CGDD 4113 MAYA BASICS

THE INTERFACE

MAYA RESOURCES Excellent place to start… Under the “General” tab (the big movie reel)

CREATING/SETTING A PROJECT File->Project Window->New (Button) File->Set Project

ADDING PRIMITIVES Use the Create menu or… 1.Pick either the Polygons tab or the Surfaces (NURBs) tab from the “shelf” 2.Left-click on the shape you want 3.Move your mouse into the Viewport

TRANSLATE, ROTATE AND SCALE (SELECT THE OBJECT AND THEN…) Translate – w Rotate – e Scale - r Then, use the handles accordingly…

THE CHANNEL BOX Gives us more control over the orientation of an object Can change the names of each “node” Can further refine these values in the Attribute Editor

THE ATTRIBUTE EDITOR Gives us more control over the orientation of an object Can change the names of each channel Can further refine these values in the Attribute Editor Set pivots Check out the Local vs World coordinates Use Selected menu here Note: you can hide these tabs by clicking on them

HYPERGRAPH HIERARCHY (AND NODES) Access the node hierarchy Window->Hypergraph:Hierarchy Turn on shape nodes (Display->Shape nodes) Can view Scene Hierarchy or Input/Output connections Top node called a DAG (Directed, Acyclic Graph) node – represents the transform Transform node affects geometry nodeInput node affects geometry node

CHANGING YOUR VIEW Hold down the ALT key and then: Left-click: “Tumbles” around Middle-click: Pans (side to side) Right-click: Dolly (in and out) Scroll wheel: zoom Quick tap of space bar: changes viewport modes

VISUALIZING YOUR WORLD Can view in these modes: Wireframe (4 key) Smooth shade (5 key) Wireframe+Smooth shade Textured (6 key) Using lights, shadows, etc (7 key)

VISUALIZING NURBS EASY AS 1, 2, 3 (KEYS)

COMPONENT SELECTION Right-click and HOLD to get menus!! Used to deform/edit objects through rotation, translation and scaling Hold SHIFT and CTRL while clicking to select more than one face/vertex NURBs (below) – context sensitve. Note the Object Mode (to return to normal)

THE OUTLINER Window->Outliner or … Allows you to select object Good for occluded objects Objects that are not visible Objects that are in tight clusters

THE UBER MENU Press and HOLD the space bar* * From the Maya tutorials

COMMON KEYS YOU’LL USE (YES, THIS IS CASE-SENSITIVE) Left-click: selects an object CTRL-z: Undo DELETE: deletes the selected object SPACE (tap): toggle viewports SPACE (hold): uber menu f: Frame the selected object w: Translate the selected object e: Rotate the selected object r: Scale the selected object g: Repeat the last action