Maya: Intro tools

Outliner


By experimenting with Maya, I found the button highlighted in the image above which displays the Outliner window. This is a window to show all the objects in the scene which will be extremely useful for any project, especially for the intricate models since you can edit pieces individually, and it is possible to group objects together and create a Layer.

Using layers allows you to treat parts of the model separately. For instance, a gun may contain several layers such as the gun handle, the trigger, and barrel. I could hide all the layers except for the barrel if that was the part of the model I was focusing on.

The two small buttons highlighted in the menu apply the 'dark theme' and the blue outline of the models. This makes it much easier to work in the project when objects are starting to build up. The default grey becomes difficult to differentiate objects from each other.



Renaming objects are as simple as selecting them and typing in the desired name, but it is important to note enter must be pressed to register the renaming.



Backface Culling is extremely useful for working on rooms like in this case. The side of the wall the camera is looking at will be invisible, so we can see inside and work on the inside easily. Once we change the angle, the walls will be visible again. I am sure this will be a useful tool to use in the future.

By going to the menu and selecting Duplicate Special you can select an object and duplicate X amount of the object. Using the Translate which is the XYZ we can set it to duplicate along specified axes, along with various other settings. This is a great tool to know as it could be extremely time-saving in the future.

Using the top right icon to display the Modeling Toolkit we can then access the Vertex Selection tool. With this, we can select vertices, individually or multiple and scale and move them to create new objects.  Using the three-view window accessed using Spacebar allows for precision whilst 3D modeling as we can see all angles and how it is affected at all times.