graphics and multimedia

Well, I had little experience using MEL scripting for Maya, so picking up this book was what I figured, an excellent way to learn. From the first few chapters, I was already starting to create experimental scripts. This is an excellent book for anyone looking to learn the down and dirty with Maya. Lots of detail and examples to help get you creating your own tools and scripts.

This book did a lot for getting me rolling on Mel. I found though, that even still, I had to do a lot of question asking of people I knew that know MEL. As is the case with most books on topics so complicated, it has a little trouble in the "why" and "would be applied to..." areas, but overall, it is a great buy, and the best resource available for those mentioned in the title. Do you animate? Want to learn about MEL? Pick it up.

This book is a very clear introduction to the mel scripting language. Often a user will need or want to explore mel to get the most out of Maya, to speed up workflow, repeat tasks more quickly, or achieve complex actions difficult to do in the GUI alone. Those users with programming experience will have little difficulty understanding mel fundamentals from the documentation included with Maya, but those with little or no previous programming experience will have a tough time learning from the documentation alone. Now Maya users of all levels of experience can gain the benefits of mel through the concepts presented in this book, in the form of detailed explanations and dozens of example scipts.
Mark Wilkins and Chris Kazmier have writen an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn mel and get the most out of Maya. I highly recommend it.