Setting Up Maya

[DesignDawg]

I've always been a big "defaults" guy myself. Is that unusual? I've been using Maya for about 6 years, and aside from setting up a few sensible keyboard shortcuts, I have changed the GUI very little....

Ricky

[Undseth]

Hmmm, I think I discovered something today...

I remember, when I installed Maya for the first time, this thing happened when I went into component mode and started to select e.g. a vertex;

...as I dragged the cursor over the vertex, the damn thing also selected the other objects and lines around the vertex.

Now....

If you go to Preferences --> Selection and check "Ignore Selection Priority"...

You get a hard time making easy selections...

Uncheck this option if this it is enabled in your preferences.

Recommended!

[wgreenlee1]

Learn to use those Marking Menus.....and Shelfs....

Always "Reset" your tools before you put them away....

[GrafOrlok]

Agree with DesignDawg, I think the default settings is pretty good. Though, I don't like the way Maya does this massive amount of shelves when you make a fresh install with 4.5 and 5. I prefer the old shelf with just the most common tools. I get rid of the ones I don't use and put others that are more common to me up there. I have a friend who just want the view port and everything else managed by the Hotbox. I don't like that, but it's nice to have the choice.

I don't like having the attribute editor in the main Maya window. It redraws the whole window when activated and slows my workflos down. Better to have it in a separate window.

I also like to have the hyper shade and the hyper graph as hotkeys, so I have hyper graph assinged to "<" and hyper shade assigned to ">". Before these keys where free but in 4.5 they where assigned to something I can't remember. Since I am an animator I also use blend shapes a lot and have the blend shape window assigned to "Alt+b". I also use two monitors for being able to have hyper graph or hyper shade or any other window sized up without disturbing the viewport, but that is another issue :p

That's my two cents!

[augustus]

Err, one custom marking menu for polygon editing, one for nurbs, one for mostly used windows (multilister, hypergraph etc.), and hotkeys for outliner, poly smooth (to preview smooted version of a poly model), a script called solo render. Is that so much.:hmm:

[rock]

Kaiser_Sose,

Go to www.highend3d.com and look for a script that helps you to do things easier. Bonus Tools and MJTools are also nice. I think with consistent practice, it will be as comfortable as LW. There are also free videos at www.digital-tutors.com and www.3dbuzz.com to get you more comfortable with Maya.

Rock.

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