CHAPTER 1 The Maya Interface The Maya interface can be a bit intimidating, and it’s not fair to expect yourself TE D MA TE RI AL to pick it right up and remember where everything is. As you will see throughout this book, the best way to learn Maya is to put it to task, and you can use this chapter as a reference to the interface and the many windows and functions you will find yourself using in your work.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface The Interface You can perform almost every task in Maya in more than one way.The most common way to access functions and tools is through the menu. In addition to menus, you can access functions through icons in the shelf, through hot keys, through marking menus, and through the hotbox. This is one of the charms of Maya and helps make it one of the most powerful CG creation tools on the market.
the interface ■ 3 Figure 1.1 Tool Box The Maya 7 interface Shelves Status line Main menu bar Help line Command line Title bar Workspace Scene menu bar View Compass Layer Editor Channel Box Range Slider Time Slider The Nickel Tour Let’s take a look at the interface and identify the parts of the UI. Running across the top of the screen (see Figure 1.1) are the main menu bar, the Status line, and the shelf. These provide access to the many functions in Maya.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Running horizontally at the bottom of the screen are the Time Slider and the Range Slider. These give you access to various functions and feedback from Maya itself. In the middle of all these elements is the workspace, which hosts your view panels (or scene windows) and their own scene menus. These panels are also known as views or viewports in some other 3D packages.
the interface ■ 5 Figure 1.3 The four-panel layout Press the spacebar while in the panel to switch from the full-screen perspective to the four-panel layout originally shown in Figure 1.1. The four-panel layout shows the perspective view as well as three orthographic views (top, front, and side), each from a different side. Pressing the spacebar again returns your active view panel to full-screen mode.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface The panels display a grid that you can use to align objects and for a general sense of placement and position. You can adjust the size and availability of the grids by choosing Display ➔ Grid❒. The grid is made of actual units of measure that you can adjust. Choose Window ➔ Settings/Preferences ➔ Preferences to open the Preferences dialog box, and in the Settings section make your adjustments.
the interface ■ 7 compass’s axis, represented by the cyan, red, green, or blue cones, you can quickly change that view to an orthographic view. Clicking the cyan cube at the heart of the View Compass returns you to your perspective view. The Main Menu Bar Starting with the menu bar, shown in Figure 1.6, you’ll find a few of the familiar menu choices you’ve come to expect in many applications, such as File, Edit, and Help. Figure 1.5 The View Compass Figure 1.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Edit Gives you access to the commands you use to edit characteristics of the scene, for example, deleting and duplicating objects or undoing and redoing actions. Modify Lets you edit the characteristics of objects in the scene, such as moving or scaling them or changing their pivot points. Create Lets you make new objects, such as primitive geometries, curves, cameras, and so on.
the interface Figure 1.7 The Status line The Status Line The Status line (see Figure 1.7) contains some important icons. The first item in the Status line is the menu set drop-down menu. Selecting a particular menu set changes the menu headings in the main menu bar as we discussed earlier. You will notice immediately after the menu set drop-down menu, and intermittently throughout the Status line, black vertical line breaks with either a box or an arrow in the middle.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface For example, using a selection mode you can choose an entire group of objects, only one of the objects in that group, or just the points on the surface or the poly faces that make up that object. The primary selection modes are object mode and component mode.
the interface You can get a quick preview of what each icon is called by rolling your mouse over and hovering on each icon to see a pop-up tooltip that gives the icon name and describes its function. As a matter of fact, this is a great way to get to know Maya’s UI—in addition to reading every word of this chapter, of course. Snapping Functions or Snaps The “magnet icons” are called snaps. Snaps let you snap or lock your cursor or object to specific points in the scene.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Render Controls The next three icons give you access to render controls: ICON NAME DESCRIPTION Render Current View Renders the active viewport at the current frame. IPR Render Current View Renders the active view at the current frame into Interactive Photorealistic Rendering (IPR). You can change certain shading and texturing settings and view real-time updates in the IPR window.
