IntroductionWelcome | 00:04 | Hi. I'm George Maestri, and welcome to Maya
Essentials 1: Interface and Organization.
| | 00:11 | In this first course we'll go
over the basic interface of Maya.
| | 00:16 | We'll also go through how to navigate, how
to configure Maya viewports, and so on.
| | 00:22 | And then we'll get into manipulating objects.
| | 00:25 | We'll show you how to select objects, how to use
the Move tool as well as Rotate and Scale objects.
| | 00:32 | And finally, we'll talk a little bit about
organization, how to name objects, how to
| | 00:37 | work with the Outliner and the Hypergraph,
as well as Creating Layers and Selection Masks.
| | 00:44 | Let's go ahead and get started with Maya
Essentials 1: Interface and Organization.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:01 | If you are a lynda.com premium subscriber,
you'll get the exercise files as a download.
| | 00:07 | Now when you get the exercise files, go
ahead and uncompress them and place them on your
| | 00:13 | Desktop just like we have here.
| | 00:15 | Now in this folder, we have
several folders, one for each chapter.
| | 00:21 | As we get into Maya, you will realize also
that each one of these is a Maya Project.
| | 00:27 | So when you first start a chapter, go ahead and
set this folder as your Project and everything
| | 00:33 | should line up properly.
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1. Setting Up MayaConfiguring your computer for Maya | 00:01 | So let's go ahead and get started with Maya.
| | 00:03 | Now I'm using Maya on a Windows machine, but
Maya will work on the Mac or Linux based machines.
| | 00:11 | Now in order to start Maya, all you have to do
is just double-click on it, and it will start up.
| | 00:17 | Now two windows actually come up when you
start Maya, one is called this Output Window
| | 00:23 | which gives you just random information
that we typically don't use, and then once that
| | 00:28 | gets going, then we actually get a
Splash Screen, and then the software comes up.
| | 00:35 | So this is the current Splash
Screen and here is the software.
| | 00:41 | Now when you first start Maya, you will get
this window here that actually has links to
| | 00:46 | some basic tutorials, and if you don't want
to see it, all you have to do is click this
| | 00:50 | little button that says, Do not show at startup.
| | 00:53 | Close this window, and
we're in the Maya Interface.
| | 00:57 | Now when you load Maya onto a machine, you want to
make sure that the machine is capable of running Maya.
| | 01:05 | Maya is a very resource intensive application,
so you'll need a fairly fast computer, I would
| | 01:11 | suggest a Quad Core Computer or higher,
and you'll also need a good graphics card, by
| | 01:18 | good, I mean a Graphics Card
that really supports OpenGL.
| | 01:21 | Now there are tons of gaming cards out
there that support DirectX, but really what you
| | 01:26 | want to look for is an NVIDIA Quadro or an
ATI Radeon Card and those have better OpenGL
| | 01:34 | support and they will make Maya run faster.
| | 01:37 | Now those aren't the best for gaming, but
they are the best for Maya, you will also
| | 01:42 | need about 8 gigabytes of RAM and of course.
| | 01:45 | all the hard disk space you want to render too.
| | 01:48 | So those are some of the basic requirements
for Maya, and once you have your machine setup
| | 01:52 | you can start working with it.
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| Using Maya on a Mac | 00:01 | For those of you who are using the
Macintosh OS X platform, you will need to make sure
| | 00:06 | that you have a three button mouse.
| | 00:09 | Now the Macintosh actually ships with a two
button mouse, but in order to use Maya properly,
| | 00:15 | you will need to get three buttons, now this
can either be a standard three button mouse
| | 00:19 | or a mouse with the
middle wheel as a scroll wheel.
| | 00:23 | Now these only cost $10 to $15 in an
electronics store, they will give you the full capability
| | 00:30 | of just using a three
button mouse with your Mac.
| | 00:33 | Now in terms of memory and video cards, yes,
you will need as much memory as you can get
| | 00:38 | into your Mac, 8 gigabytes is probably a
good number, if you can get higher that's great.
| | 00:43 | And for video cards, you can use the Stock
Video Card in the Macintosh or if you want
| | 00:49 | you can upgrade to an NVIDIA Quadro or
Radeon Card that is compatible with the Macintosh.
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| Working with projects| 00:01 | When you work with Maya, you will probably
want to use what are called projects, and
| | 00:06 | that's a standard
directory structure that Maya uses.
| | 00:10 | So in this course we'll be using
projects for all of our chapters.
| | 00:13 | Now let me show you where
those projects are located.
| | 00:15 | I'm going to go ahead and minimize Maya here,
and you'll notice that we have an exercise
| | 00:19 | files folder, and in that folder we
have four folders, one for each chapter.
| | 00:26 | So if I go into the initial chapter here, say SettingUp,
you'll see we have a standard directory structure.
| | 00:32 | We have some standard folders here which
shows where all of the assets are for the scene.
| | 00:38 | So, for example, if I go in to scenes folder here,
you'll see I have a number of different standard scenes.
| | 00:45 | So I'm going to go back into Maya here, and
let's go ahead and setup projects and show
| | 00:49 | you a little bit about this.
| | 00:51 | So if we want to set a project to the folder
we're working, all we have to do is say Set
| | 00:56 | Project, and that will go ahead and bring
us into a browser, we are going right now
| | 01:01 | in to the exercise files folder and all we
have to do is select the current folder which
| | 01:06 | is SettingUp and hit Set.
Now that folder is our default location.
| | 01:13 | So if we do a File, Open Scene, it will bring
us immediately into that scene's folder, and
| | 01:18 | we can just open a scene.
| | 01:21 | And in addition to opening the scene it will
also bring forth all the texture files because
| | 01:26 | it has the pathing information.
| | 01:29 | If you load a scene, and you don't have the
textures available, make sure you have your project set.
| | 01:35 | If you are creating a new scene in Maya, you
can always setup a new project, all you have
| | 01:39 | to do is just go to FileProject Window, and
this will create our standard projects, so
| | 01:46 | we can create a new project Name, a
new Location, and we can create it.
| | 01:51 | I'm going to go ahead and Cancel out
on this, so I don't need to set it up.
| | 01:54 | But if you are starting from scratch, it's a
great way to setup your scene properly from
| | 01:59 | scratch, and if you work with projects, you
should be able to just take that folder and
| | 02:04 | move it to whatever machine you want, and
as long as you set the project, Maya will
| | 02:09 | know where everything is at.
| | 02:11 | So go ahead and set your project and remember to
set up project at the beginning of each chapter.
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| Setting preferences| 00:01 | As is the case with any complex piece of software,
Maya has preferences that you can set to customize
| | 00:07 | the way that Maya works.
| | 00:09 | Now out of the box, Maya is fairly interactive,
but if you want you can change things around
| | 00:14 | to better suit the way that you work.
| | 00:16 | So we find our preferences under Window > Setting
Preferences and under this we have a Preferences dialog box.
| | 00:23 | So we can go ahead and pull this up, and you
can see we have a whole list of preferences.
| | 00:28 | Now some of the most important ones here are
towards the top, they are the Interface ones,
| | 00:33 | what menu set do we want to use, in this case
it's all these different ones here, and this
| | 00:37 | is actually the same as this menu here.
| | 00:40 | But do we want to show the menu Bar, do we
want to show the panel tool Bar, so again,
| | 00:45 | we can turn on and off
different interface elements here.
| | 00:49 | So I can certainly turn on and off that.
| | 00:52 | We also have a UI Elements option here, and this
allows you to turn on a bunch of different options here.
| | 00:59 | So, for example, we have the Time slider and
the Range slider, which have to do with animation.
| | 01:05 | But if all you are doing modeling, you may
not need that, and you can actually get yourself
| | 01:09 | some extra screen space that you might need.
| | 01:11 | You can also turn off Shelves, you can turn
off your Status Line, there is a number of
| | 01:16 | different things that you can turn on or off.
| | 01:18 | We also have one called the ViewCube, and
this actually allows us to show it or hide
| | 01:23 | it, and we'll be using this a lot when we
get into navigation, so this is a really easy
| | 01:28 | way to turn this on.
| | 01:30 | We also have some options here for Help
and Help does show up on the bottom here, you
| | 01:35 | can see how as I move my cursor around it
gives me little Help options here and how
| | 01:40 | much of that do we want to display.
| | 01:42 | Then we also have Display Options, what's
the maximum texture size, that sort of thing.
| | 01:48 | Animation Options here.
| | 01:49 | And we also have Settings, and these
are basically the units that we are using.
| | 01:54 | So one of them is do we want our Y or Z axis
to be our up axis in Maya, it defaults to Y.
| | 02:02 | And in our Units do we want to Centimeters,
Inches, Feet, Yards, it defaults to Centimeters.
| | 02:08 | For Angular, do you want Degrees or Radians,
and this is very important, what's your Timeframe?
| | 02:14 | So if you are animating to film, you'd want
to keep that at 24, but if you are doing NTSC
| | 02:19 | or PAL, you may need to change it to 25 or 30.
| | 02:24 | And then we also have additional ones such
as Animation, Cameras, really a whole lot
| | 02:29 | of different options here.
| | 02:32 | So if there is something that you need to
customize, if something isn't quite working
| | 02:36 | the way that you want, or you need to change
your Units or the Frame Rate of your animation,
| | 02:41 | you can find a lot of this
in the Preferences window.
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| Enabling plug-ins| 00:01 | Maya is a very modular program as well, a
lot of its capability is done through plugins.
| | 00:07 | Now a lot of these plugins are provided with Maya, but
not a lot of them are actually loaded when Maya loads.
| | 00:14 | Now a Plug-in actually takes additional
memory and resources, so unless you need it, you
| | 00:19 | don't really want to load it.
| | 00:21 | And also, if you're buying third party
plugins from Maya, you also want to be able to load
| | 00:25 | them or unload them as you wish.
| | 00:29 | Now we can find our plugins here under
Window > Settings > Preferences > Plug-in Manager.
| | 00:35 | So this actually gives you a list of all the
plugins that are available to Maya, and then
| | 00:41 | which ones are Loaded or
which ones will Auto Load.
| | 00:44 | Okay, now the difference Loaded and Auto
Load is Loaded means that it's there, ready to
| | 00:49 | go, Auto Load means it
loads every time you start Maya.
| | 00:54 | Now, for example, if I were to click this
one here, animation Import/Export just as
| | 00:58 | Loaded that means it loads that module.
| | 01:01 | But the next time I start Maya, it won't,
until I click on Auto Load, that won't happen,
| | 01:07 | so Auto Load loads it every time.
Now we have a number of different options here.
| | 01:13 | One is here is for Bullet Physics,
which is a new module with our Maya 2013.
| | 01:18 | If you're in to gaming, you
might need the CGFX shader.
| | 01:22 | We also have FBX, if you're importing or
exporting objects into Maya, you want to do that via FBX.
| | 01:28 | And typically I like to keep that Auto Loaded.
| | 01:32 | We also have our Fur Plug-in which can also be
very handy, it's something that's very popular.
| | 01:37 | Another important one is mental ray which
is down here at the bottom, Maya to mental
| | 01:41 | ray, and I always like to make sure that
that's loaded as well, because typically, I render
| | 01:46 | in mental ray and a lot of people do, so you
want to make sure that that's always Auto Loaded.
| | 01:52 | And then there are a number of other ones here Object
Exports, Stereo Cameras just a whole wealth of ones.
| | 01:58 | And so if there is something that you think
should be there, and it's not, chances are
| | 02:02 | it's usually a Plug-in that just isn't loaded.
| | 02:05 | So go ahead and go through the Plug-in Manager and
make sure that everything you want to load is loaded.
