Lammers J., Gooding L. Maya 4. 5 Fundamentals / Differences in the Control Interface

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Maya 4. 5 Fundamentals
Authors: Lammers J., Gooding L.
Published year: 2005
Pages: 148-149/201

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Differences in the Control Interface

Quad menu versus Hotbox If you hold the spacebar more than a moment, the Hotbox appears (see Figure A.1); this workflow speedup device is somewhat like the right-click quad menu introduced in max 4 (see Figure A.2). Advanced Maya users often turn off the pull- downs and use just the Hotbox, activating the hot zones with a right-click.

Figure A.1. Maya's Hotbox in full expert mode: The UI is minimized except for the top menu bar, and all interaction is handled via the Hotbox and the hot zones above, below, and to the right and left.

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Figure A.2. Max's quad menus are similar in some ways to the Hotbox.

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Spinners A handy feature in max is the spinner, the up and down arrows for each variable that let you easily scroll the values and see the results in real time. Maya's counterpart , called the Virtual Slider, is hidden. You activate it by selecting a variable in the Channel Box, and then MMB-click and drag horizontally in any panel.

Changing defaults An important part of Maya is the option box, a square icon next to many creation and editing menu items. Clicking the option box opens a dialog box where you can adjust the menu command's default mode. Max, by contrast, always changes its creation and modifier defaults to the last settings you used for that object/modifier. Choose Edit Reset Settings in Maya's option box pull-downs to go back to default settings for any command.

Selecting and deselecting In max, you use the Ctrl key to add and Alt to remove items from clicked object selections. In Maya, Shift acts as a selection toggle: If the object's selected, Shift deselects it; if the object's not selected, Shift selects it. Also, you can Shift-drag to select many objects at once or to invert the selection of many objects. The Ctrl key always deselects and can also be used to drag-deselect. Note that drag selections are always in what max calls " crossing " mode, as opposed to windowed selection mode; any object that's partly in the selection rectangle is selected.

Differences in Viewport Mode and Layout

Orthographic and Perspective views In max, these views are arbitrary and virtual, but in Maya there's an invisible default camera assigned for each of three orthographic views: Front, Top, and Side. To change such elements as the near/far clipping or the field of view, you must adjust this camera. To do that for any orthographic view, choose View Camera Attribute Editor in the applicable orthographic view. The virtual camera for that view will appear, and you can adjust its values in the Attribute Editor. The orthographic views are locked and do not orbit . Any Perspective or camera view can become orthographic (like max's " user view") by selecting the Orthographic check box in the Camera Attribute Editor for that view (see Figure A.3). You access the default perspective camera attributes the same way, with View Camera Attribute Editor.

Figure A.3. In the Camera Attribute Editor, you can enable the orthographic view and adjust clipping for any view.

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Viewport display In max, you right-click over the viewport name to bring up display options, such as wireframe or shaded. In Maya, it works similarly, but you use the pull-down menu at the top of any Maya panel. The Shading pull-down, shown in Figure A.4, contains most of the settings familiar to max users for viewport display modes. The Panels pull-down in Figure A.5 lists options similar to the Viewport Configuration window in max.

Figure A.4. Adjusting a panel's display mode in Maya.

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Figure A.5. The layout modes available in Maya's Panels pull-down.

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Configuring panels/viewports At the left side of Maya's interface is the Tool Box, which includes a set of Quick Layout buttons (see Figure A.6) that allow you to instantly switch panel configurations. Right-clicking any of the Quick Layout buttons displays a list of many more popular layouts. In max, you change viewport layout by right-clicking in the viewport, choosing Configure Layout Mode, and then setting up each panel. With Maya, you can also set any panel to any window by clicking the hot buttons that appear below the Quick Layout buttons .