the interface To customize the shelf so that your favorite tools are immediately accessible, click the Menu icon ( ) to open a menu to edit the shelf . To simply add a menu item to the shelf, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift while selecting the command from any main menu (for Mac users, press CTRL+Option+Shift). That tool’s icon will then appear on the current shelf. To get rid of a shelf item, MMB drag the icon to the Trash icon to the right of the shelf.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface In addition to these common tools, the Tool Box contains icons for several choices of screen layouts to let you change your interface quickly. This is convenient because different scenes and work flows can call for different view modes. Experiment with the layouts by clicking any of the six presets in the Tool Box. The Channel Box The area running vertically on the right side of the screen is usually for the Channel Box with the Layer Editor immediately below it.
the interface the attribute value to the right in text boxes. You can click in the text box to change the value through the keyboard. You can also use a virtual slider in Maya by clicking a channel’s name in the Channel Box and using the MM in a view panel to drag left or right to decrease or increase the value of the selected channel.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Figure 1.11 The Preferences window You can switch between either the Channel Box or the Layer Editor by toggling one of the icons in the upper-left corner. (See Figure 1.10 earlier in this chapter.) The following list shows the icons that switch the views in this area of the UI: ICON NAME Show The Channel Box Show The Layer Editor Show The Channel Box And The Layer Editor Figure 1.12 The Layer Editor shows off a space battle scene organized for a better work flow.
the interface ■ 17 To create a new layer, click the Create New Layer icon ( ). To add items to a layer, choose Layers ➔ Membership. You can also select the objects for your layer, and then choose Options ➔ Add New Objects To Selected Layers to automatically place those objects in the current layer. You can also use the layers to select groups of objects by choosing Layers ➔ Select Objects In Selected Layer(s).
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface When you change the range, you change only the viewable frame range of the scene; you don’t adjust any of the animation. This just makes longer animations easier to read and deal with. Adjusting actual animation timing and lengthening or shortening animations are accomplished differently, which is covered in Chapters 8 and 10.
working in view panels Working in View Panels Let’s get a quick taste for working in the view panels. Create a NURBS sphere by choosing Create ➔ NURBS Primitives ➔ Sphere. A sphere will appear in the middle of your panels and will be selected, as shown in Figure 1.15. Notice its primary attributes in the Channel Box. Now, press 2, and you will see the wireframe mesh become denser, as in the middle frame of Figure 1.15. Press 3, and the mesh becomes even denser (bottom frame).
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Figure 1.15 Figure 1.16 NURBS display smoothness. Shaded NURBS display smoothness.
working in view panels ■ 21 Figure 1.17 Wireframe on shaded view gives you a good view to model on your shaded objects. Figure 1.18 X-Ray view allows you to see through an object while still seeing it shaded and in this case with wireframe on shaded as well.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Shaded, Textured, and Lighted Modes You can select from varying degrees of shading detail, going as far as seeing your objects with textures and lighting detail. You can cycle through the levels of detail by pressing 4, 5, 6, and 7. Wireframe mode is 4, shaded mode is 5, texture shaded mode is 6, and lighted mode is 7. Lighted mode will only work if you are already in mode 5 or 6. While in mode 6, pressing 7 will give you a lighted and textured mode.
working in view panels The Manipulators Manipulators are on-screen handles that you use to manipulate the selected object, in true form. Figure 1.19 shows the four distinct and most common manipulators for all objects in Maya: Move, Rotate, Scale, and Universal Manipulator. You use the handles on the manipulators to adjust your objects in real time in any of the axes, as we discuss later in this section.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface The Universal Manipulator, new to Maya 7, is shown in the fourth panel of Figure 1.19 and acts in place of all three tools. You can select the arrows to move the object with the Universal Manipulator just like with the Move tool. Select any of the curved arrows in the middle of the box edges of the manipulator to rotate the object in that axis. Finally, selecting and dragging the cyan boxes in the corners of the manipulator box lets you scale the sphere.
working in view panels middle. This will create an “S” and a special manipulator to allow you to move, rotate, or scale this soft selection. Grab the cone handle and drag it up to move the soft selection up. Notice the plane lifts up in that area only, gradually falling off as if you were picking up a napkin. The cube handle on the Soft Modification tool scales the soft selection, and dragging on the circle rotates it. Simply select another transformation tool to exit the Soft Modification tool.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface To scale the manipulator handles to make them more noticeable or less obtrusive, press the plus key (+) to increase a manipulator’s size or press the minus key (–) to decrease it. The Hotbox The hotbox (see Figure 1.20) gives you convenient access to all menu commands in Maya. It is a quick way to get to the menu selections without accessing the menu bar itself.
