Ultimate Maya Guide for Starters

The Mission

Resources

Teaching people already familiar with 3D
​the basics to get started with Maya.
​
This is the internal documentation we have to teach beginners about Maya in the studio, we wanted to share it so anyone can learn from it. Feedback is welcome, if you find something we should add or change please let us know!
We're very active on Twitter

• MayaLT 2018

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Maya overview

Viewport

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The viewport is where the magic happens: it's the space where you visualize all the meshes and perform all the operations regarding them.

Camera movement

Mouse

Space
ALT + LC
ALT + RC
ALT + MC

Max Visor, Minimize
Rotate Camera
Zoom In, out
​Pan camera

RC = Right Click
LC = Left Click
MC = Middle Click

Viewport Tools

Hotkeys
​1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Actions
Low res object
Smooth and low
Smooth model
Show Wireframe
Show Shaded
Show Texture
Show Ilumination

<- Don't model with this on, please

Snaps

Snaps are used to quickly move something to a point of reference. It is a very useful way to move stuff precisely.

X
V
C

To Grid
To Vertex
To Edges

Show and Hide Meshes

Shows and hides meshes. Can be useful for quick checks.
​For better organization, better use the Layer systems as described below.

Control + H
ALT + H
Control + SHIFT + H

Hide Selected object
Hide everything except selection
Show the previously hide

Outliner

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The outliner shows every element in
​the current scene
​

• Meshes
• Groups
• Joints
• Lights
• Cameras

​

If there is something hidden you'll be able to find it here.
​
You can make the outliner appear by clicking on:
Windows — Outliner

Shelves

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A shelf is a quick access space to tools and premade scripts by the user.

shelf_custom.mel
File Size:	37 kb
File Type:	mel

Download File

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How to install a custom shelf on Mac
Go to the directory:
/Applications/Autodesk/mayaLT2019/Maya.app/Contents/scripts/shelves

How to Install a custom shelf on Windows
Go to the directory:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\MayaLT2018\scripts\shelves

Modeling Tools

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Most of the tools over here can be found on the Modeling Toolkit in Maya, but some of them are placed on the Custom Maya shelf or hidden in the menus.

• Extrude — Extrudes along the selected axis
  • Polygons
  • Edges
  • Vertex

• Multi-Cut tool — Cuts, slices, and inserts edge loops. You can extract or delete edges along a cut, insert edge loops and cuts with edge flow and subdivisions, and edit in Smooth Mesh Preview mode.

• Delete edges/vertex

• Append to Polygon tool — Bridges faces from an edge to another one.

• Combine — Merges meshes into a single mesh

• Separate — Separates any non welded/merged faces into different meshes

• Mirror — One of the most used tools, mirrors models from side to side and merges the vertex in the seam line

• Extract Faces — Separates the faces that are selected into a different model.

• Center point — Centers the pivot of the object in the middle of it.

• Freeze Transformation — Resets any transformation done to the model making the current properties to 0, 0, 0 for Position and Rotation and Joint Orientation and 1,1,1 for Scale

• Historic clean — Will clean any model inputs ( this is very useful because Maya drops performance with this and also gives some issues when modeling, use it often.

Materials

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To add a material to a 3D object do a RC on it and look for the material.
If you wanna modify it's values you can do on the attribute editor, here you will be able to
​add a texture to the material.
​
The Hypershade allows you to see all the shaders in the scene and
​also have even more control over them.

Layer Editor

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Layers allow to show and hide elements in the scene, it also helps to maintain the order in the scene.
​
1st column

• V - allows you to quickly ​show and hide the layer

 
2nd column​

• P - allow you to view the objects while working and hide them on play

3rd column

• Nothing - Normal status, you will be able to modify elements.
• ​​R - Referenced, you'll be able to see the modes wireframe in grey, but, cannot use for snaps.
• T - Templated, you will see the model shades, and with a black wireframe, you won't be able to select the object but you can use snaps on them.

​

You can change the layer name just by double clicking on it
Try to use colors to keep them organised
​in case the scene becomes big

MAYA Hotkeys

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Transformation Tools

F
Q
W
E
R

Focus target
Selection tool
Move tool
Rotation tool
Scale tool

Selection

LC + SHIFT
LC + SHIFT + Drag
Control + LC
B
​
SHIFT + >
>
F
TAB

Various Selections
Square selection
Restart selection
Brush
​
Increase selection
Decrease Selection
Light Focus
Drag Selection mode

<- Click & Hold + drag Middle Mouse to change size

Extra spicy hotkeys

Ctrl + A
G
Ins / D
Ctrl + D
Ctrl + SHIFT + D

​​
SHIFT + D
Ctrl + G
SHIFT + P
Arrow UP / DOWN
Ctrl + E / SHIFT

Attribute Editor
Repeat last action
Move Pivot
Duplicate
Duplicate Special
​
​
Duplicate with transform
Group objects
Ungroup objects
Move between Family groups
Extrude

<- (Preserves creation attributes, such as subdivisions, height, width, radius...)

UVs

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These are used to apply textures properly to the 3D model.
Here are the ways to generate UVs within maya.
The most used in the studio are:

• Automatic
• Best plane
• Cylindrical
• Planar

Once generated you'll have to go to
the UV Editor tool.
​
Now Maya includes a UV toolkit that has a very intuitive interface, where you'll find the tools needed to modify your UV correctly.

The most used tools are:

• Unfold
• Separate UVs
• Sew UVs

• Display Image
• Dim Image
• Texel Density (Get and Set)

The UV editor window uses the same shortcuts as the main viewport.

We hope it was helpful and you could learn something new!
Feedback is welcome, if you find something we should add or change please let us know!
We're very active on Twitter

Post by:

Daniel @toxsam

Daniel García (aka Toxsam) is the founder and creative director at Polygonal Mind.
In love with videogames since he can remember, passionate about geometry,
​VR addict and energetic persona.

Alex @Vontadeh

Alejandro Bielsa is a junior 3D artist working at Polygonal Mind's in-house team.
Passionate about videogames, vivid tutorial drinker and cat lover.