Differences in Viewport Navigation

The first difference is that unlike max, Maya has overall modes that determine which menus appear. The first six menus in Maya ”File, Edit, Modify, Create, Display, and Window ”are always present, but the other pull- downs change depending on your mode. The modes are Animation, Modeling, Dynamics, and Rendering. If you have Maya Unlimited, Cloth and Live modes also appear.

Viewport manipulation Maya has no buttons for zoom, orbit, pan, maximize, zoom extents, and so forth. Instead, Maya relies on a three-button mouse and hotkeys. For orbit , pan, and zoom, you must press the Alt key and simultaneously press the left (LMB), middle (MMB), or LMB and MMB. Max offers mouse control of viewports, too, but many users aren't aware of them: the Alt+MMB for orbit, MMB alone for pan, and scroll wheel for zoom. Maya consistently uses these zoom and pan functions for every type of browsing dialog box ”graph editors, paint effects presets, and so forth. For Maya's material editor (called Hypergraph), this feature is a big plus because you can see the swatches at any size you like in the Work Area.

Zoom window In Maya, press Ctrl+Alt and LMB-drag a rectangle of the zoom-to area. Dragging the window from upper-left to lower-right results in a zoom in, and dragging from lower-right to upper-left results in a zoom out, in which the existing frame fits into the newly drawn window. The smaller the drawn window, the more extreme the zoom.

Zoom extents and zoom extents selected All Maya panels have a pull-down called Frame All Objects (hotkey: a ) and Frame Selected Object (hotkey: f ). Again, this same option works for all of Maya's other editing windows , such as Hypershade and the Graph Editor. Shift+F and Shift+A are the hotkeys for Frame Selected in all panels and Frame All in all panels.

Minimize and maximize You simply tap the spacebar in Maya. Regardless of which window is currently selected, the panel with the mouse cursor over it toggles to full screen.