working in view panels ■ 27 Marking Menus In addition to menu selections, the hotbox has marking menus in each of the five zones. Using marking menus is yet another way to quickly access the commands you use the most. The marking menus are classified as follows: ZONE MARKING MENU North Zone Selects the display layout, similar to the display layout buttons in the Tool Box. Figure 1.21 East Zone Toggles the visibility of UI elements such as the Help line or Status line.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface This wraps up the interactive parts of Maya’s UI. You will find all this information a bit much at first, but as soon as you begin using Maya, you will find it becomes second nature quickly.
the main maya windows ■ 29 Figure 1.22 The Attribute Editor and Channel Box display the values for the selected sphere. The creation node displays attributes for how the object was made. For example, try changing the value for the Start Sweep attribute. This will change the sweep of the sphere, effectively slicing a chunk out of it, like a cut-open, hollow orange, as shown here.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface What’s more, you can animate almost any of the attributes in any of these nodes (Attribute Editor tabs). All you need to do is RM click the attribute in the Attribute Editor and choose Set Key from the shortcut menu . This sets a keyframe for that attribute at that value at the current frame, just like RM clicking in the Channel Box.
the main maya windows With a parent-child hierarchy, the child can move independently under the parents as well as inherit the movements of the parent. The child node inherits the transforms (movements) of all the parents above it and moves (or rotates or scales) however the parents move, but can move on its own as well. Imagine, if you will, a ball bouncing on a cart. The cart rolls along while the ball bounces on top.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Hypergraph is the same as navigating in any modeling panel using the familiar Alt key and mouse combinations for tracking and zooming. You access the Hypergraph by choosing Window ➔ Hypergraph. Connections and the Hypergraph You can edit connections of attributes between nodes graphically to set up some rather complex relationships, though this is not immediately evident when you first open the window.
the main maya windows ■ 33 In this connections display, if you MM drag one node on top of another, Maya presents an option to connect attributes between the nodes. The node you drag will connect into the node you drag it to. In this case, MM drag nurbsSphere1 onto nurbsCone1. A pop-up menu appears, as shown in Figure 1.27. Figure 1.25 A scene in the Hypergraph Figure 1.26 Detailed connections are displayed and edited in the Hypergraph display. Figure 1.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Select Other from the menu to open a new window called the Connection Editor, shown here and explained later in this chapter. In the Connection Editor, scroll down and select Rotate on both sides of the window. This action connects the rotations of the sphere to the cone. Select the cone and rotate it in the perspective view. You will see the sphere rotating as well.
the main maya windows ■ 35 Changing Layout Using the icons across the top of the window, called out in Figure 1.24 earlier in this chapter, you can change your view quickly. For example, if you select an object in the perspective panel, but can’t find it in the Hypergraph view, just click the Frame Selected icon. If you prefer a vertical layout similar to the Outliner (shown in Figure 1.28), in the Hypergraph menu choose Options ➔ Orientation ➔ Vertical.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Figure 1.29 The Connection Editor When you want to edit connections on attributes or channels already connected, simply click the one object’s attribute to show you to what channel it is connected on the other object. Maya will highlight the other connected channel when you select the first object’s attributes in one of the panes. To disconnect a connection through the Connection Editor, click the channel and simply click the other object’s highlighted channel(s).
the main maya windows Multilister As the Outliner and Hypergraph list the objects in the scene, the Multilister and Hypershade (see the next section) windows list the render nodes of your scene—textures, lights, cameras, and so on. In Maya terminology, adding textures and such to objects is called shading (called surfacing in Lightwave-speak for example).