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2. Understanding the Maya InterfaceOverview of the Maya interface| 00:00 | Let's get started by
looking at the Maya Interface.
| | 00:04 | Now this is the default interface that Maya
presents itself when you first turn it on.
| | 00:10 | Maya can be configured to have a
number of different looks and feels.
| | 00:13 | But let's just start with
a basic default interface.
| | 00:17 | Now to start off with Maya we have a
standard menu bar like we have in most programs.
| | 00:24 | We have File, Edit, Modify, and so on.
| | 00:27 | Now in Maya this menu actually is flexible,
in other words, it can change the way it looks.
| | 00:35 | Right here we have a pull down menu that
shows a number of different menu sets, right now
| | 00:41 | we have it set on the Animation menu set,
and as you see over here to the right we have
| | 00:47 | all the animation tools.
| | 00:49 | Now if we were to change that say to
Polygons, you will see how these menus change.
| | 00:54 | So we have starting with Mesh,
Edit Mesh, Proxy, and so on.
| | 00:58 | And we can do the same with
Surfaces, Dynamics and more.
| | 01:02 | I am going to go ahead and
put this back to Animation.
| | 01:07 | Along the second line here, we have a number
of icons that allow you to do things, we have
| | 01:13 | one here for a New scene,
Open scene, Save a scene.
| | 01:17 | We also have Select by hierarchy or
Select by object type or Select by component.
| | 01:24 | And as we start getting into
selection you'll see how these work.
| | 01:28 | Over here we have what are called Selection
masks, which allows to reduce the things that
| | 01:33 | we can select in Maya, and this can be very
important if you have a lot of different objects
| | 01:38 | in Maya, and you only
want to work with one type.
| | 01:41 | A little bit further over we have snapping
options, and this allows us to Snap to grids,
| | 01:46 | Snap to curves, points,
view planes, and so on.
| | 01:51 | And as you start working with objects and
components and moving them around, you'll learn how to snap.
| | 01:57 | Now a little bit further over here, we have some
Render options which allow us to render the scene.
| | 02:02 | Further over to the right we have
just toggles for different displays here.
| | 02:05 | Now you'd notice along the right side of the
screen we have two boxes here, one is called
| | 02:10 | the Attribute Editor and the other one is called
the Channel Box here, and there are two tabs here.
| | 02:16 | Basically those can be turned on or off here.
| | 02:19 | This one turns on or off what's called the
Attribute Editor, the far right one turns
| | 02:24 | on or off what's called the Channel Box.
| | 02:26 | Now the middle on turns on or off a tool
Settings palette, and this will change depending on
| | 02:32 | the tool that you select.
| | 02:34 | So if I select the Scale or the Rotate tool, it is a
little bit different than selecting the Select tool.
| | 02:42 | So each one of these can be
controlled here at the top right.
| | 02:45 | If we go a little bit further
down we have what are called shelves.
| | 02:50 | Now Maya provides a number of standard shelves
that you can use but you also can create your
| | 02:56 | own custom shelves.
| | 02:58 | Now the standard shelves are General tools and
these are basically just iconic representations
| | 03:04 | of most of the tools we have in the menu system.
| | 03:07 | So we have a shelf for Curves,
Surfaces, for Polygonal modeling.
| | 03:11 | We have ones over here for
Rendering, for Paint Effects.
| | 03:15 | And again, most of these
options are found in the menu system.
| | 03:18 | So you may or may not want to use the shelves.
| | 03:22 | Also over here to the right we have a
custom shelf which allows you to create your own
| | 03:26 | tools and place them on the shelf.
| | 03:29 | Now along the left side of the screen we
have Selection Tools as well as Viewport Option.
| | 03:35 | So we have the Select tool, we have a
Lasso tool, we have a Soft Select tool, we also
| | 03:40 | have Move Tools, Rotate Scale, as well as
what's called the Universal Manipulator, which
| | 03:47 | allows you to manipulate objects as
well as a Manipulator tool, and so on.
| | 03:53 | Now down here on the bottom left, we have
a different layout, so if I select this, I
| | 03:58 | can just get to standard
window layouts if I want.
| | 04:02 | Now typically I keep these on the
perspective or the quad view, but again, you can change
| | 04:09 | them to whatever you want.
| | 04:11 | Also here we have a pull down which
allows us to change this to whatever we want.
| | 04:19 | Now along the bottom of the screen we have
the Timeline, this here allows us to scrub
| | 04:24 | through the scene in time.
| | 04:28 | We have Play Controls here, we can play Forward,
we can play Backwards, we can also Stop, or
| | 04:34 | we can also Step Forward one Key or one
Frame or go to the Beginning or the End.
| | 04:41 | A little bit further down underneath this,
we have what's called a Range slider.
| | 04:46 | So we have these two outside numbers here
from 1 to 48, that's the total length of the
| | 04:53 | animation in the scene.
| | 04:55 | Here the inside numbers from 1 to 24, that's
the length of what we are currently viewing.
| | 05:02 | And we can change this here by either
typing in new numbers, or we can grab the slider,
| | 05:08 | and we can basically slide around to
see different parts of the timeline.
| | 05:14 | Now if we grab this button here, we can
expand or contract that as needed and notice how
| | 05:20 | the number changes as well.
| | 05:22 | Now along the bottom, we also
have what's called a Helpline.
| | 05:26 | If you are wondering what a certain tool is
just go ahead and hover over it, and it will
| | 05:31 | go ahead and tell you.
| | 05:33 | So, for example, when I hover over
the help line it says, it Displays Help.
| | 05:36 | There are also additional menus in the
viewports which we'll get to in a little bit, but as
| | 05:43 | you can see this is the full Maya Interface,
so you have a lot of different tools, a lot
| | 05:48 | of different ways to interact within Maya.
| | 05:51 | So just familiarize yourself with the interface,
and you'll get used to it as we start working with Maya.
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| Navigating Maya viewports| 00:00 | One of the most important things you need to
know in Maya is how to navigate with a viewport.
| | 00:05 | Now I have a simple file open, with some
table and chairs, but if we want let's go ahead
| | 00:11 | and make sure that we set our project to Maya
Interface, and that will make sure that that
| | 00:17 | all the textures come through.
| | 00:19 | And this will be the same project
we'll use throughout this chapter.
| | 00:23 | Now navigating in Maya is basically just
done through the mouse and the keyboard.
| | 00:29 | Now all you have to do to navigate in Maya
is to hold down the Alt key, and then use
| | 00:36 | the three buttons of the mouse.
| | 00:39 | So if I hold down the Alt key and left-click,
you'll see this little rotate icon comes up,
| | 00:46 | and then all I have to do is move my mouse,
and you can see I can spin around this scene.
| | 00:53 | If I hold down Alt and right-click,
notice how it comes into this zoom in and out.
| | 00:59 | So if I move my cursor left
and right, I can zoom in and out.
| | 01:03 | Again, holding down Alt or command and
middle clicking, you can see we can pan.
| | 01:09 | So between these three, you can see you can
very quickly go and manipulate your scene.
| | 01:17 | Now if you have a mouse with a center
scroll wheel, you can also just roll that wheel,
| | 01:23 | and I am zooming in and out.
| | 01:25 | Now there are other ways to get additional views in
Maya, one of them is just to do the frame Alt+Command.
| | 01:33 | So let's say I move this over here, and I
have got this out of the way, all I have to
| | 01:38 | do is just hit the F for frame Command, and then
I'll bring everything in the scene and center it.
| | 01:44 | So it's a real good default way of
getting back to a reasonable state.
| | 01:50 | Now in addition to this perspective view,
we can have other views on the scene.
| | 01:56 | And we can see that through the Panels menu.
| | 01:59 | So we have a Perspective window here, which
is what we are looking at, and you can see
| | 02:04 | that in green here, it
says persp for perspective.
| | 02:09 | But we also have Stereo
views and Orthographic views.
| | 02:13 | Now orthographic views are probably
the ones we are going to use a lot.
| | 02:16 | So, for example, we have a front view, we
have a side view, and we have a top view.
| | 02:23 | Now these are what are called orthographic
views, so they don't have perspective, they
| | 02:28 | are more like a drafting view.
| | 02:30 | And again, we can still
navigate these viewports.
| | 02:34 | So if I hold down my Alt or Command key and left-
click, you'll see that, well, I can't do anything.
| | 02:40 | That's because I can't
revolve around this window.
| | 02:43 | This is a 2-D flat window.
I can't rotate around in 3D.
| | 02:48 | But I can middle click and drag, right-
click and zoom, and of course, my middle scroll
| | 02:55 | wheel works as well.
| | 02:57 | There is another way to get into these views,
and that's using what's called the ViewCube,
| | 03:03 | which is right here on the top right corner.
| | 03:05 | Now if this isn't showing in your viewport,
you can always get to it through the Preferences.
| | 03:11 | So we go into Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences,
and then we should have an option here called
| | 03:18 | ViewCube, and this will toggle it on or off.
| | 03:21 | So I am going to go ahead and make sure
this is toggled on, and this is a great way to
| | 03:25 | get additional views without
having to go into this Panels menu.
| | 03:29 | All you have to do is just click on
this, and it will rotate your view.
| | 03:33 | So if I click on this here,
I will get a Back view.
| | 03:36 | If I click on a side one here, you get a
Right view, and you can just keeping going around.
| | 03:42 | If you click on a corner of this, then
you'll get a three quarter or a Side view here.
| | 03:47 | If I click on this top corner, you can
see how I can get that view or that view.
| | 03:52 | If I want a top view I can
certainly do that as well.
| | 03:56 | So this is a really nice
way to get a decent view.
| | 04:01 | We also have a Home key here which will go ahead
and just bring it back to a default state as well.
| | 04:07 | Now notice how this ViewCube also
rotates with my cursor as I rotate my scene.
| | 04:14 | Now as you can see there are a number of
ways of getting different views on the objects
| | 04:18 | in your scene, play with the scene
and get used to navigating within Maya.
