will never learn everything, there is always a different way to do something and new shit keeps coming out...new scripts etc etc etc

3/5/2007 1:52:30 AM

ah gotcha, yea these are your best bets. (to duro)

3/5/2007 2:18:44 AM