1. There are 5 menu sets in MAYA. 5 menu sets, 6 menu items the same for all the menu sets. A P S D R Animation Polygons Surfaces Dynamics Rendering - - - - - First six menu items - FEMCDW File Edit Modify Create Display Window - - - - - - FEM CDW Of course, File and Edit are the first two menus in almost every windows application. M M odify F E M C D W C C reate D D isplay W W indow The Status Line toolbar has a drop-down menu. You can choose which MENU SET you wish to see and use. A P S D R Animation Polygons Surfaces Dynamics Rendering - - - - - So far, in the Maya class, we have used just the ANIMATION menu set and the POLYGONS menu set. 2. We have often talked about nodes. T and S and I or TSI nodes. TSI not to be confused with Miami CSI, tha would be TSI. --- Node --- T - 1 for transform position node S - 1 for shape information node I - 1 input information node - width, height subdivision For Polygon and NURBS Primitives, you see all three of these nodes in the Channel Box. Translate, Rotate and Scale are 9 of the 10 Transform Attributes. X Y Z X Y Z X Y Z --------- Width, Height, Depth, Subdivisions Width, Subdivisions Height and Subdivisions Depth are 6 of the 7 Input Node attributes for a Polygonal Cube. ----- Channel box - channel the nodes attributes through the channel box. edit the nodes attributes through the channel box. 3. A P S D R Animation menu Polygons menu Surfaces menu Dynamics menu Rendering menu There are 5 menu sets... FIVE menu sets, the first six menus are identical on each of the five menu sets. APSDR - each of these 5 starts with FEMCDW FEMCDW File Edit Modify Create Display Window F E M C D W Sun, Earth, Moon, moonOrbit, earthOrbit - the TRANSFORM node (of T, S and I nodes for an object), is usually the one that we give a new name to. Why call it the TRANSFORM node? Translate X Y Z transform location or position Rotate X Y Z transform orientation Scale X Y Z transform the size, rescale it larger or smaller. Tumble Track Dolly ------ ----- ----- Alt Alt Alt LMB MMB RMB Tu Tr Do are in reverse alpabetical LMB MMB RMB order. Tu Tumble Tr Track Do Dolly Tumble Track Dolly are sorted in reverse alphabetical order, Z-A order. LMB MMB RMB Order of the mouse button from Left to Middle to Right Mouse Button. Tumble Track Dolly 4. Perspective View and Orthographic Views - Top, Side, Front Undo views [ Orthographic Views are 2D views, they do NOT give you the 3D Graphics Redo views ] perspective that PERSP view does. Use the spacebar to switch between Single view and Four view... Single view can be any one of the FOUR VIEWS. Press spacebar and the selected, active view of the 4 views becomes the single view. 5. Attribute Editor is 1st of 3 icons and Channel Box is 3rd of 3 icons. The 3 icons I am talking about are the last 3 icons on the Status Line toolbar. Attribute Editor icon Tool Settings icon Channel Box/Layer editor icon STATUS LINE toolbar is very important part of the MAYA GUI, the Maya Graphical User Interface = Maya G U I. It takes a long time and lots of practice to get really familiar with the entire Maya GUI. 6. MAYA is Y-up, yup, MAYA is y UP, Maya is Y-UP by default, yup, it is. W w where you gonna move it to? w is the move tool shortcut W E e e is for rotate tool select e for rotatE, I supposE. rotatE. - - R r r is for scale, think Resize, think of scale tool as Resize. - - It WERe interesting, how you can remember these keystroke shortcuts. --- Move, Rotate, Scale w e r W E R In the Channel Box, move is called Translate, or rather is done by translate attribute changes. Translate (Move) same order in Channel Box as the tools Rotate to change these attributes Scale are on the Maya toolbar. 7. f - frame the selected object in the view or the selected component or the selected objects or selected hierarchy in the current active view (Top or Side or Front or Persp)... f - very useful skill, very useful technique... a - frame ALL by using the A key for All, i.e. a to frame all. - - Component mode button Object mode button H O C H O C H O C On 05/25/Sunday I would discover the critical importance of knowing and of noticing which mode you are in. If you are in component mode instead of object mode, you will NOT be able to color a planet. 8. The Status Line has all these groups between the vertical lines. There are 8 different groups that can be expanded (showing) or collapsed (hidden) on the Status Line of Maya. The 3rd group of icons is 3 icons: H O C i. Select by hierarchy and combinations H ii. Select by object type O iii. Select by component type C