Maya makes my head hurd...

 


Setup:

When opening a new scene in Maya, 9 times out of 10 you will want to set up a new Maya Project.
File - Project Window
In the Project Window, hit New and name your project something sensible.
Then select an appropriate project location.

Then save the scene in a Maya ASCII file format.
File - Save Scene As
Then name it something sensible in your scenes folder in your project file folder.
Ideally you also have some numbers for different versions that you will end up making.
Example.001.ma

Navigating our 3D space:

Before anything. Hide the box of evil (the view cube).
Right click it and hide it. It will help you in the long run. Do not get attached to it.

Perspective or 3D view
Alt + LMB allows you to orbit or dolly.
Alt + RMB allows you to truck or zoom in or out
    Scroll wheel can also zoom in or out
Alt + MMB allows you to pan.

Orthographic / 2D View
Alt + RMB allows you to truck or zoom in or out
    Scroll wheel still zooms in or out
Alt + MMB pans

Hit space to view four views at once!

Make a Custom Shelf!
Put stuff you learn on there and you can quickly reaccess it!
If you dont end up using it that much then just delete it.
LCtrl + LShift + MMB to add stuff to your custom shelf.

Transformations
Q - Select
W - Move
E - Rotate
R - Scale

D - Adjust the pivot
X - Allow grid snapping
J - Allow step snapping

Duplication
Typical Copy Paste stuff works
Ctrl + D to duplicate works too.

Layer Editor
Toggle view settings
V - layer is visible in viewport
P - layer is visible in playback
T - layer is templated
R - layer is a reference
Blank - layer can be selected

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Wacky Racer" Moodboards and Some Early Direction

Image
  This is the moodboard for our "Wacky Racer" The aesthetic we used for our constraint was "Fairycore" The live inspiration was "birds of prey", further narrowed down to "Owls" We needed to create a "Land" Vehicle for our racer. In our minds, we had a bit of an antique collector who is racing for more funds to buy antiques with. They need these funds since they have an obsession with constantly buying up antiques they find. They really need to win as their funds are starting to really dry up and winning the race would also be really good publicity for their store. Their vehicle accompanying them should be their mobile antique store (not very practical to have antiques in a mobile vehicle, but they'll figure it out). They drive it around for good advertising, though some antiques might take a tumble here or there. On the surface they seem eloquent, but they resort to underhanded methods. They bribe other racers with trinkets, throw a...
Read more

Indesign Refresher

Image
  POV - Me, finally understanding why Indesign isn't working how I want it to Blue lines how I loathe you,, (Hide these with Ctrl + H) You can lock specific elements for ease of use by right clicking and selecting it on the drop down. Some shortcuts cause I am lazy and don't wanna have to drag my mouse everytime. V - Selection Tool A - Direct Selection Tool (What is the difference???) P - Pen Tool T - Type Tool I - Eyedropper Tool E - Free Transform R - Rotate S - Scale  (Ugh, even after this I still probably just brushed the surace) Last but very Important, when importing images into your moodboard, an orange outline refers to scaling and transforming the imported image. Blue lines refer to cropping and image borders. That was such a pain. Remember to scale them down to size early, just so you save yourself a headache when trying to select a specific image later down the line.
Read more

The Keeper of my Tomes and Trinkets...

Image
  This is definitely not an excuse to pass off my collection as a "household item". Though in all seriousness, I really like this bookshelf. Its really big and fits a lot of my books. The biggest contributor as to why I love this shelf, is that its really simple. The neutral color helps to avoid distracting away from the items I want to show off. My books, my trinkets and my stickers contrast well with the material. While the wood grain texture keeps it from looking too flat. The bookshelf is also really handy in a functional way. The way that you can slot in the panels to adjust the size of the shelves to account for larger items really helps with its flexibility.
Read more