Chapter 5. Transforming Objects and Components

Maya gives you many ways to move, rotate, and scale objects around a scene, and many shortcuts for completing these common tasks. To move an object (referred to as translating an object), you can type in the coordinates in the Channel Box or use one of the many manipulation tools (Figure 5.1) to drag the object freely around the scene or constrain it to an axis.

Figure 5.1. Maya's manipulation tools.

Using the same tools you would employ to manipulate objects in the scene, you can also manipulate parts of an object, known as components. Each object type has its own components that can be translated (Figure 5.2), rotated, and/or scaled to change their look and position, in turn changing the appearance of the object.

Figure 5.2. The Move tool's translation manipulator is used to move objects and components around the scene.

Maya's developers have done a great job of making the program easy to learn while still providing plenty of depth: Most tools include advanced features that you can explore as your knowledge base grows. The Duplication options provide a good example of this. Once you get used to using them, you can employ a number of advanced options like duplicating an object multiple times by setting the number of copies, or indicating exactly where you want to place the duplicated object in the scene.