Creases?
 

I'm working on this tut for 3DS Max ( in Maya of course:) ), and the author speaks of "creases" quite a few times as something to control the sharpness of the edges of a smoothed mesh (if I understood it right)...

Is there something like this in Maya, and if so, where? It's getting a real pain in the a** inserting edges all the time :)

in maya you would use the bevel tool (Edit Polygons > Bevel).

If you create a poly cube - you will have very sharp edges unless you smooth, but if you smooth you lose the edge altogether - using bevel on the edges of the polys gives aless sharp edge whilst retaining the overall look of the edge - hope that makes sense!!

the author might be referring to what is referred to in Maya as soften/harden normals.