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.

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

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.