Maya tips & tricks - Page 2 - Simply Maya User Community

# 21 10-03-2005 , 06:53 PM

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i approve!!!

hey man, thanks a lot for starting this thread. keep adding new stuff. i already found a couple of things which would be very useful. just like you started a thread here, i am starting a thread in your name in my comp(saving a word file with your name;-).
if you are learning Maya right now, which books do you refer to? i'm learning too, but i am already done with all the books available here. my current favourite is Maya help.

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# 22 11-03-2005 , 08:29 AM

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Letting go of the handles

When working with the transform tools (move, rotate, & scale) you can constrain transformation along a single axis by left clicking the axis handle you want (it will change to yellow), then click and drag the middle mouse button to make your transformation.. This offers two benefits. First you don't have to be right on the manipulator handles in order use them and in the case of rotate handles will allow to spin more since you can drag across the entire screen and not just to the manipulator limits. Try it out for yourself user added image

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Last edited by mhcannon; 11-03-2005 at 08:32 AM.

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# 23 13-03-2005 , 08:16 AM

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Frame your scene for render

If you've ever been fustrated because your render clipped items you thought would be in the render than this may help. Once you've set your resolution in the global renders options, turn on the camera's resolution gate. A green rectangle (or box if your render resolution is square) will appear in your scene panel. this rectangle represents the portion of the scene that will be rendered, thus avoiding some guess work.

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# 24 13-03-2005 , 08:18 AM

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Call for tips

Just so everyone knows... I welcome others to post their own tips and tricks here. user added image

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# 25 13-03-2005 , 08:30 AM

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Using Multiple Deformers

Maya allows you to apply multiple deformers to a single object. With some foresight you can create otherwise complex models from relatively easy ones. I say foresight because deformation effects are cumulative and depend upon the order in which they're applied. In this example the order was, twist, flare, then bend.

Another thing to keep in mind with deforming is to have enough faces to work with for a smooth deformation. The cube in this image has 30 division along the hieght and 6 on both the width and depth.

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# 27 14-03-2005 , 08:55 PM

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Changing Input Operations Order

This ties in to the previous tip on multiple deformers but is applicable for other operations as well. Right click on the object and from marking menu select inputs-->all inputs. This will display all input operations affecting your object. To change the order of the inputs, middle click and drag the operation's name that you want to move. Drag and drop it to the position you want. This allows you to correct the order or to experiment with different orders.

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# 28 16-03-2005 , 05:59 PM

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Finding Border Edges in Polygons

Okay, I've seen questions about this often enough now to warrant putting this in here.

There are numerous operations which may result in faces not being connected properly. Faces may be missing due to deletion. However, faces don't have to missing to cause problems, edges may be swapped, normals may be reversed, etc. All this may lead to problems such as non-manifold geometry or the innability to boolean correctly. To make these offending edges easier to find, turn on the border edge display option and adjust the thickness to suit. The image below shows a cube with the face deleted. Note the thicker top edge in shaded, wireframe, and edge mode. The border thickness is set to 3.

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Last edited by mhcannon; 18-03-2005 at 08:00 AM.

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# 29 18-03-2005 , 08:18 AM

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Change Multiple Objects' Settings

This one is kind of long and the image is a bit big, but I couldn't think of any other way to get all the necessary info in here. Sorry if it's too much.

Maya's Attribute Spreadsheet is a quick way access attributes for many objects at once and may save you many trips to attribute editor if used properly.

This example will show how you can use this to adjust multiple lights all at once.

In the scene below, "1" shows a screen capture with numerous spot lights. Number "2" shows how that scene renders... obviously way too bright. To fix this, open the Attribute Spreadsheet (under window-->general editors-->attribute spreadsheet..). Hmm, nothing in the spreadsheet... that's because nothing is selected. So select "all by type-->lights" in order to populate the spreadsheet. You can, of course, shift select whichever lights you want to work with.

There are a couple dozen attributes you can change under various tabs. You may need to scroll some to see all the attributes you can play with, feel free to experiment. For the scene below, the intensity needed adjustment. Drag select the intensity value for all the lights, then in type the value you want, in this case 1. The result is show at "3"

In this scene the lights were softened up also. These being spotlights, the adjustment was made to the penumbra attributes, which were changed from 0 to 3. The result is shown in "4."

The Attribute Spreadsheet is a quick way to make changes to virtually any object in your scene (not just lights).

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Last edited by mhcannon; 18-03-2005 at 08:23 AM.

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# 30 19-03-2005 , 06:56 AM

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Selecting by Name

It is a good habit to name your nodes as you create them, as it will make your life much easier when you have to look at them in editors such as hypergraph or hypershade. If you're not already doing this, I'm going to give you one more good reason, it makes them easy to select! In the upper right hand corner (at least on the default configuration) is a field box with a label to left. The label should read "Sel" if it doesn't, click the arrow next to it and switch to the quick selection mode. Then you can select an object any where in your scene by typing its name in the field. Quick select also supports the use of wildcards. Use quick select to pick your object then press "F" to frame it in view.