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface You can add or edit tabs to filter just the nodes you need to work on. For example, if you would like to only view just the type(s) of nodes you want, pay a visit to the Display ➔ Tabs menu. There you can create new tabs with special filters using the Create Filtered command from that menu. Many of the commands accessible through the menu system are also available through shortcut menus when you RM click the shaders in the Multilister panes.
the main maya windows ■ 39 Show Bottom Tabs Only Show Top And Bottom Tabs Show Top Tabs Only Figure 1.31 The Hypershade View As Icons View As List Icon Size Sort By Name Sort By Type Sort By Time Sort In Reverse Order Render node display Work area The Bins tab lets you store sets of shaders in bins to manage them better, especially if you have a heavy scene to work in. You use the icons at the top of the Bins tab to organize your shaders.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface area below. Navigating in this area of the Hypershade, as well as the work area, is similar to navigating the Hypergraph and work windows in that you use the Alt key and mouse controls. The Hypershade zooms in levels as opposed to the smooth zooms in a work panel, though it still uses the Alt+RM. And although you cannot freely pan around this window, you can use Alt+MM to scroll up and down when you have enough shaders to fill the panel.
the main maya windows Using the Hypershade Open the Hypershade and create a Phong shader by clicking the Phong icon in the Create Maya Nodes panel. Double-click the Phong’s thumbnail to open the Attribute Editor. As you see in Figure 1.33, if you click the color swatch next to the Color (or other attribute) of the shader, you can change the color of the material.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface The Graph Editor Maya’s Graph Editor (choose Window ➔ Animation Editors ➔ Graph Editor) is a truly powerful editing tool for the animator (see Figure 1.35). Since 3D data is stored digitally as vector information, every movement that is set in Maya generates a graph of value vs. time. The Graph Editor provides direct access to the curves generated by your animation to let you fine-tune and edit, even create, your animation in this window.
the main maya windows ■ 43 To move a keyframe in the Graph Editor, click to select, or drag a marquee around the keys to select them, and MM drag the keys as needed. You can also select the entire curve or curves and move them with the MM as well. Using the snap icons shown in Figure 1.35, you can snap your keyframes to whole numbers in time or value. This is useful for snapping keys to whole frames. Navigation in the Graph Editor is the same as the Alt + mouse combinations you are familiar with by now.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Keep in mind that normalizing does not change the animation in the scene. It only allows you to see all the curves and their relative motions. Normalizing your view is particularly helpful in busy scenes when you want to adjust both the smallest scale of values along side the largest scale of values without having to constantly zoom in and out of the Graph Editor to see the appropriate curves.
customizing the interface The window is in two halves. The top half is the Script Editor’s feedback history, and the bottom half is its Command line, where new MEL commands can be issued. By highlighting text in the upper window, you can copy and paste the command back into the Command line. Once you have some commands that are working for you, you can add them to the shelf by highlighting the text and choosing File ➔ Save Selected To Shelf.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface Figure 1.39 The Preferences window • Settings lets you change the default values of several tools and their general operation. An essential aspect of this category is the Working Units section under the Settings category itself. These options set the working parameters of your scene, including the frame rate. It’s important to set the time units and frame rate properly.
customizing the interface • Modules specifies which modules are loaded by default whenever you start Maya. By default, both Dynamics and Paint Effects are loaded. This is not the same as loading plugins such as fur and mental ray, which are accessed through the Plugin Manager (see the next section). • Applications lets you set the path of applications that are commonly used in conjunction with Maya.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface You can easily add any menu item or Toolbox item to your shelf: • To add an item from the Toolbox, simply MMB drag its icon from the Toolbox into the appropriate shelf. • To add an item from a menu to the shelf, hold down Ctrl+Shift+Alt while selecting the item from the menu. • To add an item (a MEL command) from the Script Editor, highlight the text of the MEL command in the Script Editor, and MMB drag it onto the shelf.
customizing the interface ■ 49 Through this monolith of a window, you can set virtually any key combination to be used as a shortcut to virtually any command in Maya. Since so many tools already have hot keys assigned by default, it is important to get to know them first before you decide to start changing things around to suit how you work. If you are coming to Maya from another 3D package, you can set up your hot keys to resemble your old work flow.
■ chapter 1: The Maya Interface The marking menu is divided into zones. Select the zone you want to customize in the top panel and click Edit Marking Menu, as shown in Figure 1.44. To change a marking menu entry, drag its icon or menu item directly onto the location where you want it to appear in the marking menu for the current zone. The Plugin Manager The Plugin Manager, accessed by choosing Window ➔ Settings/Preferences ➔ Plug-in Manager, lets you load and unload plug-ins for Maya.
