transitioning into maya
 

i'm still transitioning into maya. i'm actually an art institute student majoring in interactive media and took up 3d modeling and 3d animation as a sort of 'minor' to help in my production of some 3d/flash/web hybrid projects and i just got hooked to the whole modeling thing. my modeling class used 3d studio max which is what i'm accustomed to and i'm glad that maya isn't all too different from 3d studio max.

just had a few questions:
- are polygons the only thing you can rotate/scale in the side/top views? why not surfaces?
- is there any way to convert a surface to polygons?

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding your question, but you can rotate/scale pretty much everything in any view.

Modify > Convert > choose your poison. :)

Which Art Institute are you at? I work literally down the street from the Seattle one.

sweet thanks, i knew there was a way to convert my nurbs to polygons.

I attend the one here in San Diego. the media arts/animation staff here are real cool. both of the teachers i've had so far have worked on resident evil zero, midtown madness, some texture work for unreal tournament, and we literally get to have an all-out battle in unreal 2004 during our breaks. we usually do ctf or onslaught, 3d principles class vs. game art design calsses :beer: