Maya Fundamentals 1 & 2 Additional Graphic Notes

3D Modelling Introduction

Week 2

Setting Up Maya Preferences

1. Setting up “Undo” option in the “Settings/Preferences” > “Preferences” > “Undo” > change “finite” to “infinite”.

2. Go to Menu > “File” > “Save Preferences” to save the changes on preferences.

Navigating The Viewport

1. “alt” + Left-mouse click = Rotate
2. “alt” + Middle-mouse click = Pan
3. “alt” + Right-mouse click = Scroll
4. Scroll wheel = Scroll

Navigating The Viewport

5. To change the view from one panel to four panel, press “Spacebar”.
6. Hover the mouse into any of the panel view and press “Spacebar” to change to the view.
7. The viewport panel can also be change by clicking the icon on the left Tool Box panel.

3D Object Manipulator Move Tools (W)
Scale Tools (R)
1. Drag the manipulator handles to move the pivot point along an axis.
2. Avoid using the middle point of the manipulators to move your object.

Selection Tools (Q)

Rotate Tools (E)

Duplicating 3D Object

1. To duplicate an object, select the “pCube1” and press “Ctrl + D” key.
2. The object will be duplicated on the same position as the original primitive, however, the duplicated cube has been renamed as “pCube2”.

3. Select the “pCube2” and move it to the side.
4. A duplicated object from the original primitive will not have the default attributes under the “Input” in the “Channel Box/Layer Editor ”such as "polycube1”,

“polysphere1” and so on.

Duplicated Primitive Original Primitive

Center View On Selected Or All Object

1. To focus on a single object in the viewport, select the object and press “F” to focus only on it.

2. To view all the 3D objects in the viewport, press “A”.

Undo, Redo, Save and Other Important Shortcuts

1. To repeat the last operation used on a 3D object, press “G” key. It is also called as the “Magic Key”.
2. To delete an object, press “delete” or “backspace” key.
3. To undo an operation, press “Z” key.
4. To redo an operation, press “Ctrl” + “Y” key.
5. To save a file, press “Ctrl” + “S” key.
6. To increase and decrease a pivot point handle length, press the “+” or “-” key.

Primitive Objects

1. Primitive is the basic 3D object in Maya. It is available inside the Shelf, under “Poly Modeling”. You can also go to “Create” on the Menu, under “Polygon
Primitives”, you will find more choices of Primitive object.

2. Go to "channel box" after selecting a primitive, under "inputs", poly<shape>, to increase the subdivision edges of the object

1. You can go to "channel box" after selecting a primitive, under "inputs", poly<shape>, to increase the subdivision edges of the object.

Sub-Component Mode Of a 3D Object

1. To change to a sub-component mode of a 3D object, hold “Right Click”. There are 3 main sub-component that we will use for mesh editing which are
“Vertex”, “Edge” and “Face”.

2. “Vertex” consist of only 1 point, “Edge” consist of 2 point connecting with each other, creating a line, “Face” consist of 3 or 4 more points connecting with
each other, creating a surface.

3. To exit the sub-component mode, hold “Right Click” and select “Object Mode”.

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Sub-Component Mode Of a 3D Object

1. Surface with 3 points connecting each other is called “Tri”.
2. Surface with 4 points connecting each other is called “Quad”.

Add Or Remove Selection on Objects Or Components

1. Using “Drag Select” hold “Shift” and drag on the vertices/edges/faces to add to selection or minus from selection
2. Using “Drag Select” hold “Ctrl” and drag on the vertices/edges/faces to minus from selection
3. Using “Drag Select” hold “Shift” + “Ctrl” and drag on the vertices/edges/faces to add to selection

Paint Selection Tool

1. Paint selection tools enables you to select a vertex, edges, faces and face loop using a brush.
2. The third icon on the left Toolbox.
3. To resize any brush, hold “B” and left mouse drag

Selection of vertex, edge and face loop

1. To select a vertex and face loop, select the first vertex/face, hold shift and double click on the consecutive vertex, face. This will only work if the loop is
linked with quads side by side.

Vertex Loop Face Loop

2. To select and edge loop, double click the edge. It will only work if the loop is linked with quads side by side

Soft Selection Tool

1. To enable soft selection, select an object, go to any sub-component mode and press “B”.
2. Hold “B” and drag middle mouse click (MMC) to resize the soft selection area.

3. Soft selection tool lets you select and edit vertices, edges, and faces in an organic manner. Yellow area will have 100% effect, while black has 0% effect.

