where can i find a good book to teach me Autodesk Maya?

[Jim]

i'm looking for a book that will walk me through learning how to use Autodesk Maya and a few tutorials with it and some lessons. any one know a good book or 2?

[Cohen]

The official books from autodesk are pretty good, but they're expensive (70 each, and I believe there's 4 of them), and they're intimidating. Maya is a ridiculously hard program to learn from a book on your own. I suggest getting some digital tutor tutorials and trying that route...at least they're visually based, but even they're difficult compared to learning in a classroom because you can't ask clarifying questions if you're confused, and you will be. Maya is the hardest program I've ever had to learn.

I also noticed that you asked about 3DS Max too. I highly recommend only learning ONE of these programs. You'll never get to be an expert of both, as they're set up differently and name things differently. I prefer Maya over max because it has a lot more options, but it is the harder of the two to learn.