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| Configuring Maya viewports| 00:00 | Maya offers a number of different ways to
view the objects in your viewport, you can
| | 00:05 | view them in shaded mode, like we have here,
or you can view them in wireframe mode with
| | 00:10 | textures, there is a number of
different ways to look at the viewports.
| | 00:15 | So let's take a look at
how to configure viewports.
| | 00:17 | Now the first thing we want to
understand is that each viewport has its own menu.
| | 00:23 | So if I go from this perspective viewport
and just tap the spacebar, you'll see that
| | 00:29 | it actually brings me out into a quad view,
you can see that each individual viewport
| | 00:35 | in this quad view has its own menu.
| | 00:39 | So if I place my mouse over this perspective
viewport and hit the Spacebar again, you'll
| | 00:44 | see that it comes back up.
| | 00:46 | Now I can configure this viewport very
easily just by going into the Shading options, we
| | 00:52 | have number of options here.
| | 00:54 | We have Smooth Shade all,
which is what we're looking at.
| | 00:57 | We also have Wireframe, which
shows the object in wireframe.
| | 01:02 | We can also Flat Shade everything, which
means it doesn't shade the curves, we can actually
| | 01:08 | zoom in here, and you can see how the bowl
is faceted, and if we did a Smooth Shade here,
| | 01:14 | you'll see how that bowl is smooth.
| | 01:16 | We can also just Smooth Shade the Selected
Items, so if I select a specific item, only
| | 01:21 | that item will be shaded, and this can
really help you, focus in on a specific object in
| | 01:27 | the scene without having to put
everything into wireframe or shaded.
| | 01:32 | We can also do what's called Bounding Box,
which basically just shows you the objects as boxes.
| | 01:39 | Another one is a called Wireframe on Shaded,
so if I do a Smooth Shade All, I can also
| | 01:44 | turn on Wireframe on Shaded, and as you can
see it shows me the objects with the wires
| | 01:51 | over them, and this can also
be a great visualization tool.
| | 01:56 | We can also do what's called X-Ray and
what X-Ray does is it basically just partially
| | 02:01 | shades things, so that way you can kind of
see how the shading happens, but also it's
| | 02:06 | kind of like halfway
between shaded and wireframe.
| | 02:10 | And again, these are just toggles,
so we can turn them on or off.
| | 02:14 | Now if you want to quickly go between these,
you can also use some keyboard shortcuts.
| | 02:20 | If you hit the 5 key, it goes to Shaded mode.
| | 02:24 | If you hit the 4 key it goes to Wireframe,
so 4 and 5 change the level of shading.
| | 02:33 | So in addition to this we can also add textures
into our viewport, and we do that under Shading,
| | 02:39 | and we go down to what's called Hardware
Texturing, and when we turn that on, you can see how
| | 02:45 | all the textures show up.
| | 02:48 | Now make sure that you have your project
set, so it can find these texture files.
| | 02:52 | If you don't have your project set, go ahead into
File > Set Project and make sure it's set to Maya Interface.
| | 03:02 | So now that we have textures available, you
can see the scene a lot more realistically.
| | 03:06 | Now we do have some options
here for Hardware Texturing.
| | 03:11 | With all of these menus in Maya, a lot of
times you will see a little box to the right
| | 03:16 | of an option here, and if you click on that box,
it'll actually bring up the options for that menu option.
| | 03:24 | These here are just basically different ways
to filter and blend the Textures, we're going
| | 03:30 | to leave these at defaults,
but just know that that's there.
| | 03:34 | Now another way to change the way that you
view the scene is to actually change the lighting.
| | 03:39 | By default, we have what's called Use
Default Lighting, which is just a general wash of
| | 03:45 | light in the scene, but if we're actually
lighting the scene for rendering, and that
| | 03:50 | sort of thing, we might want to see
the lights that we have in the scene.
| | 03:53 | So we could say, Use All Lights, and you
can see that this really changes the way that
| | 03:58 | the lights work in the scene, and if I zoom out
here, you can see these little red objects here.
| | 04:04 | These are all the lights.
| | 04:06 | Now if I want, I can also just
use the lights that I have selected.
| | 04:10 | So if I click on this you'll see that, well,
the whole thing goes dark, but if I left-click
| | 04:15 | on any individual light, you can
see how that light affects the scene.
| | 04:20 | So if I pick this one in back of the window, you can
see how it casts the shadow on the wall, and so on.
| | 04:27 | So I'm going to go ahead and switch this
to Use All Lights, and now let's take a look
| | 04:32 | at what's called Rendering.
| | 04:33 | By default, we have what's called Default
Quality Rendering, which is generally a good
| | 04:40 | basic rendering and for most
applications in Maya you should be using this.
| | 04:44 | This is the best way to model and rig characters,
and that sort of thing, all of the functionality
| | 04:50 | of Maya is available using the default renderer.
| | 04:54 | But if I want to see the scene more realistically,
then I can use one of these other two renderers.
| | 05:01 | One is called High Quality Rendering, and
if I click on that, you see how it takes a
| | 05:06 | little bit of time to get going, and what
this does is it uses the power of your Graphics
| | 05:11 | Card to render the scene.
| | 05:14 | So the better the Graphics Card
you have, the faster this will be.
| | 05:17 | But you can see the shadows of the lights on the
wall, and on the floor, so we actually get shadowing.
| | 05:23 | Then we have another one which is even advanced,
and this is called Viewport 2.0, and you can
| | 05:28 | see as I go into this, it gets even a little
bit more realistic, and this has more features,
| | 05:33 | such as transparency and some
special effects show up pretty well.
| | 05:37 | So if you are doing some high quality stuff,
and you really want to see your scene accurately,
| | 05:43 | these will work, but also be aware that some
features of Maya might not work in each Viewport,
| | 05:49 | so if you are rigging a character and stuff
like that, it might not work in a Viewport
| | 05:53 | 2.0, but everything will work
in the Default Quality Rendering.
| | 05:58 | Now finally, I do want to also show you some
camera options, so as we're working in a scene,
| | 06:03 | a lot of times we want to see things such
as our safe frame, and that sort of thing
| | 06:07 | and these are included under the View menu.
| | 06:10 | So if we go into Camera Settings, you
can see we have a couple of gates here.
| | 06:16 | One is called the Film Gate and the other one
is called the Resolution Gate, and typically,
| | 06:22 | I use the Resolution Gate which gives me a
border that shows where the resolution of
| | 06:27 | my renderer is happening.
| | 06:29 | So if you are rendering at
640x480, it will be at that rendering.
| | 06:34 | So right now this particular scene is rendering
1280x720, so it gives me a slightly wider aspect ratio.
| | 06:43 | Now if I want I can go into this a little
bit more, I can turn on a Field Chart that
| | 06:48 | can help me to position things, and we can
also turn that on or off, and we also can
| | 06:54 | do stuff like Safe Action and Safe Title.
| | 06:59 | Now we also have a mask along the outside
here, and this kind of just gives you a visual
| | 07:04 | representation of what's going to be rendered
versus what is outside of the rendering, and
| | 07:09 | again, under Camera Settings, we can turn
that on and off, and that's called Gate Mask,
| | 07:15 | and we can certainly turn that on or off.
| | 07:19 | So those are some of the basic ways
of looking at your scene within Maya.
| | 07:23 | Now remember, this is viewport specific, so
if I go into my viewports here, I can have
| | 07:29 | each viewport have a different shading and
rendering option, so you have a really wide
| | 07:35 | range of options for viewing the scene in Maya.
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| Using the Hotbox | 00:00 | Maya is a very deep program, it has a lot
of menu options and sometimes it's hard to
| | 00:06 | get from one menu option to the other.
| | 00:09 | So to make this easier, Maya
has what's called the Hotbox.
| | 00:13 | Typically, when we work with Maya, we may,
for example, select something, and then go
| | 00:19 | up to a menu and modify something, and then
we may want to animate something, which means
| | 00:25 | we have to change menus,
and it can take a lot of time.
| | 00:29 | So to make things quicker,
Maya has what's called the Hotbox.
| | 00:33 | The Hotbox is accessed in any viewport,
all you have to do is just keep your mouse in
| | 00:38 | the viewport and hold down the space key.
| | 00:40 | You can see all of these menus come up.
| | 00:42 | Now these are by default all the menus in Maya.
| | 00:47 | We have, for example, File, Edit, Modify,
Create all along here, but we also have all
| | 00:52 | of the other menus.
| | 00:53 | So, for example, here we have the animation menus,
below that Polygon, we have Surfaces, and so on.
| | 01:00 | so all of these menus.
| | 01:03 | So this allows us to basically get to any
menu we want in Maya just by clicking on the
| | 01:09 | spacebar, and then just locating the menu.
| | 01:12 | Now when I let go off of the
spacebar, the menu goes away.
| | 01:16 | Now the Hotbox actually
does a lot more than that.
| | 01:19 | You can also switch viewports.
| | 01:21 | If I hold down my menu key and keep it
centered on top of this Maya box here, I can go from
| | 01:27 | Perspective view to Side view,
to Top view, to Front view.
| | 01:34 | And we can actually do this fairly quickly.
| | 01:36 | So all I have do is hold down the spacebar
and move it up, and we have got Perspective,
| | 01:41 | move to the side, we have got
Side view, Front view, and so on.
| | 01:45 | So you can actually get to these fairly
quickly, and as you start working in Maya, you can
| | 01:50 | almost do it as a gesture,
it's very, very quick.
| | 01:54 | In addition to this, we can also get to
the history that we have used in Maya.
| | 01:59 | So if I hold down the Hotbox over here, we
have what are called Recent Commands, and
| | 02:04 | this is really just all the
last commands that we have done.
| | 02:08 | So if you are working on something, and
you are doing a lot of the same commands, you
| | 02:11 | can use that Recent Commands just to get very
quickly to the last command that you've done.
| | 02:18 | Now if you don't want all of these menus,
you can certainly configure that as well.
| | 02:22 | There are two ways to configure the Hotbox.
| | 02:25 | One is under Hotbox Controls, and this shows
all the different types of menus that we have.
| | 02:30 | So if we want, we can hide all of the menus,
and it becomes just the Recent Commands in
| | 02:37 | the Hotbox controls.
| | 02:38 | If we want we can show just
specific menus such as Rendering.
| | 02:42 | We can also show all of the menus.
| | 02:45 | And then we can also set a transparency, do
we want this to be transparent or not? How
| | 02:51 | transparent do we want this? You
want a 50% transparent, a 100%, so on.
| | 02:57 | Do we want our Hotbox to be Zones Only? Zones
and the Menus or just that Center Zone only?
| | 03:04 | So this is just the Center zone here, and
then we also have under Hotbox, Zones Only
| | 03:11 | or Zones and Menus Rows, which is really just
everything, and then we certainly show all if we want.
| | 03:18 | So as you can see, the Hotbox is really, really
functional, it has a lot of different options,
| | 03:23 | you can get to just about any menu option
in Maya, you can also change your views and
| | 03:28 | also get to Recent Commands.
| | 03:31 | So it's something that you'll be using a lot,
and as you start to work with Maya, remember
| | 03:35 | that the Hotbox can be very useful.
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| Working with marking menus | 00:00 | Now in addition to the Hotbox, Maya also has
other context sensitive menus and those are
| | 00:06 | called marking menus.
| | 00:08 | And you can access those by right
clicking in a viewport or over an object.
| | 00:13 | So if I'm over nothing here, and I right
click you can see really not much comes up.
| | 00:18 | But if I'm over say the back of the chair, you
can see a completely different menu comes up.
| | 00:23 | And again, I'm just right clicking.
| | 00:25 | If I right-click over the bowl on the table,
again a similar menu but with different options
| | 00:32 | will come up and really what's
different between these is the type of object.
| | 00:37 | So, for example, this chair is made out of
polygons, so when I right-click over this,
| | 00:43 | you can see I get Face, Edge, Vertex, and so on.
And these are the components of a polygon.
| | 00:50 | So, for example, if I were to select Vertex,
it would allow me to edit the vertices over
| | 00:56 | the shape of that object.
| | 00:59 | If I want to go back in to object mode, all
I have to do is again just right-click over
| | 01:03 | this and go in to object mode.
| | 01:06 | If I were to right-click over this bowl,
you can see that it has different options, it
| | 01:11 | doesn't have vertices and faces, but it has Control
Vertices and Patches which means it's a surface object.
| | 01:18 | So if I go on Control Vertex here,
you can see my control vertices.
| | 01:22 | I can go in to hulls, and so on. And these are
NURBS based control, because this is a NURBS object.
| | 01:28 | And again just as with polygonal objects, I do
have an object mode which takes me out of that.
| | 01:35 | Now in addition to this I have a bunch a
menu options down here, I have what are called
| | 01:41 | Inputs and Outputs, Actions.
| | 01:43 | One of the most important
actions we have are called Templates.
| | 01:46 | So when I do Actions, Template what it does
is it basically ghosts the object, so I can
| | 01:52 | see it in the scene, but I can't select it.
| | 01:56 | And this actually gives me the ability to have
the object in place, but not accidentally select it.
| | 02:02 | So I can right-click over that again and under
Actions just do Untemplate, and that puts it back.
| | 02:09 | Now if I right-click over this again, you
can also see I have additional options here
| | 02:13 | such as Adding Material and do
things such as UVs and Color Sets.
| | 02:18 | So there really are a lot of object
specific things under the Marking menu.
