Mastering Maya 3

The writing in this book is matter of fact, and each section gets down to business quickly in describing the technique at hand. In light of this, imagine how much information has been packed in 1,000 pages. The experienced Maya artist might already know a lot of this information, but the easy stuff is discussed and dismissed quickly, as if the book is anxious to dig deeper.Appendix A, Interviews, is a highlight of the book. Three interviews with the industry luminaries Mark Sylvester from Alias|Wavefront and Craig Lyn and Habib Zargarpour, both of Industrial Light Magic, offer a unique behind-the-scenes insight into how Maya was developed and how its being used in the real world.Between the examples dissected in the book and the source material on the CD-ROM, any Maya user should come away from this book with more than a few new tricks and techniques under his or her belt. --Mike Caputo