To hide the Channel Box, click the Show/Hide Channel Box icon from

the right end of the Status line. The Channel Box disappears, and the perspective scene view expands slightly. With the Channel Box hidden, you have more working area in

your scene view.

To show the Channel Box, click the Show/Hide Channel Box icon on

the Status line. The Channel Box appears in the scene view.

Primitive objects

Maya provides many types of primitive types and shapes such cubes, spheres,

cylinders, and planes.

Primitive objects can be used as a starting point for a wide variety of shapes

and forms. The most common workflow when using primitive objects is:

The Toolbox: Layout / shortcuts

The Toolbox is located on the left hand side of the Maya user interface. It

contains icons that open tools for transforming your objects within Maya

(selection, move, rotate, scale)

The Quick Layout buttons shortcuts allow you to select a different panel or

switch to another layout.

The workspace changes to a four-view layout. The perspective view is

located in the top right corner and the other views show the object from

the top, front and side. The layout shortcuts have other options that you

will learn later in this tutorial.

Shelf

The Shelf is located directly below the Status line. The Maya Shelf is useful for

storing tools and items that you use frequently or have customized for your

own use. You can keep the tools and items you use most frequently in a

location that provides handy access. Maya has some of the Shelf items

pre-configured for your use.

Select Create > NURBS Primitives > Interactive Creation to ensure that a

check mark does not appear beside the item.

From the Shelf, select the NURBS sphere icon located at the left end by

clicking on it.

Maya creates a sphere primitive object and places it at the center of the

Maya workspace in the same position as the cube.

Determine if this is the correct tool prior to choosing it by first

placing your mouse cursor over the icon, the name or description of it appears

in a popup window directly over it.

the wireframe outline of the cube you created earlier in

the lesson has changed color to navy blue, and the sphere is displayed in a bright green color. The sphere is now the selected object and the cube is no longer selected. In Maya, when the object displays like this, we refer to it as being selected or active.

Selection of objects and components is a way of indicating to Maya that this particular item is to be affected by the tool or action you will subsequently choose. Working with Maya, you will be selecting and deselecting items a lot. Some numerical information appears in the Channel Box editor on the right

hand side of the user interface. This information relates to X, Y, and Z,

translation, rotation, and scaling for the active object. The X, Y, and Z Translate numerical values are currently set to 0. This indicates that the sphere’s location is at the origin. The Channel Box is useful for viewing and editing this type of basic information.

From the Main Menu Bar, select Create > Polygon Primitives > Cube >.

Maya creates a 3D cube primitive object and places it at the center (origin)

of the Maya workspace.

The Status Line, located directly below the Main Menu bar, contains a variety

of items, most of which are used while modeling or working with objects

within Maya. Many of the Status Line items are represented by a graphical

icon. The icons save space in the Maya interface and allow for quick access to

tools used most often.

In this lesson, you learn about some of the Status Line areas.

You’ve already learned the first item on the Status line: the Menu Selector

used to select between menu sets.

The fifth group of icons are used to control the Snap Mode for objects and

components.

The last section comprise three buttons that are used to show or hide editors,

including the Attribute Editor, Channel Box, Layer Editor, and Tool Settings.

The default display shows the Channel Box and the Layer Editor. When you

create an object, like the cube for example, information about that object

displays in these editors. You will learn how to use these editors later in this

chapter.

For better organization on the Status Line, all of the icon buttons are broken

into groups that you can expand and collapse, as shown.

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.

Maya, like many other 3D applications, the three dimensions are labeled

as the X, Y, and Z axes. The origin is located at X, Y, Z position of 0, 0, 0. The

grid also lies along the X, Z plane. We refer to this as a plane because you might

visualize an imaginary, flat, two-dimensional square laying along this 3D

position.

Maya labels the X, Y, and Z axes with a color scheme: red for X, green for Y,

and blue for Z. Many tools that you use in Maya use this color scheme to

indicate that you are accessing a particular item that relates to X, Y, and Z in

some way.

The axis indicator shows in which direction, X, Y, or Z, you are viewing the

Maya scene. The axis indicator is color coded in the red, green, and blue color

scheme and appears in the lower left corner of a view panel.

This is extremely useful if you are new to 3D, as many of the instructions in

this manual and the Maya Help assume you know where you are viewing the

scene in relation to the X, Y, Z axes.

The Maya workspace

The Maya workspace is where you conduct most of your work within Maya.

The workspace is the central window where your objects and most editor

panels appear.

The panel is labeled persp at the bottom to indicate that you are viewing

the Maya scene from a perspective camera view.

■ The panel has its own menu bar at the top left corner of the panel. These

menus allow you to access tools and functions related to that specific panel.

■ The grid is displayed with two heavy lines intersecting at the center of the

Maya scene. This central location is called the origin. The origin is the center

of Maya’s 3D world, and with all object’s directional values measured from

this location.

A comprehensive range of keyframe, nonlinear, and advanced character

animation editing tools

A wide-ranging suite of advanced polygon, NURBS, and

subdivision surface modeling and texturing tools

A unified rendering user interface and workflow

The Maya user interface refers to everything that the Maya user sees and operates

within Maya. The menus, icons, scene views, windows, and panels comprise

the user interface.

Through the Maya user interface you access the features and operate the tools

and editors that allow you to create, animate, and render your three

dimensional objects, scenes, and effects within Maya.

As you spend time learning and working with Maya, your knowledge of and

familiarity with the user interface will increase until it becomes second nature.

file:///Users/martintierney/Desktop/maya/maya.rtfd/mayauiscreenshot.jpg

The Maya interface

Now that Maya is running, you first need to understand what you are seeing.

There are a lot of items displayed in the Maya user interface.

The best way to begin is to learn the fundamental tools and then learn

additional tools as you need them. Begin by learning some of the main tools.