Art of illusion

Main Menu bar

Tools and items are accessible from pull down menus located at the top of the user interface. In Maya, menus are grouped into menu sets. These menu sets are accessible from the Main Menu bar.

The Main Menu bar appears at the top of the Maya interface directly below the Maya title bar and displays the chosen menu set. Each menu set corresponds to a module within Maya: Animation, Polygons, Surfaces, Rendering, and Dynamics. Modules are a method for grouping related features and tools. You switch between menu sets by choosing the appropriate module from the menu selector on the Status Line (located directly below the File and Edit menus). As you switch between menu sets, the right-hand portion of the menus change, but the left-hand portion remains the same; the left-hand menus are common menus to all menu sets. The left-hand menus contain File, Edit, Modify, Create, Display, and Window.

To select a specific menu set

On the Status line, select Animation from the drop-down menu.

The Main Menu changes to display the menu set that relates to the

Animation module. In particular, menu titles such as Animate, Deform,

Skeleton, Skin, and so on, appear.

Using the menu selector, choose Polygons from the drop-down menu.

The main menu changes to display the menu set for Polygons. Menu

titles such as Select, Mesh, Edit Mesh, and so on, appear.

For now, leave the menu set at Polygons. You will use this set in the next

step.

To create a primitive 3D object from the Polygons menu set

Select Create > Polygon Primitives > Interactive Creation and ensure that

a check mark does not appear beside this item.