Maya Tutorial Basics

Maya software is one of the most robust and complex to make art. Ambitious since its inception, it has evolved in the software most widely used 3D graphics in the entertainment industry. Before starting to work with Maya, you should familiarize yourself with the basics of the software features and terminology, you can use it at a sufficiently advanced.



1. Line Status

Or a superior software Maya user interface can be intimidating at first. It 'no use a number of menus and options can be confusing. The status bar is a good starting point. Drop-down menu shows the options for animation, polygons, surface dynamics, rendering, and Custom nDynamics. Selecting one of these options offers Maya with set basic menu, now you can do a specific task. To the right of this drop-down menu, you will find a series of icons. The first is a base open and save functions. The next three buttons allow you to choose different levels, select the object, and select the type. The menu on the right changes when you go through these options. Besides containing more options for locking and highlight the selected objects. Magnets close monitoring of a series of snap objects; Align grid, snap, snap lines, take look at the screen, and make the selected object to live.

Shelves

• Just below the status bar are tabs that the buttons on the basic functions of the house (General, curves, surfaces, etc.). The shelves are very powerful tools for beginners: easy to customize, and a good way to work on a project fast. All these buttons can be found on the menu, but the shelves to give ease of navigation to your favorite functions: to avoid the laborious task of a series of menus to navigate.

Show Panes

• The Maya window opens with a great perspective in the center of the screen. If you move the mouse pointer to the window and press the space bar, four windows are: top, front, persp, and face. Part of the challenge for the artist is to learn to use all windows at once. Sculptors are used to put their art to determine the proportion, but never try multiple points of view simultaneously. Most artists are quickly overwhelmed by the concept. It is best to familiarize yourself with the interface confusing at first, putting simple shapes in the scene and manipulate through their most basic parameters to get an idea of ​​how these points of view of work.

Toolbar

• To the immediate left of the view windows, keep the basic toolbar to manipulate objects that you create in Maya. You can use keyboard shortcuts to speed up the process, but not all the buttons on the toolbar have a keyboard shortcut. The order is from top to bottom: Manipulator Tool Selection Tool (Q), the Lasso tool, the Paint Selection tool, Move tool (W), the Rotate tool (E), the Scale tool (R), Universal Manipulator, flexible editing tool and Show (T). The last place is empty until you start working, then it displays the last tool you used (O).

At the end of this menu, you will find the options and made three essential keys to the extreme right, which opens the various menus you need while you work: Show or hide the Attribute Editor, Show or hide the preferences of tools and to show or hide the Channel Box / Layer Editor (all three buttons to control what you see to the right of the picture window).