Note: If you keep this in the quick renaming mode while you're creating your objects and other nodes, it is a very handy way to rename them user added image

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Last edited by mhcannon; 19-03-2005 at 07:00 AM.

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# 31 19-03-2005 , 07:10 AM

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The Hotbox

Text only tip this time. Hoorah!

Force yourself to use Maya's Hotbox (press & hold spacebar). It may seem confusing at first, but once you get used to it you'll find you actually work much quicker, as you'll spend much less time "mousing" around to various menus and icons and more time on task. Trust me you'll be glad you did.

Of course if you're getting paid by the hour....

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# 32 21-03-2005 , 07:40 AM

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Moving Pivot Points on the Fly

Most users know that they can move the pivot point by pressing insert (PC) or home (Mac), what is not as widely known is the using the "D" key. Holding the "D' down allows user to translate the pivot point on the fly. It is designed to be used with the duplicate with transform tool, but makes a pretty handy means of adjusting the pivot during normal operations as well. Those of you with nimble fingers can combine "D" with the snap constraints (X=grid, C=curve/edge, V=vertex) as well.

P.S. still hoping others will post a tip or two... hint, hint.

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# 33 21-03-2005 , 08:29 PM

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thanks for the d trick. Some of us probably feel as i do that we dont know enough about the program to confidently post a trick. However what may seem ordinary and common to someone who uses it a lot. Might be a trick to others, they just dont realize it.

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# 34 22-03-2005 , 07:57 AM

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That's how I feel, I don't reel confident to post what I call a trick for fear that you guys will think im posting the obvious user added image

Well I think it's time I posted a little something that helps me work.

For all those out there with two monitors (very usefull if you have the right graphics card).

If you having problems animating and it's all getting a bit complicated and you loseing track of what's going on. Select the Persp/Outliner view, then select your camera, then in the outliner view click 'look through selected'. As mhcannon said before you can tear off this window and drag it into your other monitor and change your primary monitor back to the Persp view (or whatever view you want).

What this does is let you have a whole monitor showing what your camera is seeing and leaves you your main monitor to work and animate the camera etc.

Hope this helps, I know it's helped me user added image

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# 35 22-03-2005 , 07:11 PM

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More looking through...

Great tip Tim_LIVID, now if I can just convince the misses that we need a second monitor user added image

Looking through selected also a great way to make sure directional and spot lights are aimed where you want them.

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# 36 22-03-2005 , 07:16 PM

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Local, Global, or Object?

When moving objects around, you can easily switch the manipulator orientation by press "w" plus the left mouse button. Image provided to illustrate this.

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# 37 26-03-2005 , 03:47 AM

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Switch back to basic gray

If you have a heavily texture scene you may experience some lag as maya computes all these textures. To gain some small relief from this lag you can toggle the texture back to the basic gray (default texture) under the any panels shading menu.

I converted a paint effects scene to polygons to quickly generate a geometry and texture heavy scene. On my trusty old (read slow) computer the scene now crawls in texture shaded view. No problem, switch to regular shaded view. Ok, that's a little better. Now switch to "use default material." Ah, even better. Still no speed demon, but at least workable. The default material will update in the lighted view also.

To switch back to your fully texture scene just select the "use default material" option again to turn it off.

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Last edited by mhcannon; 07-08-2005 at 07:38 AM.

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# 38 26-03-2005 , 03:49 AM

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...and the image for the last tip

Sorry, got click-happy and hit submit before attaching the image.

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# 39 27-03-2005 , 06:23 AM

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What went wrong?

Okay, so things don't always work the way we expect them to, but at least Maya tries to tell you why. There is a feedback window in the lower right hand corner of the interface... if this turns red be sure to read it, because maya is telling you something went wrong, If the error is long, you may also read it in the script editor. In the sample below I attempted a boolean operation with only a single object selected.

Now that your armed with the notice of what went wrong, what do you do with it? Well, if you understand the error message then correct the problem and move on. If you don't understand it, copy it or write it down, search the Maya help files or inlcude it in your post here on SM. Often, what may not be readily appearent in the panel view, is identifiable in the error text.

There are a ton of helpful people here, providing them this information will allow them to be more helpful faster.

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# 40 01-04-2005 , 11:22 PM

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Lofting from an Isoparm placeholder

This tip courtesy of Bubbleme80;

1. Switch to isoparm mode, select then drag an isoparm (as if you were preparing to insert an isoparm)
2. Shift select the curve (you could also loft to an isoparm on another surface)
3. Loft
4. An added benefit of this is that the original surface becomes a control object of the lofted surface. (similiar to an extrusion control curve)

Note: you can transform the loft surface indepently

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Last edited by mhcannon; 01-04-2005 at 11:24 PM.

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