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| Customizing the interface| 00:00 | Now as you start using Maya you will
probably want to customize and arrange the interface
| | 00:05 | so that it works best for you.
| | 00:08 | We can do this through a number of
different methods, one is through Window > Preferences,
| | 00:13 | and as we have seen, we can turn on or
off a number of different Interface options.
| | 00:19 | So, for example, go here to InterfaceUI
Elements, I can turn off those things I don't need.
| | 00:25 | So if I don't want a command line I can
turn that off and give myself a little bit more
| | 00:30 | screen real estate.
| | 00:32 | Now this window also allows me to do things
such as show or hide the Channel Box or Attribute
| | 00:37 | Editor, and so on, and so forth.
| | 00:39 | And in addition to this
we can also tear off menus.
| | 00:44 | If I was, for example, to use my Create menu,
I can pull this down, and you'll notice it
| | 00:49 | has a little dotted line at the top.
| | 00:51 | If I click on that dotted line,
you'll see that this menu tears off.
| | 00:56 | So now I can float this wherever I want.
| | 00:59 | Now if I wanted to I could
actually put this on a second screen.
| | 01:03 | So if you are using two monitors, it's a
great way to put your tool palettes on a separate
| | 01:07 | monitor and give yourself the
most screen real-estate to work in.
| | 01:12 | Now in addition to this we have other menus.
| | 01:14 | So, for example, if I were to click here on
this tool Palettes menu, notice how this has
| | 01:20 | dotted lines along the top.
| | 01:23 | So if I click on this I can again float
this window and use it however I want.
| | 01:28 | So a lot of windows are able to be
floated just look for those dotted lines.
| | 01:33 | And again, if I close this, it goes away.
| | 01:36 | Now in addition to this I
can change my Viewports.
| | 01:39 | So if I were to click here and go into a
four view I don't have to have the standard Top,
| | 01:46 | Left, and Side views, I can change
these panels into anything I want.
| | 01:52 | So if I were to change this panel here, I
can go through and use my orthographic views,
| | 01:57 | but I also can use different types of panels.
| | 02:00 | So, for example, if I wanted to, I could
change this into what's called an Outliner panel.
| | 02:05 | I can also change the size of these windows.
| | 02:08 | So if I were to find this dotted line here,
I can click and drag and change the windows
| | 02:14 | just by hovering over the borders
between the windows and changing their size.
| | 02:19 | So that's another way to
arrange the layout of your scene.
| | 02:23 | Now if we want, we also
have custom layouts for Maya.
| | 02:27 | So if we go into Panels, we
have a number of Saved Layouts.
| | 02:32 | So if I were to go in here, that would bring me into
my standard four view, go under Panels > Saved Layouts.
| | 02:38 | I could do any number of these.
| | 02:40 | So, for example, if I did Hypershade/Render/
Persp, that will actually bring up the Hypershade
| | 02:47 | Window, which is for
creating materials and stuff.
| | 02:51 | I have a render window down here,
and I have a perspective window.
| | 02:55 | So if I were doing stuff related to rendering,
this might be a great layout for me, or I
| | 03:00 | can do another one that's basically just
the Perspective window and the Outliner.
| | 03:06 | So again, a lot of these can be used
just to customize your interface in Maya.
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|
|
3. Manipulating ObjectsSelecting objects | 00:00 | Now let's take a look at how to manipulate
objects in Maya, before we manipulate anything
| | 00:05 | we will need to select the object, so I have a
very simple scene here with just four chairs.
| | 00:12 | Now I have turned on hardware texturing so
that way you can see the texture of the chairs,
| | 00:17 | and if you don't see those let's go ahead
and make sure that we go into File > Set Project
| | 00:22 | and make sure we set it to our current
chapter which is manipulating Objects.
| | 00:28 | In order to select an object in
Maya we just use a Select tool.
| | 00:32 | The Select tool is here in the toolbox, it's
just on the top left corner, but if we have
| | 00:37 | something else selected, all you have
to do is hit the Q key on the keyboard.
| | 00:42 | Now there are actually four keys here that
are really important, they are along the top
| | 00:47 | row of the letters of the keyboard.
| | 00:49 | They are Q for Select, W for Move,
E for Rotate and R for Scale.
| | 00:58 | Now notice how my tools change here.
| | 01:01 | So Q is Select, W, Move,
E for Rotate, R for Scale.
| | 01:08 | So let's take a look at Selection first.
| | 01:11 | So in order to select an object, I should be in
Select mode and just go ahead and left-click on the object.
| | 01:18 | When I left-click on this particular chair,
you can see it's called Chair 01, and this
| | 01:22 | is in the Channel Box, you could see
it also in the Attribute Editor here.
| | 01:27 | If I wanted to select another object, I can
just again just left-click on any object I want.
| | 01:34 | Now if I want to deselect an object, all I
have to do is just click over nothing, and
| | 01:39 | that will deselect it.
| | 01:41 | If I want to multiple select objects, all
I have to do is hold down the Shift key and
| | 01:46 | left-click on one, two objects,
and now I have both selected.
| | 01:51 | Now notice here in the Channel Box we have
Chair 02, and then a dot, dot, dot, and that
| | 01:56 | just tells me I have multiple objects selected.
| | 02:00 | Now also notice how the last object I select is
in green, and then the other object is in white.
| | 02:08 | So if I hold down the Shift key and select
a third object, that will turn green, and
| | 02:13 | this tells me that this is
the last object selected.
| | 02:17 | Now this is not so important when we we're
just moving objects around, but if we go into
| | 02:22 | something like modeling, a lot of times the last
object you select will have a different function.
| | 02:28 | So, for example, if I took a bunch of
curves and wanted to make them into a surface, I
| | 02:34 | need to select them in a specific order.
| | 02:36 | So having that last object highlighted in
green can give you some very important information
| | 02:43 | later down the road.
| | 02:45 | Now if I wanted to deselect objects, I can
simply hold down the Ctrl key and click on
| | 02:50 | a specific object, and that will deselect it.
| | 02:54 | Now if I want to select a whole bunch of objects,
I can also just left-click and drag, and you
| | 02:59 | can see a rubber band box comes up, and I
can select the bunch of objects, and if I
| | 03:04 | wanted to select just those objects, I just
want to make sure that they are not in the
| | 03:09 | way of that box, if the box gets over anything in
such as the edge of this chair here, it will select it.
| | 03:18 | Now if you want to do more complex selections,
you can also use what's called the Lasso tool,
| | 03:24 | and it's pretty much as you expect, it's a
lasso, and you can just lasso your object,
| | 03:30 | so you can get much finer selection there.
| | 03:32 | And again, it works very similar to the
box select in that just as long as the object
| | 03:39 | touches the box, it's selected.
| | 03:42 | You can also use this for deselection, so if
I Ctrl+Lasso select, I can deselect an object.
| | 03:48 | I can also Ctrl+Rubber band deselect, so
again, I can just box deselect as well.
| | 03:56 | So those are some basic options for
selecting objects in your viewports.
| | 04:00 | Now you will be selecting them in order to
manipulate them, so let's go ahead and start
| | 04:05 | moving and rotating objects
in the next couple of lessons.
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| Using the Move tool | 00:00 | Now selecting objects is great, but a lot of
times we'll need to move our objects around
| | 00:05 | and for that we need to use the Move tool.
| | 00:09 | Now the Move tool is here on the
tool bar, we can just click on that.
| | 00:13 | As we select objects, you can see, we can
select objects in the Move tool exactly the
| | 00:18 | way we use with the Selection tool.
| | 00:20 | So I can select one object, I can Shift+
Select multiple objects, I can left-click off of
| | 00:27 | those objects to deselect them.
I can also rubber band select objects.
| | 00:32 | Now the Move tool in this case acts just as a
Selection tool, but you'll notice one additional
| | 00:38 | thing with this Move tool,
and that's this little gizmo.
| | 00:42 | So if I'm in Select mode, that gizmo goes
away, but once I'm in Move mode, it appears.
| | 00:49 | Now remember, Q is for Select and W is for Move.
| | 00:53 | Now once I'm in Move mode I have this little
gizmo, which allows me to position the object.
| | 01:00 | This gizmo has three axes.
| | 01:02 | The red axis is the X-axis, the green axis
is Y and the blue axis is Z, and you can see
| | 01:12 | that here in the little bottom corner
of the viewport, we have X, Y, and Z.
| | 01:16 | So remember, RGB, Red, Green,
Blue, RGB equals X, Y, Z.
| | 01:23 | If I wanted to move this object in X, I just
grab the X-axis and move it there, if I want
| | 01:27 | to move it up in Y, I can do it that way.
| | 01:30 | If I want to move it back and
forth in Z I can move it as well.
| | 01:35 | If I wanted to I can also move it in
multiple axes, if I grab the center here I can move
| | 01:41 | it along multiple axes.
| | 01:43 | In this case we are using the Perspective
view, and that might not be the best way to
| | 01:49 | use this particular portion of the tool,
because it's really just moving it along the plain
| | 01:54 | of the camera, so it really depends on how
you are looking at it as to what this does.
| | 01:59 | If you want to be more precise, you'll
need to go into an Orthographic view, so I can
| | 02:03 | do that very simply either by going into Panels,
Orthographic, I can go into the front view, for example,
| | 02:10 | or I can just hold down my spacebar and just go
into say, for example, a side view using my hot box.
| | 02:18 | Now if I zoom in here, you can see I
have instead of three axes, I only have two.
| | 02:25 | That's because I'm in an orthographic
viewport, but if I grab the middle of this, you can
| | 02:30 | see I'm moving it very precisely
along the green, blue or the Y, Z axis.
| | 02:37 | So I'm moving this along the Y, Z plane.
| | 02:40 | If I were to go say, for example, into a
front view, I can move it along this plane.
| | 02:46 | Now I'm moving it square to the
orthographic camera, which gives me a better viewport.
| | 02:52 | So if I wanted to, again, I'm hitting my spacebar
going into my hot box let's go back into perspective
| | 02:57 | view, and again, we can
move this object into place.
| | 03:02 | Now if I want, I can select and move multiple
objects, so I can Shift+Select, and also notice
| | 03:08 | how when I Shift+Select multiple objects that
gizmo changes, so if I select this one here,
| | 03:15 | the gizmo is under that first chair.
| | 03:17 | If I hold down the Shift key and select the second
one, the gizmo moves to that second chair, again.
| | 03:24 | that's because it's the last item selected, and again
I can just move both of those chairs at the same time.
| | 03:30 | Now if we want we also can
use options for the Move tool.
| | 03:35 | If I select this object here, I can hit this
button here for Show or Hide tool Settings,
| | 03:41 | and this shows my tool settings for this object.
I'm going to go ahead and hide it.
| | 03:45 | Another way to get into it is to just double-
click on the Move tool, or a third way is to use
| | 03:52 | Modify, Transformation Tools, Move tool and
select that little box, that's probably the
| | 03:56 | most difficult way to do it.
| | 03:59 | Usually I just double-click on
the Move tool to get to that.
| | 04:02 | When we are in our Move tool settings here,
you can see we have a number of different
| | 04:07 | options, probably the most
important ones are the axis.
| | 04:10 | In other words, how are your X, Y and Z
axes pointing when you move this object? So in
| | 04:17 | this case we have it set to World, which
means it's matching the X, Y and Z of the World.
| | 04:24 | If I go into object mode here, it's actually
matching the X, Y and Z of the object itself,
| | 04:31 | which is actually pointed a little bit
in different direction than the World.
| | 04:36 | So here, Y is up, but Z and X are
pointed in the opposite directions here.
| | 04:42 | And that's because the
object is rotated a little bit.
| | 04:45 | You can see here it's
rotated in Y by 180 degrees.
| | 04:51 | But again, this allows you to move it along
different axes, basically it allows you to
| | 04:56 | move it relative to Object
rather than relative to the World.
| | 04:59 | We also have a number of other options here,
we have Local axis, we have what's called
| | 05:04 | Normal axis, now that's for modeling.
