Differences in Creating Animation

Animation keyframes: Creating animation in Maya is similar to LightWave. No interface button exists to create a key; you simply press the s key to set an animation key. A key is always set at the current frame, usually only for the attribute you're changing. You can specify whether all animation properties or just the currently edited property has a key set. Most of the time, you leave key creation set to the currently edited value so that you don't create keys on properties that aren't animated. There are many other ways to create keys in Maya, notably by right-clicking on variable names in the Channel Box. You can click-drag several variables and key them all with one click, as shown in Figure B.2.

Figure B.2. Setting keys in the Channel Box with a right-click.

Animation editing windows: LightWave's Scene Editor is similar to Maya's Dope Sheet, LightWave's Graph Editor is similar to Maya's Graph Editor, and LightWave's Motion Mixer is similar to Maya's TRAX.

Character animation: Maya creates skeletons from a series of "joints," which are similar to the bones used in LightWave.