Soft Selection Tool

4. Soft selection tool have few preset and each one of it have different effect. This presets exist inside the “Tool Setting”.
5. To open the “Tool Setting”, on the left panel menu, “Double Click” any of the transform tool icon. A “Tool Setting” window will appear as shown below.
6. Under the “Tool Setting”, go to “Soft Selection” tab. Here, you may find few types of preset under the “Curve preset”. You may also use the “Falloff curves”

to create your own soft selection preset.

Proper Ways Of Deleting An Object

1. To delete an object, make sure you are in the object mode and not in the sub-components mode, else, you will not be able to delete everything.
2. Select the 3D object and press the “delete” or “backspace” button.

3. The image below shows what happen if you try to delete the 3D object while in sub-component mode.

Unable to delete everything while
under sub-component mode

Proper Ways Of Deleting Vertices, Edges and Faces

1. To delete the faces of an object, make sure you are in the sub-components mode.
2. Select the faces and press the “delete” or “backspace” button.

Proper Ways Of Deleting Vertices, Edges and Faces

1. To delete edges, select the edge, hold “Shift + Right Click, select “Delete Edge”. This will delete the edges without leaving any “Floating vertices” on a 3D
surface.

2. “Floating vertices” happens when the edges selected are not properly delete. This will cause the surface to leave unwanted vertices from the previous
edges.

3. It can be remove by manually selecting all the unwanted vertices and press “delete” or “backspace” button.

Floating Vertices
from the deleted
edges.

Smooth Mesh Using Subdivision and Smooth Preview

1. To smooth mesh using subdivision, select the 3D object, go to “Mesh” on the top menu, select “Smooth”. A small “Division” box will appear with 1 as the
default amount.

2. Creates an actual high poly model. The higher the division, the more smoother the 3D model will become, the higher the number of polycount.

3. To smooth mesh using smooth preview, select the 3D object and press “3” on your keyboard.
4. Shows only the preview of the high poly version of the 3D object.

Extrude Tool

1. Extrude is to create more surfaces from the original mesh of the 3D object.
2. To extrude from a selection, select the faces and click on the extrude button on the Shelf. A small box “polyExtrudeFace1” will appear on the side, which

consist of different settings.
3. Another access for Extrude Tool is through “Edit mesh” on the Menu, then select “Extrude”. The shortcut key is “Ctrl + E”.

3. “Thickness” and “Local Translate Z” works the same, the only difference is the position of the pivot point during the action itself.
4. When extruding, the “Thickness” pivot point does not move with the selected extruded face, while the “Local Translate Z” does.

Extrude Tool

5. The “Offset” allows you to manipulate the size of the extruded selected face.

Offset Extrude Offset

6. The “Divisions” allows you to dissect or add extra edges to the extruded surface.

Extrude Tool

7. If the “Keep Faces Together” is enabled (ON), the selected faces will be extruded as a single continuous block.
8. If the “Keep Faces Together” is disabled (OFF), each of the selected face will be extruded individually or separately.

Insert Edge Loop Tool

1. Insert edge loop tool allows to dissect a loop of face into 2, creating more edges for modelling purpose.
2. To access the Insert edge loop Tool is through “Mesh tools” on the Menu, then select “insert edge loop”.
3. The shortcut key is “Shift + Right Click”, then select “insert edge loop”.
4. When this tool is activated, the cursor icon will change.
5. Hover the mouse icon over the edge of the object, click on the edge to insert the edge loop.

Normal
Cursor

Multi-cut Tool

1. Multi-cut tool allows to dissect faces and create more edges on the 3D object.
2. To access the Multi-cut Tool, select the faces and click on the extrude button on the Shelf. Another way is through “Mesh tools” on the Menu, then select

“multi-cut”. To complete a cut, press “Enter” or “Right Click”.
3. The shortcut key is “Shift + Right Click”, then select “Multi-cut”.
4. When this tool is activated, the cursor icon will change.

Normal
Cursor

Multi-cut Tool

5. Multi-cut tool can work the same as Insert Edge Loop tool by adding loop on faces.
6. To apply loop on faces using Multi-cut tool, hover the mouse icon to the edge of an object, hold “Ctrl” and the loop preview will appear. Click on the surface

to apply the edge loop.

Normal
Cursor

Creating Free Image Plane

1. Free Image plane is use to create a reference image plan.
2. Go to “Create” on the Menu, select “Free Image Plane”, a green transparent plane will appear in the viewport.
3. Under the Channel Box on the right, go to “Attribute Editor”, under “Image Plane Attributes”, click the yellow folder on the “Image Name” to import the

image reference.

Creating Free Image Plane

4. Always move the image plane or image reference and place it on top of the grid before start modelling.