We are not going to do that right now.
| | 05:10 | We can also do a Custom axis, so we can
actually give it actual numbers, we can also set it
| | 05:15 | to points, edges or faces if we
were doing stuff like modeling.
| | 05:20 | Now if I scroll down here you'll see I
also have what's called Soft Selection.
| | 05:26 | Typically we use this for modeling, if you
want to select one part of the object and
| | 05:30 | move it and have it deform organically,
we can use that with Soft Selection.
| | 05:34 | We can also use Soft Selection with objects.
| | 05:38 | So if I zoom out here and just select Soft
Select and make sure I have this on object,
| | 05:44 | so we have volume, surface, global, as
well as object, I'm going to keep it in object
| | 05:50 | mode here, and we have a Falloff radius.
| | 05:53 | So if I bring that to 0, it's not affecting
any of the objects here, but as I start to
| | 05:59 | dial this up, notice how it starts
selecting the other objects here.
| | 06:05 | So when I'm somewhere around 20, these objects
start lighting up, and if I start moving this,
| | 06:11 | you can see how the objects that are close to
my chair, are actually moving with the chair.
| | 06:18 | So, if I dial this up a little bit more, you can
see how I can actually move these proportionately,
| | 06:24 | and that can actually be very handy for
positioning things organically, and that sort of thing.
| | 06:29 | Now if I want to I can also do what is called
global, and that actually starts manipulating
| | 06:34 | it by the actual surfaces, whatever is the
closest point on that object, and that actually
| | 06:41 | kind of gets a little bit into modeling.
| | 06:44 | With this Soft Select, we do
have a number of options here.
| | 06:47 | We have Falloff modes, so I can
actually create custom fall offs.
| | 06:52 | I can also give it color.
| | 06:54 | I can actually change the color of those
objects as they get more and more selected, so the
| | 07:00 | more selected this is the more yellow it gets,
and the less selected it is the more black it gets.
| | 07:07 | And then we also what's called a Reflection
Setting, which allows me to select opposite
| | 07:12 | sides of the object, and
this is again for modeling.
| | 07:15 | So I'm going to go ahead and turn off
Soft Select, because that is a toggle.
| | 07:20 | So if I start using Soft Select on one area,
and I forget to turn it off, it'll happen
| | 07:25 | the next time I use the Move tool,
so I like to toggle that on and off.
| | 07:29 | And we can close this tool Settings box
here just by hitting the little X there.
| | 07:36 | So those are some of the basics of moving
objects, as you can see we can move individual
| | 07:41 | objects, we can move multiple objects, we can also
do a Soft Select and move objects proportionately.
| | 07:47 | So we have a number of different options.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rotating and scaling | 00:00 | Now let's take a look at
the Rotate and Scale tool.
| | 00:04 | Now these tools are all part of
the same kind of set of tools here.
| | 00:08 | We have Select, which is the Q key, W
is Move, E is Rotate and R is Scale.
| | 00:16 | A lot of times you want to think that R is for
Rotate seems rather logical, but in Maya it's actually E.
| | 00:24 | The reason we do that is because it's really just a
line of keys long the top of the keyboard Q, W, E, R.
| | 00:30 | And it really gives you a very
easy way to access all of these tools.
| | 00:34 | And once you've learned to keep your hand there,
you can switch between these very, very quickly.
| | 00:38 | I am going to go ahead and select the
rotate tool, and again just like with the Select
| | 00:43 | tool you can just left-click on any
object and select it for rotation.
| | 00:49 | If I were to Shift+Select, I could
actually select multiple objects.
| | 00:53 | And again, left-clicking
off of those, deselects.
| | 00:57 | So once I have an object selected for rotation,
you will notice this little gimbal ball kind
| | 01:03 | of shows up, and that's our rotation gizmo.
| | 01:06 | And this allows us to rotate the
object around the standard axes.
| | 01:10 | So you notice we have our Red,
Green and Blue, X, Y and Z axis here.
| | 01:15 | And we also have our Red,
Green, and Blue gimbals here.
| | 01:19 | So if I were to grab the Green one
here, notice how that turns Yellow.
| | 01:24 | And then if I left-click and drag, you
can see how I can rotate that chair around.
| | 01:30 | Now if I hit Ctrl+Z, I can Undo that.
| | 01:32 | Now if I wanted to, I could grab another axis
and rotate it say forward and back or side to side.
| | 01:41 | If you want, you can click in between these
and just kind of rotate it at random, I don't
| | 01:46 | find this to be very controllable, but
you may have better success than me on this.
| | 01:52 | If you select this outside object here,
this actually rotates around the camera view.
| | 01:59 | So whatever direction you are looking at,
in this case we are in a perspective view,
| | 02:04 | it will rotate around that camera,
sometimes that can be useful.
| | 02:08 | It can be more useful if you
are in an orthographic viewport.
| | 02:12 | So if I do Panels > Orthographic let's go into
a top view and zoom in here, you can see I
| | 02:18 | can grab that outside one and just rotate
it around whatever that orthographic view is.
| | 02:24 | But that's actually the same as rotating
around the y-axis, so you may or may not need that.
| | 02:29 | And again, I am just going to go ahead and
hit my spacebar, left-click on here, and just
| | 02:33 | go back in perspective view.
| | 02:36 | Now if we want we can rotate multiple objects,
so if I were to left-click and drag and select
| | 02:42 | multiple objects, I can rotate those as well.
| | 02:46 | The Rotate tool has a number of
options for rotating multiple objects.
| | 02:52 | So if I double-click on this, you
can see we have a number of options.
| | 02:57 | One is the Rotate Pivot.
| | 02:58 | We have three options here, we'll zoom in
a little bit here, by default you can see
| | 03:04 | that I can rotate each object
basically around its own axis.
| | 03:10 | So we are basically rotating
both chairs around their center.
| | 03:13 | But if I hit Manip it will rotate
it around the last object selected.
| | 03:19 | So that will make it kind of the control.
| | 03:22 | So if I were to Shift+Select these three
objects, keep this on Manip, I can rotate it around
| | 03:28 | that last object selected.
| | 03:32 | Or if I got to Default or Object, I can
rotate around the individual objects pivot.
| | 03:38 | Now we also have a Rotate mode, do we rotate
around the Local axis, the World axis or what's
| | 03:43 | called a Gimbal, which again
is just the x, y, and z axes.
| | 03:48 | Now we also can do Soft+Select like
we can with the Move tool as well.
| | 03:54 | I am going to go ahead and close this, and
let's zoom out, and let's go ahead and take
| | 03:58 | a quick look at the Scale tool.
| | 04:00 | This works kind of similar to the Rotate
tool in that we can scale along multiple axes.
| | 04:07 | So if wanted to, I can scale along my x-
axis, I can scale along my y-axis or z.
| | 04:15 | If I select in the middle here, I can
just scale the whole object up or down.
| | 04:21 | Now typically when you scale an object,
you want to scale the whole thing evenly, but
| | 04:26 | we don't have to, again, we can squish
it left or right, up and down, and so on.
| | 04:32 | We can do that with multiple objects.
| | 04:35 | And just like with the
Rotate tool, we have a scale axis.
| | 04:39 | We can do it along the Scale Pivot.
| | 04:42 | If we do it along Manip, it will again
just do it along the last object selected.
| | 04:49 | So as you can see the Rotate and
the Scale tool are fairly similar.
| | 04:53 | They can rotate objects
individually or as a group.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Manipulating pivots | 00:00 | Now as you start rotating and scaling objects, you
will need to be aware of these pivot point of the object.
| | 00:07 | Let me show you what I mean, I have a simple
chair here, and if I select this chair, you
| | 00:12 | can see how it's got this pivot point here,
it's kind of at the bottom center, kind of
| | 00:18 | at the origin of the scene.
| | 00:20 | Now if I were to go to rotate this
object, it will rotate around that point.
| | 00:25 | Now sometimes that's not bad, if I were to
rotate this chair vertically, that's not a
| | 00:30 | bad thing, if I were to
rotate it horizontally, maybe.
| | 00:33 | But let's say if I wanted to rotate it around so
that the chair was tipped up on one or both legs.
| | 00:39 | If I were to do that let's say I were to tip
this chair back, it actually looks like the
| | 00:44 | chair is kind of going through this original here
or the floor, and that's not really what I want.
| | 00:49 | I want to rotate it around that leg.
| | 00:52 | In order to do that, we need to
change where the object pivots.
| | 00:58 | We can do this by using the Move
tool and a special key stroke here.
| | 01:03 | Now on the PC it's the Insert key,
on the Mac it's the Home key.
| | 01:09 | So if I hit my Insert key on the PC,
you notice how that Move tool changes.
| | 01:14 | You can see how I can toggles between them.
| | 01:18 | When it's in this mode, I can
actually move that pivot point.
| | 01:22 | So if I were to grab that X-axis here and
move it so that these are basically even with
| | 01:28 | the legs of the chair, and then hit Insert
or Home again, now that chair is going to
| | 01:34 | pivot around that point, so when I
rotate it, it rotates up on those legs.
| | 01:42 | So this can be very important if you have
like mechanical assemblies or something, you
| | 01:46 | want to make sure the tire of the car
rotates around the center, and that the axel pivots
| | 01:52 | around a certain point.
| | 01:54 | All I have to do is just hit that
Insert or Home key, and I can move it.
| | 01:57 | So let's say I wanted to move it so it's
exactly under that back leg and again just hit Insert
| | 02:03 | or Home to change it, now I can tilt this chair
up on that leg, because that's where it's pivoting.
| | 02:10 | So I'm going to go ahead
and undo my way out of this.
| | 02:15 | Now this works the same for the Scale tool.
| | 02:18 | So if I were to scale something,
we are scaling around this axis.
| | 02:23 | So if I were to scale, again, we
are scaling using that as the center.
| | 02:29 | So if I wanted to make the chair taller, I
can do that, but when I make it wider, it's
| | 02:35 | starting here, this is the 0 point here.
| | 02:38 | So I'm stretching it this way, rather than
if I were to move this to the center and do
| | 02:45 | that, you would scale it around both axes.
| | 02:49 | So as you start working with pivots,
another thing you really want to understand is the
| | 02:54 | center pivot command.
| | 02:56 | Now we can certainly use the Insert or Home
key and move the pivot manually, but if we
| | 03:00 | want to center it to the object's center of
gravity, all we have to do is select the Object,
| | 03:05 | do Modify, Center Pivot, and that will
center it to the exact center of that object.
| | 03:12 | Or if your pivot is off, or you want to make
sure that the pivot is exactly at the center
| | 03:17 | of the object, this is a great way to kind
of get a pivot into a neutral location, and
| | 03:23 | then from there if you want, you can
certainly move it wherever you want.
| | 03:28 | As you start working with objects just be
aware of where the pivots are in the objects,
| | 03:33 | particularly when you need
to rotate them or scale them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the Channel Box | 00:00 | There are other ways to manipulate objects in the
scene and one of them is to use the Channel Box.
