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A beginner's guide to working Maya showing you how to get around the program, adding tools to the custom shelf and explaining other useful tools.

This tutorial will cover the following:

1 - Finding your way around
2 - Adding tools to the custom shelf
3 - Explinations to useful tools


1 - FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND

Lets get the obvious stuff out of the way. File contains the usual "new", "open", "save" functions, as does Edit. For now lets leave all the other drop down menu's. Look at the shortcut bar to the right of your window.



These are your 3 primary tools. "Move", "Rotate" and "Scale" have shortcut keys of "W", "e" and "r" respectively. These 3 tools are used to manipulate your object. Before we manipulate an object let see how to add an object into our workspace.

"Create > Polygon Primitives" (poly prims)

>>> ONLY USE POLY PRIMS WHEN MODELING FOR GAMING PERPOSES <<<

Create a poly prim "Cube". Notice the little box next to each of the function next to the different shapes. These bring up the properties for each function (i.e. the hieght, width, depth, subdivision, etc.)

You should have something like the below screenshot.



LEFT mouse click to select the shape and play around with your "move", "rotate" and "scale" tool. You can use these 3 tools in various other modes. By holding down the RIGHT mouse button and dragging your cursor over your object you will bring up a "Hidden Menu". Here you can select different modes. You will only need to use the following;

Edge: Select the edges of your object which comprises of 2 vertices
Object Mode: Select the whole object thus all edges, faces and verts
Vertex: Select each vertex (or node) for precise manipulation
Face: Selects a face which is an area bound by edges. Do this by clicking on the centre blue square.

To select multiples of the above modes, shift and LEFT mouse click or drag.


2 - ADDING TOOLS TO THE CUSTOM SHELF

Firstly, select "modeling" from the drop down menu like so;



Select the "Custom" tab. In this tab we will put all our tools that we use often.



To add a tool hold Ctrl + Shift and LEFT mouse click on the tool you want to add in the drop down menu's
To remove a unwanted tool MIDDLE mouse drag the tool over to the bin icon shown below.



The tools i would recommend you add to your custom shelf are in the following paragraphs.

3 - EXPLINATION TO USEFUL TOOLS

CUT FACES TOOL

"Edit Polygons > Cut Faces Tool"

Use in "Face" mode.

This tool is used to spilt a face into 2 faces. To use this tool, click and drag the left mouse button over selected face(s).



EXTRUDE FACE

"Edit Polygons > Extrude Face"

Use in "Face" mode.

This tool is used to 'pull out' a face from selected face(s). Drag the arrows to displace the face(s), or the boxes to scale.



EXTRUDE EDGE

"Edit Polygons > Extrude Edge"

Use in "Edge" mode.

This tool is used to 'pull out' an edge from the selected edge(s). Drag the arrows to displace the face(s), or the boxes to scale.



SPLIT POLYGON TOOL

"Edit polygons > Split polygon tool"

Use in "Object Mode" mode.

Similar to the 'Cut Face Tool' but this tool snaps to vertices and can only be used on a face at a time.



COMBINE

"Polygons > Combine"

Use in "Object Mode" mode.

Select 2 objects and combine them into 1.



MERGE VERTICES

"Edit Polygons > Merge vertices"

Use in "Vertex" mode.

Select 2 or more vertices in the same object and combine them into 1. Double click the icon and turn the tolerance upto maximum.



SOFTEN/HARDEN

"Edit Polygons > Normals > soften/harden"

Use in "Object mode" or "Edge" mode.

To use this tool select the objects or edges you want and double click on the shortct on your custom tab. Use the "All soft" or "All hard" button to get the desired effect.



You will add more tools to your shelf as you progress in skill within Maya. These tools are very basic tools and I would recommend u experiment with these before you comtinue to the next tutorial. The next Tutorial will be on creating low poly models.

Writen by Andy Bieny A.K.A. R&R|Janova for Modsonline in assication with R&R|Projects.
Special thanks to Marcus A.K.A. Birritan for all my modeling help.