Basic Navigating and Manipulating in Maya

Scene objects (geometry, curves, cameras and lights) are the fundamental building blocks from which you create a Maya scene or animation. The procedure for creating and manipulating any object is generally the same: create the object (often from the Create menu), choose a manipulation tool (like Translate or Rotate), and alter the object. You can also adjust the pivot point (or "center") of an object, and you can manipulate the individual components of geometric objects.

Object display

By default, objects appear in wireframe display. To view objects with shaded surfaces, choose a shade mode from the Shading menu on the view panel or use the following hotkeys:

4 Wireframe
5 Smooth Shade
6 Smooth Shade with Hardware Texturing

For NURBS objects (objects created from NURBS curves), you can also control how smooth the surface appears using the commands under Display > NURBS Smoothness or use the following hot keys:

1 Rough
2 Medium
3 Fine

Object attributes

All object and component characteristics are stored as attributes. When you model, animate, assign materials, and do any kind of manipulation on objects, you are changing attribute values.

You can see and edit attributes directly in the Channel Box or the Attribute Editor. The Channel box contains the keyable attributes for one or more objects. The Attribute Editor contains all attributes for any single object.

You can manipulate an object by changing the value of its attributes. In the Channel box, the Translate X, Y, Z attributes appear at the top. To quickly position an object at the coordinates 1, 1, 1, select all three attributes, type 1, and press Enter. (In general, typed values do not go into effect until you press Enter or exit the field.)

As you work with attributes, you need to be aware of Maya's node architecture. The building blocks of everything in Maya are nodes, which are groups of related attributes. For example, the attributes describing an object's transformation are in a transform node.

Why should you care about nodes? At a minimum, simply be aware that attributes are grouped together in this way. In general, nodes fall into one of these types: transform (object position), shape (component positions), input (object construction), and shading (object materials).

With more experience, you can take advantage of nodes to make your own connections. For example, you could link the animation of two orbiting spheres by connecting the rotation attributes of those objects' nodes.

While you can edit object attributes by typing values, you'll do most of your object manipulation using tools and menu items. An example tool is the Move tool, which translates objects. An example menu item is Edit > Duplicate.

Using menu items

The typical way to use a menu item is to pick an object, and select a menu item to perform an action. For example, if you want to create a revolved surface, first select the profile curve you want to use, then select Revolve from the Surfaces menu.

In Maya, many menu items have associated options. To set options, first open the option box (if available). Option boxes appear as a square to the right of the menu label (Option Box). When you have completed the option box, click the action button or Apply button at the bottom. Most of the settings in option boxes correspond to object attributes, so you can edit them later as well.

Using tools

Working with tools in Maya is like working with a real artist's tool. You pick the tool and manipulate items with it until you complete the operation. There are visual cues to let you know that you have picked a tool. In most cases, the cursor changes or a manipulator appears around the object. Instructions often appear on the Help Line to guide you through the operation. Tools have options you can set to control their behavior. Like actions, there is an option box to right of the menu label that opens a window with all the options.

Transformation Tools

The Tool Box lets you access the main transform tools: Select, Lasso, Move, Rotate, Scale, and Show Manipulator. The last tool you used occupies the last position in the Tool Box, except for tools that already have an icon in the Tool Box, such as the Move Tool.

The q, w, e, r, t, and y hotkeys correspond to the Tool Box icons, as shown above.

Using manipulators

Manipulators provide a visual and interactive way to change an object's parameters. You use manipulators to directly position and scale objects in the workspace.

Many tools have manipulators. Usually, a tool creates a manipulator when you open the tool and deletes the manipulator when you exit it. (However, there are some exceptions to this.) Each manipulator has several handles. You move these handles to change parameters. For example, the Move manipulator has a center handle, plus handles you use to move it in X, Y, and Z.

If you want, you can make these handles larger or smaller using the manipulator display preferences in Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences. For the transform manipulators, you can also use the + and - keys on the keyboard to change handle size.

Manipulator handles are typically used to control the direction of transformation. For example, you can click on just one handle of the Move Tool to constrain movement to that axis. This is the active handle and it is colored yellow. When a handle is active, you can use the middle mouse button to move the handle without having to reselect it. If you click away from the handle and drag, it still moves the manipulator.

When you use a manipulator to change parameter values, the Help Line displays the values as they change.

Using Pivot Points

Objects are transformed based on a specific point in 3D space known as a pivot. When you rotate a primitive, for example, the pivot point represents the center of the rotation axis; when you scale, the pivot point represents the fixed point around which scaling occurs.

By default, the pivot point is set so that the rotational and scale pivots are located at the point of origin for an object (0, 0, 0). The point of origin is the center of the object. You can change an object's pivot and you can also pin it to a fixed location.

Select an object, select a transformation tool, and then press the Insert key. The pivot point manipulator appears.

Drag the pivot point manipulator to move the pivot point. Press the Insert key again to display the transform manipulator and drag to transform the object. To reposition a pivot point to an object' center, select the object and use the Modify > Center Pivot command in the Main Menu Bar.

Selecting Objects

There are several ways to select objects in Maya. You can select objects individually, select all objects in the scene, select objects of a specified type or name, select all objects in a set, or select all objects in a display layer. When you select objects, they become highlighted.

You can select objects individually from the scene, the Outliner, the Hypergraph, and the Relationship Editor. To select an object with the Select Tool, click on the object, or click-drag a box around it. In the Outliner or Hypergraph, click on the object name to select it. In the Relationship Editor, highlight the object in the left panel and on the Edit menu, click Select Highlighted.

To select multiple objects in a scene, shift-click on each object. The last selected object is highlighted with a different color than the other objects (default, green). You can also use the Lasso Tool in the Tool Box. When you select this tool, the mouse pointer becomes a lasso. Drag the lasso around the desired objects.

Deleting Objects

Maya has several commands to delete objects, including the Delete, Delete by Type, and Delete All by Type commands in the Edit menu.

You can also delete selected objects by pressing the Backspace or Delete keys on the keyboard. If you accidentally delete object, use the Edit > Undo command in the Main Menu Bar to retrieve it. As in most software programs, the Undo command is your best friend.

Duplicating Objects

There are two ways to duplicate objects: by copying the geometry or by creating instances. Both methods use the Edit > Duplicate command. You can duplicate more than one object at a time. You can duplicate objects as many times as you like. This means that you do not have to build a new object every time you need a copy.

When you create an instance, you do not create actual copies of the selected geometry. Maya redisplays the geometry being instanced on the screen. An instance is always identical to the original geometry, although each object can have a unique translation, scaling, and rotation factor applied to it. Therefore, individual instances can be picked as objects independent of one another. The form of an instance can only be altered from the original geometry. If you manipulate the original geometry, it affects the shape of all instances of that object.

Since instances are not actual copies of the original geometry, they take up less system memory than actual copies. In large or complex model scenes, instancing can speed up refresh time, reduce the size of data files, and improve rendering times.