| | 00:07 | Now the Channel Box is usually on the right
side of the screen here, we have two buttons
| | 00:11 | here, one is for the Attribute Editor,
the other is for the Channel Box.
| | 00:15 | When I have the Channel Box open, you can
see I've got it here, and typically a lot
| | 00:20 | of people use both here, so we have both the
Channel Box and the Attribute Editor selected,
| | 00:25 | and then that just gives you two
tabs along the right side here.
| | 00:29 | I want to make sure I have my Channel Box
open, and let's go ahead and select my object.
| | 00:34 | And when I do that, you'll notice here we've
got the name of the object, but we also have
| | 00:39 | Translation, Rotation and Scale values.
| | 00:43 | If I want I can manipulate the object as
normal, so if I hit W to go into Move mode, I can
| | 00:50 | certainly move my object however I want,
and notice how the Translation values here are
| | 00:57 | changing interactively as I move my object.
| | 01:01 | I can just hit Ctrl+Z to Undo those if I want.
| | 01:05 | And if I want I can type in the values myself.
| | 01:08 | So let's say I wanted to translate it 4 units
in X, 2 units in Y, and say -2.5 units in Z.
| | 01:18 | So I can certainly type in any
number and put the object wherever I want.
| | 01:23 | Now if I want to, I can 0 these out as well,
I can just type 0 into one of these or another
| | 01:30 | handy thing is left-click and drag and select
multiple ones and just type in the value you want.
| | 01:35 | So if I type in 0 into all of
these, it will reset them all.
| | 01:40 | Now this works the same for rotation let's
say I wanted to rotate this around 180 degrees
| | 01:45 | in Y, I can certainly do that as well, and
if I want to 0 that out I can certainly 0
| | 01:51 | that out as well just by hitting 0.
| | 01:55 | Now another way you can use this is to
actually use this kind of more interactively, so I
| | 02:01 | select this, and let's say I wanted to
translate this in X, all you have to do is middle click
| | 02:07 | in the viewport, and you
can actually drag this value.
| | 02:10 | So if I select one value, middle click, you can
see how I can drag that value to make that change.
| | 02:19 | So if I wanted to scale it in Y, I can
middle click, and again just dragging that makes
| | 02:24 | that value change, I can do
it for multiple values as well.
| | 02:29 | If I want to, I can again middle
click and drag and change multiple values.
| | 02:36 | Now in addition to Translation, Rotation and Scale,
we also have a Visibility option in the Channel Box.
| | 02:42 | Now this is something that we don't use
straight off in Maya, but it is something we'll use
| | 02:47 | eventually, if you want to hide an object,
you just type the visibility as off or on.
| | 02:53 | So again, I have to click in there and
type the word on, and that turns it off or on.
| | 02:59 | Now in addition to Translation, Rotation,
and Scale, you may have additional parameters
| | 03:05 | for your object, and it just depends on how
your object is setup or how you set it up.
| | 03:12 | Right now, I don't have anything for this
object, but let's go ahead and add something
| | 03:16 | in just to see how this works.
| | 03:18 | I'm going to go into my Animation menu set,
and under Create Deformers, I'm going to go
| | 03:24 | into Non-linear, Bend and
just go ahead and select that.
| | 03:29 | And notice how we've added this deformer
to it, and you can see here if I scroll down
| | 03:34 | here, you'll see under Inputs I have bend1, and
if I select that I have a number of parameters.
| | 03:40 | So, for example, for Curvature, I could type
in a number let's say 45 degrees, and I can
| | 03:46 | actually change that, or I can change it to
1, or if I want I can select curvature and
| | 03:51 | just middle click and drag and dial that in.
| | 03:55 | Now this isn't something I want to get too
deep into, but I just wanted to show you that
| | 03:58 | we can have additional parameters that
we can access through the Channel Box.
| | 04:03 | And also, so you know, below the Channel Box
here we have what's called the layer Editor.
| | 04:09 | We'll get to that in a little bit, but this
is really just ways to layer the objects in
| | 04:14 | your scene, so you can organize
your scene a little bit better.
| | 04:18 | The Channel Box is a great way to
numerically specify parameters for your objects, we can
| | 04:25 | specify Position, Rotation, Scale, but we
also can specify additional parameters if
| | 04:30 | the object allows it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with the Attribute Editor | 00:00 | If you need to go deeper into manipulating your
objects, you may want to look at the Attribute Editor.
| | 00:07 | Now we looked at the Channel Box which is kind
of just a real simple quick way of manipulating
| | 00:12 | the object, the Attribute Editor has a lot more.
| | 00:15 | Now just like with the Channel Box here, we
have these two buttons here on the top here,
| | 00:20 | this one is for the Channel Box,
this one is for the Attribute Editor.
| | 00:24 | If you have both of those
selected, you get these tab.
| | 00:27 | So let's go into the
Attribute Editor and select our chair.
| | 00:31 | This has a number of different tabs, each one
of these are for different parts of the object.
| | 00:38 | So the more complex your object,
the more tabs you'll have here.
| | 00:42 | The first tab here is just for the chair.
| | 00:45 | And this gives us our Transform Attributes,
very similar to what we had in the Channel Box.
| | 00:50 | So, for example, if I type a number
into the y value, it will move up or down.
| | 00:56 | Typically, the Channel Box
is the best way to do this.
| | 00:59 | But we also have Rotate, Scale, we also
have an option called Sheer, we also have where
| | 01:04 | the rotate axis is.
We also have options for Pivots.
| | 01:09 | So do we want to Display where the pivot is
on the object? So it's kind of nice to have
| | 01:14 | as a display thing.
| | 01:16 | We also have some options
for how we Display the object.
| | 01:20 | Do we want to display a Handle for the object
or not? How do we want to ghost it, and so on.
| | 01:26 | So there is a number of different ways.
| | 01:28 | Now this is for the main part of the object, we
also have another node for the shape of the object.
| | 01:37 | This is actually how we can view the object.
| | 01:40 | Do we want to display the Mesh, how do we
display that Mesh, and then Render Stats,
| | 01:46 | how do we render this object? So do we want
the object to cast shadows, receive shadows,
| | 01:52 | do we want the object to be visible or not in the
renderer, and we've got a lot of different options here.
| | 01:59 | In addition to that, we also have
options for the materials on the objects.
| | 02:03 | So, for example, for the back of the chair,
we have a material called Cherry Wood.
| | 02:09 | And this shows us exactly
how that material is created.
| | 02:14 | And then for the legs we have what's called
an Anisotropic Shader, which gives me kind
| | 02:19 | of that metal view.
| | 02:21 | So the basics of the Attribute Editor is
really everything that you've done to this object.
| | 02:28 | In this case we created the chair, we have a
natural shape for the geometry of the chair,
| | 02:32 | and then we have materials
applied to that geometry.
| | 02:37 | Now as your object gets more and more complicated,
you will have more tabs here in the Attribute Editor.
| | 02:44 | But I just wanted to point out the
Attribute Editor, because it's something that you'll
| | 02:47 | use a lot within Maya.
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|
|
4. Staying Organized Naming objects| 00:01 | As you start working with Maya,
you want to stay organized.
| | 00:04 | Typically we create a lot of objects in Maya, so
we'll need ways to differentiate between those objects.
| | 00:11 | Probably the easiest way to do
that is to name those objects.
| | 00:17 | So if you click on any object here, and we go into
the Channel Box, you'll see that each object has a name.
| | 00:27 | And that's a great way
to tell each object apart.
| | 00:29 | So, for example, I have chair_01, I
have TableTop, I have Bowl, and so on.
| | 00:36 | So that way I know that I am
using chair_01 versus chair_04.
| | 00:40 | But if we want we can
change the names of the objects.
| | 00:44 | So it's very simple to just go ahead and left-click
in this, and we can type in whatever name we want.
| | 00:51 | So let's say instead of chair_01, we want
WoodChair_01 in other words to differentiate it.
| | 00:58 | So now I have WoodChair_01
rather than -- and Chair_02.
| | 01:02 | For one, I can certainly double-click on this
and insert the word Wood, and just hit Enter,
| | 01:09 | and that would change that name.
You can also do copy and paste.
| | 01:13 | So if I wanted to I could select these and
just use the keyboard shortcut to copy, Ctrl+C
| | 01:20 | or Command+C, and then select the other object
here, and then just highlight that and Ctrl+V
| | 01:27 | or Command V to paste.
So again, I can just paste in those names.
| | 01:33 | So it's very similar to any sort of
application where you can cut and paste text, and this
| | 01:39 | is a great way to keep your objects organized.
| | 01:43 | Now as you start working with Maya,
be aware of the way that you name things.
| | 01:48 | Typically, with project you want
to start to enforce naming schemes.
| | 01:53 | So you want to name things similarly and
have a broader naming scheme for different types
| | 01:59 | of objects in the scene.
| | 02:01 | So as you start to work on productions, a
lot of times they'll have naming conventions
| | 02:05 | that you have to stick to, and if you don't
have that, then you also need to create your own.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with the Outliner | 00:00 | When you work with multiple objects in the
scene, a lot of times you will want to see
| | 00:04 | a list of everything that's in the scene.
| | 00:07 | You know, clicking on one object and
seeing its name is not the same as seeing a list
| | 00:12 | of everything in the scene.
| | 00:14 | So we can do this by using
what's called the Outliner.
| | 00:16 | So we go into Window > Outliner and
an Outliner window should pop up.
| | 00:22 | We can also use this as a
panel within a viewport.
| | 00:26 | But let's just go ahead and
keep this as a floating window.
| | 00:28 | I am going to go ahead and just move my objects
over, so we can see the scene a little bit better.
| | 00:34 | And you'll notice here that we
have every object in the scene.
| | 00:38 | So in this case I have Chair_01, 02, 03, I also
have the Bowl in the scene, oranges, and so on.
| | 00:46 | So this window allows us to select
and manipulate objects in the scene.
| | 00:53 | So if I want to select multiple objects, it's very
similar to selecting from a list in any operating system.
| | 01:00 | So if I hold down the Shift
key, I can select all of these.
| | 01:04 | If I just click on one, I'll select that one.
| | 01:08 | And again, hold down the Shift
key, I can select all of them.
| | 01:11 | If I hold down the Ctrl or Command key,
I can select individual ones as well.
| | 01:17 | So if I want to I can select whichever
ones I want by holding down Ctrl or Command.
| | 01:23 | Or if I hold down Shift, it will
select everything in between where I click.
| | 01:28 | Now in addition to the objects in the scene, you
can also see a lot of other things in the Outliner.
| | 01:35 | We can see each one of our perspective, top, front
and side cameras are in the scene, we also have lights.
| | 01:42 | If we have default lights in the
scene, we can see those as well.
| | 01:47 | Now along the top of the Outliner window,
we have a Display object here, we can Display
| | 01:51 | our objects or the Objects and the Shapes.
| | 01:55 | So notice how this changes a little bit.
