Autocad Maya

initiatefailure

I have to learn this over the summer and at least be able to stumble through it by august for an art position with an indie developer.

I'm not even sure where to start. After years of being trained on the adobe interface the UI on this is just mindblowing. It's just toolbars everywhere. Is there a place online, a la Adobe TV or Lynda.com focused on Maya?

Does anyone recommend any specific books or reading for Maya?

And also does anyone have any tips for someone new to the program?

TychoCelchuuu

It has been many many years since I learned Maya so I can't really recommend specific stuff, but this YouTube video looks kind of promising (it starts about a minute and a half in)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0Yq-Rolcm8&feature=fvwrel

In general I would say that Googling "Maya tutorials" and finding something simple is probably your best bet; once you start learning what all the menu buttons do and stuff you should be in a position to start figuring things out on your own. Autodesk's own tutorials actually look fairly good so maybe stick with those.

Do you know how to model in general, though? Or are you completely new to 3d design at all? If you've never used a 3d program, it's going to be fairly difficult to pick Maya up on your own, because there's a lot of philosophy that goes into 3d modeling in general that is tough to learn unless people teach you.

edit: Dunno how it is these days but years ago when I was using Maya, SimplyMaya.com was pretty great.

ArcticLancer

*cough*
It's uh ... AutoDESK Maya ...

So anyway, that aside, on the plus side you've at least been tasked to learn the most popular and widespread 3D application around. Really, being specific in WHAT you want to learn and just searching for a tutorial will likely get you where you need to go.
For basics, try "Maya getting started tutorials" or something to that effect. Or as suggested above, start with Autodesk's website itself.

It's a journey, and not an easy one, so good luck, Dude.