MAYA - class 2, August 28th, 2008 1. We did alot with the Create menu, Polygon Primitives, Cube command. You learned the difference between the Cube command _ and the Cube | | command. - What is that little square that I tried to draw up above with ASCII graphics text? Its called the Option Box. If you click on the option box, you get a dialogue box or window where you can specify all the settings for the upcoming Cube (or whatever). The Polygon Cube Options dialog box comes up when you do the _ Cube | | command. - Width: 1 Height: 1 Depth: 1 1 is the default for all 6 Width divisions: 1 Height divisions: 1 Depth divisions: 1 Axis: X or Y or Z Y axis is the default... --- Texture mapping options When we model the human hand (see chapter four), we will create the palm of the hand. Stop and look at the palm of your hand for a second? Look at it from the top. Trace from the knuckle at the start of each finger back to your wrist. The Thumb really comes out of the side of the palm, does it not? Is it not starting near the wrist? Width divisions: 4 <---- we'll extrude four fingers out of these. Height divisions: 1 <---- look at your palm from the side. Depth divisions: 3 The depth dimensions will allow up to have the thumb come out of the backmost or deepest or 3rd segment of the palm. The fingers will be extruded from the foremost or 1st segment of the palm. Edit Mesh >> Extrude used 3 times. Why Edit Mesh >> Extrude 3 times to make a finger? Each of your fingers has 3 segments. Guess what happens when you customize the settings to something different than 1 1 1 1 1 1 such as 1 1 1 4 1 3 when you are making a palm for a hand? From now on, in Maya, every time you or anyone else uses the Create menu, Polygon Primitives, Cube command, it will NOT create a default 1 1 1 1 1 1 size cube. It will create the customized Cube. Every command that has an Option Box also will have an Edit menu in the corresponding dialogue box. To get back to the default settings for a command, do the following: Edit menu >> Reset Settings Remember, this it a dialogue box menu! Not a Panel menu. Not a menu set menu. --- --- The Option Box is available on MANY MAYA commands. ---- Its very important to be aware of the Edit >> Reset Settings command. Many Maya books and tutorials will have you do that command as the first step, before you change the other settings, to make sure that everything is at the default EXCEPT the custom settings they are telling you to do. Notice that when you place your mouse pointer over Cube, it highlights the command word "Cube" in dark blue, but when you move the mouse to the right a little bit and place it over the Option Box, it highlights the Option Box in DARK BLUE. So there are really two different command features. 2. View menu, Camera Tools is a Panel menu. The Top, the Side, the Front and the Persp panels all have this View menu. View menu > Camera Tools Tumble Tool View menu > Camera Tools Track Tool View menu > Camera Tools Dolly Tool When you use one of these commands, your mouse pointer will change to indicate visually which tool you are using, and you can just use your left mouse button and Tumble or Track or Dolly the view and the objects in the view. Why is this important? 1. Some Maya experts like to work this way sometimes or even all the time, instead of using Alt+LMB and Alt+MMB and Alt+RMB. 2. When your mouse does not have a MMB, i.e. the mouse is lacking a Middle Mouse Button feature. The laptops we will use during Friday classes will use a touchpad system with no middle mouse button control. So if you need to or want to TRACK, you will use: View menu > Camera Tools Track Tool 3. We talked briefly about Menu Sets. APSDR A Animation menu set P Polygons menu set S Surfaces menu set D Dynamics menu set R Rendering menu set We talked about the Interactive Creation command on the Polygon Primitives. This turns on or turns off the interactive creation of -- --- Spheres, Cubes, Cylinders, Cones, Planes, Torus's, Prisms, Pyramids, Pipes, Helix's, Soccer Balls, Platonic Solids. 12 types of Polygon Primitives. All 12 have an Option Box. If you do any one of these commands WITHOUT clicking on the Option Box, what happens? It could be 3 different things! We did this as a group exercise in class. i. The default sized Polygon Primitive is created, or ii. a non-default customized Polygon Primitive is created that has the exact same settings as were left the last time you used Maya with the Option Box for that command, or iii. you are prompted in the view panel to drag on the grid to create the object. Drag the base on the grid, then pull up for height is the prompt you get for Cube, Cylinder and Cone - for example. 4. Finally, we barely got started at looking at the Channel Box. It is over on the left of your Maya window. It only shows if you have an object selected. The very leftmost button on the Status Bar is the Show or Hide the Channel Box / Layer Editor button. What is the Status Bar? Please look at your "The Workspace" handout. ---------- What is the rightmost item on the Status Bar? Go find it in your book AND on your "The Workspace" handout AND in Maya PLE on your PC or Mac or the Wright Hall or ITT PCs.