So we have our Objects here.
| | 02:00 | But if we Display Objects and Shapes, it's
basically like going into the Attribute Editor,
| | 02:05 | where we have the object, which is basically
just the positioning data of the object, but
| | 02:10 | also the shape attached to that, which
is in this case the shape of the chair.
| | 02:15 | So if I highlight this here, you can
see we have what's called the Chair Shape.
| | 02:20 | And you can actually see how when I select
this, it's selecting it in the Attribute Editor.
| | 02:27 | So we can also go ahead and turn this off
here, but we also can see all the attributes
| | 02:32 | for an object, so if I highlight this, I can actually go
through and see every single attribute for this object.
| | 02:38 | So basically everything you would see
in the Attribute Editor, I can see that.
| | 02:42 | And typically, we don't want to see that
because that gets really messy, but we also can see
| | 02:46 | which objects are connected to each
other in terms of hierarchies, and so on.
| | 02:51 | We can also show Types of objects.
| | 02:53 | So if I only want to show Polygonal
objects, it will only show those objects.
| | 02:58 | So stuff like the oranges in the bowl on the
table, which are surfaces or NURBS objects,
| | 03:05 | those don't show up.
| | 03:06 | So if I were to display NURBS objects, those
would show up, but if I turn off Polygon objects,
| | 03:14 | only the bowl and the oranges show up.
| | 03:16 | It doesn't mean I can't select those things,
they just don't show up in the Outliner.
| | 03:21 | Now this can be really handy if you have a big scene,
and you just want to see certain types of objects.
| | 03:27 | We can just go through and turn
on everything by doing Show All.
| | 03:31 | And as with most windows,
we do have a Help option.
| | 03:34 | So those are some of the
basics of how to use the Outliner.
| | 03:38 | Now the Outliner again is a great way to see
everything in your scene and to select objects
| | 03:44 | by Name or by Type.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating hierarchies | 00:00 | Now when start working with multiple objects,
there are many times when you want objects
| | 00:04 | to move together or be associated with one another,
and to do this we use what are called Hierarchies.
| | 00:11 | And these are just ways of
grouping and connecting objects together.
| | 00:16 | So in this case I have a
simple bowl with some oranges.
| | 00:20 | So let's say I wanted to move the
bowl around, all I have to do is move it.
| | 00:25 | But as you notice here just the bowl is
moving, the oranges aren't moving along with it.
| | 00:30 | So if I undo that by hitting Ctrl+Z, I can
solve the problem by creating a hierarchy.
| | 00:36 | We can do this in the Outliner.
| | 00:38 | So if I go into WindowOutliner, you'll see I
have got just my bowl with four oranges in it.
| | 00:44 | So if I wanted to, I can make the bowls
what's called a parent and the oranges children.
| | 00:49 | This is very similar to how you
would have a file system in a computer.
| | 00:54 | You know, you have a bunch of your music files
and they are all in your music folder or your
| | 01:00 | photographs are in your photographs folder.
| | 01:02 | And you can even have, sub
folders or sub hierarchy.
| | 01:06 | So you have your 2011 photos in a
different folder than your 2010 folder, and both of
| | 01:12 | those are in your photos folder.
| | 01:15 | So for this case, all you have
to do is just create a hierarchy.
| | 01:20 | So we can do this with one objects, all we
have to do is just middle click on Orange,
| | 01:27 | and we just move it over Bowl.
| | 01:29 | So when I do that this little plus (+)
sign comes up, and you'll see that this orange
| | 01:34 | is now a child of that bowl.
| | 01:37 | So in other words, when I move that
bowl that first orange moves with it.
| | 01:44 | And we can do the same for the other ones.
| | 01:46 | If I wanted to, I can select them one at a
time, or I can just hold down the Shift key
| | 01:51 | and select all of them, and then just
middle click and drag over the word Bowl.
| | 01:58 | And when I do that, they
all go into this hierarchy.
| | 02:03 | So now when I move that bowl,
everything underneath it moves with it.
| | 02:09 | So that's a pretty easy way of doing it.
| | 02:11 | Now if I wanted to undo the hierarchy, and
let's say I wanted to take this orange out
| | 02:15 | of the bowl, I can just again middle click and
drag below this, and now it's out of that hierarchy.
| | 02:24 | So again, when I move this,
that orange is left behind.
| | 02:29 | Now we can also have multiple hierarchies.
| | 02:32 | Let's say I wanted this
orange to be my master orange.
| | 02:36 | When I move this orange I
move all the other oranges.
| | 02:39 | Well, I can certainly do that
just by creating another hierarchy.
| | 02:43 | So if I middle click on Orange02, drag it
over, I am not dragging it between here, see
| | 02:49 | that's a single line, but we want to make
sure we get that box there, then I have a
| | 02:54 | second level of that hierarchy.
| | 02:56 | So when I move this orange,
that other orange moves with it.
| | 03:00 | And again, I can do the same for this one
here, I can select the Orange03, move it over
| | 03:05 | Orange04, and the same for Orange01.
| | 03:09 | Again, middle click and drag it over that one.
| | 03:12 | So now when I select this top orange, all
the other oranges move with it, and when I
| | 03:18 | select the bowl, all the
oranges move with the bowl as well.
| | 03:23 | So as you can see, hierarchies are
great way to organize your scene.
| | 03:27 | It's a great way to attach objects to
one another, so that they move together.
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| Grouping objects | 00:00 | Another way to organize
objects in Maya is to group them.
| | 00:04 | Now this is just another way of creating hierarchy,
but instead of having one object as the parent,
| | 00:09 | we have what's called a
group node as the parent.
| | 00:13 | Let me show you how this works.
So let's go in to our Outliner.
| | 00:18 | Now as we did before we can just create a
simple hierarchy, so, for example, if I have
| | 00:23 | selected all the oranges in the bowl, by Shift+
Selecting them, I can middle click and drag them over
| | 00:29 | the bowl to create a hierarchy, so now when I
select the bowl, all the oranges move with the bowl.
| | 00:36 | Now we also have the same thing
happening here with the table.
| | 00:38 | I have a separate table top, a table bottom
and the legs of the table are all separate
| | 00:44 | objects, so if I were to move the table top, I
would move it separately from all the other objects.
| | 00:51 | So I want to organize these into an object,
so if I wanted to, I could, for example, take
| | 00:56 | all the legs and the table bottom and make
them a child of the table top, but another
| | 01:01 | way to do this is to group them.
| | 01:04 | So I'm going to go ahead and Shift+Select
all of these objects, make sure they are all
| | 01:10 | selected, and then under Edit, I'm going to
do what's called a Group, and when I do that,
| | 01:17 | it creates another node, it
actually creates a node called a Group.
| | 01:22 | And if I expand that hierarchy, you will
see that every object I have under that is at
| | 01:28 | the same level, so the table top isn't the
master, it's just one of many pieces in that group.
| | 01:34 | So now that I have this group, I can double-
click on it and rename it let's say I wanted to
| | 01:39 | name it Table, so now I have a table
group that can move everything with it.
| | 01:44 | Now also notice that when I create a group, its origin
always starts at 0, so I can again move it like this.
| | 01:53 | Now if I wanted to I could change
that pivot by hitting Insert or Home key.
| | 01:58 | But again, we have what's called a group node.
Now this node here is actually an empty node.
| | 02:04 | It's kind of like an invisible placeholder in
Maya, and it's great for moving the table around.
| | 02:10 | But let's say we had this object here, and we
undid the hierarchy, so I selected everything
| | 02:16 | below the table top, and I middle click
and drag it to that space let's say above the
| | 02:22 | chairs there, so let's go ahead and
just move all those things up there.
| | 02:26 | And what happens when we do that is that group
node goes away, it's kind of a temporary placeholder,
| | 02:33 | so when I ungroup those things, they go away.
If I undo that you can see I get my group back.
| | 02:40 | Another way to do this is to do Edit > Ungroup,
and that would go ahead and ungroup that table.
| | 02:46 | So again, grouping basically just creates a dummy
node that allows you to place everything underneath it.
| | 02:55 | And this is just one more way
of organizing things within Maya.
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| Understanding the Hypergraph | 00:00 | Another way to organize objects in Maya
is to use what's called the Hypergraph.
| | 00:05 | Now this is kind of like the Outliner, but a little
bit more graphical in the way that you look at it.
| | 00:11 | Now let's take a look at the scene first in
the Outliner, as you can see, we've got objects
| | 00:16 | in the scene, we've got the chairs, we've
got the table, the bowl, and we've also got
| | 00:22 | a group here for the room.
| | 00:24 | Now if we take a look at the same thing in the
Hypergraph, you will see a graphical representation of this.
| | 00:31 | So I'm going to go into WindowHypergraph
Hierarchy, and what this does is it shows
| | 00:37 | me all the object in the room or all of
the nodes in the scene, as you can see it's a
| | 00:42 | pretty wide window here.
| | 00:44 | But this is almost like a viewport
in the way that you can navigate it.
| | 00:48 | So if I hold down the Alt key here, I can
certainly navigate using my standard navigation controls.
| | 00:56 | So if I roll my middle mouse button,
I can zoom in and out, and so on.
| | 01:00 | We also have a number of
different options here for framing things.
| | 01:03 | So if I wanted to frame everything in the
scene, I could just hit this button to Frame All.
| | 01:08 | I can frame whatever is selected or the
branch of whatever is selected, in other words the
| | 01:14 | Hierarchy of that, and so on.
| | 01:17 | Now the Hypergraph has a lot of
functionality beyond just working with hierarchies.
| | 01:22 | As we work through Maya, you will see how
that works, but let's just go ahead and just
| | 01:26 | get used to the Hypergraph Editor,
as an alternative to the Outliner.
| | 01:31 | One of the things you can do is you can
actually just use this as a way to select objects.
| | 01:36 | So if I can select any one of these nodes in
the Hypergraph, represents an object in the scene.
| | 01:44 | So this is Chair_01, Chair_02, and if I want, I
can left-click and drag and select by that node.
| | 01:52 | I also have my hierarchies visible, so I have
a Table which is a group, and then underneath
| | 01:58 | that I have each individual object,
same for the bowl with the oranges in it.
| | 02:05 | So each orange is a separate node.
| | 02:08 | If I wanted to I could select a couple of
those nodes, or I can select all of them.
| | 02:14 | So one of the things we can do in this is we
can actually use this as a way to reorganize
| | 02:20 | the scene, almost exactly
like we would do in the Outliner.
| | 02:23 | So let's say I wanted the chairs to be part
of that table, so I could select one of these
| | 02:28 | chairs here and just like we do in the Outliner,
I can middle click and drag and place it over
| | 02:34 | that Table node and watch what happens, that Chair is
now part of that hierarchy, and you can see it here.
| | 02:41 | Now if I select all of the rest of the
chairs and middle click and drag those over that
| | 02:46 | Table hierarchy, they show up again.
| | 02:49 | So now when I select Table, I'm not only
selecting the table, but also the chairs.
| | 02:54 | And I can do the same thing with the bowl,
I can select the main Bowl icon, which also
| | 02:59 | has the oranges underneath it, middle click
and drag it over the Table and so now I've
| | 03:04 | got the Table and everything beneath it,
including the Chairs and the Bowl, and notice how we
| | 03:10 | can also have multiple levels of hierarchy here.
| | 03:13 | So we've got the oranges still underneath the bowl,
so when I move the bowl the oranges will go with it.
| | 03:19 | Now we can do the same for
really anything in the scene.
| | 03:22 | Now in this scene I've got a bunch of these
lights up here, and if I want, I can actually
| | 03:27 | organize those as well.
| | 03:29 | So I have this point light here,
and I've got all of these spot lights.
| | 03:34 | So if I want to I could just left click and
again rubber band select all of these lights,
| | 03:40 | and in this case I'd probably just do
Edit > Group, and I can group them, and notice how when
| | 03:46 | I group them, the group shows up here, and I
can now have a group containing those lights.
| | 03:53 | And if I wanted to, I could rename that group
here in the Channel Box just call it Lights,
| | 03:59 | and now I have all my light in one group.
| | 04:03 | So this is a really easy way to kind of visualize
your scene, it's more of a graphical representation,
| | 04:10 | rather than what the Outliner presents.
| | 04:13 | So this is just one way to use the
Hypergraph as a way to organize hierarchies.
| | 04:19 | So remember, you get to it under Window,
Hypergraph Hierarchy and from there you can pretty much
| | 04:25 | organize your scene however you want.
