Your Suggestions On A Maya Animation Book

[ikaris]

Hello everyone,

I will be teaching a course in rigging / skinning and animation in the fall. While I have taught classes like this before at other schools, this is the first time I've been asked to choose a textbook.

Here's the catch... I was only given until the end of this week to choose ! Considering they will be purchasing copies of this book, I want to make sure its a good choice.

I'm looking for something that covers animation fundamentals (timing, anticipation, squash / stretch, etc...), a well as rigging / skinning and do keyframe animation.

A lot of books out there are very thin on theory and are just pages and pages of step by step exercises. I don't find these to be the best kind of book.

Basically, I'm looking for something like the Animator's Survival Guide, but focused on Maya.

Any ideas ?

Thanks very much !

[dunkelzahn]

George Maestris "Character Animation" Series is very useful for beginners and not just focused on Maya as well, going for a more general approach. The chapters on rigging a very scarce however. Chris Maraffis "Maya Character creation" is very good on character rigging and tells some things about character modelling as well.

Well, it is up to you now to take your pick, brother. IMHO I would use both books. Let em dabble with the first Maestri volume and the proceed to Maraffi to have them rig a character. But hey, it is your course.

[tigstah]

i've ordered the character animation book, i'll grab the other as well. i want to learn character animation.