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| Hiding and showing objects | 00:00 | Now there are many times when you'll have
a lot of objects in your scene, and you'll
| | 00:04 | want to isolate some object so you
can work with them and hide the rest.
| | 00:08 | So Maya has a number of ways to hide and show
objects, so that way you can again keep your
| | 00:14 | scene looking the way that you want.
| | 00:16 | Now hide and show is done under the Display
menu, we have a Hide menu and a Show menu.
| | 00:23 | The easiest way is just to hide individual
objects, so if I select an object, say such
| | 00:28 | as this chair here, I can go
Display > Hide > Hide Selection, and the object goes away.
| | 00:37 | Now the object hasn't gone away from the scene,
it's just hidden, so we can see the object
| | 00:42 | in the Outliner or the Hypergraph.
| | 00:44 | So if we go into Outliner, you will see that
we have this Chair_01, and when I select it,
| | 00:50 | I have all of my values here in the
Channel Box, but if I look at it in the Outliner,
| | 00:56 | it's actually hidden.
| | 00:58 | So if I want I can select this and go
Display > Show > Show Selection, and that shows that chair.
| | 01:06 | Another way to do this without using the
Outliner is to do Display > Hide > Hide Selection, and
| | 01:13 | then deselect that and go
Display > Show > Show Last Hidden.
| | 01:18 | Okay, so basically the last
thing I hid, I can unhide.
| | 01:23 | Now the hide and show menu also
can do a number of other things.
| | 01:27 | I can hide by type.
| | 01:29 | I can hide Geometry, so I can say hide
all the Polygon Surfaces in the scene.
| | 01:35 | Once I have hidden all the polygons, all
that's left are the lights and the NURBS objects.
| | 01:40 | So if I wanted to Display, I
could again Show Last Hidden.
| | 01:45 | If I want to do the opposite, I could Hide
Geometry > NURBS Surfaces, and that just hides
| | 01:51 | everything that's made of NURBS.
And again, I can Show Last Hidden.
| | 01:58 | And again, this is a great way to restrict
what you are seeing in your viewports, it's
| | 02:03 | a great way to stay organized.
| | 02:05 | Now typically I like to use hide and display
along with the Outliner, because when I hide
| | 02:11 | something, a lot of times let's say, for
example, I were to hide all the NURBS surfaces, you
| | 02:17 | can see what's hidden in the Outliner, which is
a really easy way to actually get things back.
| | 02:24 | So if I were to select something or hide an
additional thing, then my last hidden wouldn't be working.
| | 02:30 | So let's say I took this chair,
and I did a Display > Hide Selection.
| | 02:35 | If I did a Show Last Hidden, it would just
do the chair, so now I need to select the
| | 02:41 | bowl, and the background, and unhide that.
| | 02:45 | So again we do Display > Show > Show Selection
and which is what is selected in the Outliner.
| | 02:52 | Now also notice that when I unhid the bowl,
I did not unhide the oranges, you need to
| | 02:58 | make sure that everything is selected.
So again, Show Selection.
| | 03:04 | So those are some techniques for hiding and
showing objects, so that way you can better
| | 03:08 | view and manipulate your scene.
Those tools can be very, very handy.
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| Creating layers | 00:01 | One more way to organize
scenes is to use Layers.
| | 00:05 | Now this I use a lot in production, a lot of
productions have very specific ways that they use Layers.
| | 00:10 | We are going to take a look at Layers here.
| | 00:12 | We can find them usually in the Channel Box, it's
this little box here below the actual Channel Box.
| | 00:18 | We actually have a number
of different types of Layers.
| | 00:21 | We have Display Layers, which are what shows
up in the viewport, and this is what we are
| | 00:25 | going to take a look at.
| | 00:26 | We also have Render Layers which are rendering
tricks for layering things out to multiple layers.
| | 00:32 | And we also have Animation Layers which allows you
to layer multiple types of animation on an object.
| | 00:38 | But right now we are just
going to look at Display Layers.
| | 00:41 | So I have this scene here, and let's go
ahead and start segmenting this into layers.
| | 00:46 | Again, I like to use the Outliner here, so
I am going to go ahead into my Outliner, and
| | 00:51 | in this scene, it's like what are some
logical ways to organize this? Well, one is let's
| | 00:56 | go ahead and create a separate
layer for the furniture in the room.
| | 01:00 | So we have the chair, and the table, and the
bowl on the table, so let's go ahead and make
| | 01:05 | that its own group.
| | 01:07 | So I am going to go ahead and select the bowl,
select the table, and again, I am holding
| | 01:11 | on my Shift key and select all the chairs.
| | 01:14 | So now I have got the bowl, the
table and the chairs selected.
| | 01:18 | Let's go ahead and create a layer for this.
| | 01:21 | So under Layers I can create an empty layer,
but I want to create a layer from the objects
| | 01:27 | that I have selected.
So I am going to do Create layer from Selected.
| | 01:32 | And when it does that it
creates this layer here.
| | 01:36 | So if I deselect and just select this layer
here, you can see now I can hit this V here,
| | 01:42 | and I can turn it on or off, V is for Visual,
do I want to see it? And I also have another
| | 01:47 | button here for Template, in other words, to
template the objects, or to restrict selection.
| | 01:54 | R is for Restrict Selection.
| | 01:56 | So if I don't want to select
those objects, I don't have to.
| | 02:00 | And again, that's just kind of a rotating thing.
| | 02:03 | So when that's neutral, I can select it, when
it's a template I can see it, but not select it.
| | 02:09 | And again, Restricted Selection, I can actually
render it, I can see it, but I can't select it.
| | 02:14 | Now if we want, we can rename this layer,
all I have to do is double-click on this and
| | 02:19 | under Name for layer
let's just call it Furniture.
| | 02:23 | So let's go ahead and make another
layer for the background objects.
| | 02:28 | In this case let's go ahead
and do this a different way.
| | 02:30 | I am going to go into Layers
and just create an empty layer.
| | 02:34 | Okay, so now I have layer with nothing in it.
| | 02:37 | If I double-click on this let's go
ahead and make this the layer for the room.
| | 02:41 | So I am going to type the
Name, Room and hit Save.
| | 02:45 | Oops! It says, an object by
the name Room already exists.
| | 02:49 | Now I have a group in my scene called Room.
Okay, so we need a different name.
| | 02:55 | So let's go ahead and just call this Room_Layer.
| | 02:59 | So now I've got a layer called Room_
Layer, and I want to start adding objects.
| | 03:03 | Well, first thing I want to do is go ahead
and select everything in that room, so let's
| | 03:07 | go ahead and select that room which contains
all the windows and the floor of that room,
| | 03:12 | as well as the walls.
| | 03:13 | And let's just right-click over
Room_Layer and Add Selected Objects.
| | 03:18 | So now when I do that, you can
see now my room is its own layer.
| | 03:24 | This can be very handy, so let's say I just
wanted that to be my background, and I don't
| | 03:28 | want to work with it, so I can again either
template it or just render it and restrict selection.
| | 03:35 | And now once that's deselected, I am not
accidentally selecting the floor of the room.
| | 03:40 | Let's say I wanted to move the chair or the
table, I can actually use rubber band select,
| | 03:44 | to select that without selecting the room.
| | 03:48 | If this was just wide open, I couldn't select
anything, because I'd select everything behind it.
| | 03:54 | So again, this is a great way to organize
your scene, so I can again restrict selection
| | 03:59 | of this, I can select different parts of the scene,
and it makes it much easier to work with objects.
| | 04:06 | Now another really handy thing is that you can
actually use this as a way to select objects.
| | 04:10 | So if I select my Furniture layer, right-click
over it, I can select all the objects in that layer.
| | 04:16 | So let's say I didn't want the bowl
and the fruit to be part of that layer.
| | 04:21 | So all I have to do is select all those
objects, and then right-click over this, and we can
| | 04:28 | remove those objects.
| | 04:29 | So now the Furniture layer is just the
furniture, and I can keep these objects selected and
| | 04:36 | just do Create layer from Selected, and
now I have a layer for the bowl of fruit.
| | 04:43 | So as you can see, Layers are great way to
organize your scene or great way to very quickly
| | 04:49 | hide and show objects, as well as a way to
template objects, so that they are not selected.
| | 04:54 | So it's something that we use all the time
in production in Maya, so just get in the
| | 04:59 | habit of using Layers, they will
really benefit you in the long run.
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| Working with selection masks | 00:00 | One more way to work with objects is to use
Selection Mask, and these are ways to limit
| | 00:05 | the types of objects that you select in Maya.
| | 00:09 | Now in this scene we have a
number of different types of objects.
| | 00:13 | So if I zoom out here, you can see I've got
some lights, I have got what are called polygonal
| | 00:19 | objects, which would be the walls or the table.
| | 00:23 | I also have what are called NURBS surfaces,
which would be the bowl and the fruit in the bowl.
| | 00:30 | Now if I want, I can restrict
selection or allow selection by object type.
| | 00:35 | Say, for example, here is a light.
If I select that light, I can certainly see it.
| | 00:40 | But let's say I wanted to
not be able to select lights.
| | 00:44 | I can do this by using what are called
Selection Masks, which are up along the top.
| | 00:49 | Now we have a Global Option here,
which we can turn all Objects on or off.
| | 00:54 | I'm going to make sure these are all on, and
then let's start restricting them one by one.
| | 01:00 | Now we have a number of
different types of objects here.
| | 01:03 | If I right-click over any one of
these, I can see what they are.
| | 01:06 | So we have what are called Selection Handles,
IK Handles, that's more character animation.
| | 01:12 | If you we go over to the right here, you
can see we have Lights, Cameras, Textures, we
| | 01:17 | have all sorts of particle effects,
we have Lattices, Clusters, Deformers.
| | 01:23 | This one is very important, this is
all the different types of geometry.
| | 01:27 | So let's go ahead and just restrict lights.
| | 01:29 | I'm going to right-click
here and turn off lights.
| | 01:33 | So now when I go to rubber band
select, I can't select those lights.
| | 01:38 | If I right-click here
and turn it back on, I can.
| | 01:42 | So this is a great way to
restrict selection by types of objects.
| | 01:47 | If I right-click over this one here and turn
off Poly Surfaces, that means I can't select
| | 01:55 | anything that's made of a polygon, but I
can select anything that's made of a surface,
| | 02:01 | which would be the floor
or the bowl with the fruit.
| | 02:05 | And if I wanted to, I can turn All Objects off and
just turn on those things that you want to work with.
| | 02:13 | When we are working with things like
character animation, a lot of times we will just use
| | 02:17 | like handles and curves, and we'll turn off
selection of the actual character himself.
| | 02:24 | Now another option that we have is
the Show menu here in the viewport.
| | 02:30 | We can also restrict what we
see in the viewport by type.
| | 02:34 | So if I didn't want to see the Lights in my
viewport, I can just go ahead and disconnect
| | 02:40 | those, and that way I don't see the lights.
And if I wanted to, I could show those again.
| | 02:47 | So that's just another way to hide and
show and restrict selection of objects.
| | 02:53 | This is just one of many ways
to stay organized within Maya.
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Conclusion Goodbye| 00:00 | Well, this wraps up Maya
Essentials 1: Interface and Organization.
| | 00:05 | Now this has just been a short course
to get you used to the Maya Interface.
| | 00:09 | If you want to continue on, we have a number of other
Maya Essentials courses that follow along from here.
| | 00:16 | Continue on with your Maya learning
experience, and I hope to see you in the next course.
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