Chapter 3
The Autodesk®
Maya® 2015 Interface
This chapter takes you on a guided tour of all the elements visible on the screen for the Autodesk® Maya® 2015 program as you build a simple model of a decorative box. The chapter draws from the experience you had in Chapter 2, “Jumping into Basic Animation Headfirst,” with the solar system exercise. You’ll visit the menus, icons, and shelves to become familiar with the interface basics as you build a model.
This chapter also serves as a good reference when you’re wondering about the purpose of a particular icon.
- Learning Outcomes: In this chapter, you will be able to
- Recognize and use Maya UI elements
- Understand how Maya view panels and windows work
- Use manipulators to transform objects in 3D space
- Create and use reference planes for modeling from pictures
- Use polygon modeling techniques
- Component editing—edges, faces, vertices
- Use the Layer Editor to organize your scene
- Render test frames to preview your work
- Gain confidence in using the Attribute Editor
- Better manage your scenes and object hierarchies with the Outliner
Navigating in Maya
The key to being a good digital artist or animator isn’t knowing where to find all the tools and buttons but knowing how to find the features you need. The purpose of this chapter is to help you get to know Maya and how it operates, building on your experience so far.
Explore the interface. Using your mouse, check out the menus and the tools. Just be careful not to change any settings; the rest of this book and its projects assume your Maya settings are all at their defaults. If you do change some settings inadvertently, reverting to the defaults is easy. Choose Window ⇒ Settings/Preferences ⇒ Preferences. In the Preferences window, choose Edit ⇒ Restore Default Settings. Now all the settings and interface elements are restored to their default states.
Exploring the Maya Layout
Let’s take another look at the initial Maya screen in Figure 3-1—this time with the Full Perspective window and not the four-panel layout you saw in the previous chapter.
Figure 3-1: The initial Maya screen
The main menu bar, Status line, and Shelf all run across the top of the screen. The Tool Box runs vertically on the left side of the screen. It contains icons for your transform tools (such as Move, Rotate, and Scale) as well as quick-view selections to allow you to customize your panel layouts quickly. The Attribute Editor, Channel Box/Layer Editor, and Modeling Toolkit (the Attribute Editor is currently displayed in Figure 3-1) run down the right side of the screen. Finally, listed from the top down, the Time slider, the Range slider, the Character Set menu, the Auto Keyframe button, and the Animation Preferences button, some of which you’ve already used, run across the bottom of the screen.
The Main Menu Bar
In Maya, menu choices are context sensitive; they depend on what you’re doing. The main menu bar is shown in Figure 3-2. By switching menu sets, you change your menu choices and hence your available tool set. The menu sets in Maya are Animation, Polygons, Surfaces, Dynamics, Rendering, and nDynamics.
Figure 3-2: The main menu bar is where the magic happens.
Menu Sets
The Menu Set drop-down is the first thing on the Status line, as shown in Figure 3-3.
Figure 3-3: The Menu Set drop-down menu
No matter which menu set you’re working in, the first six menu items are constant: File, Edit, Modify, Create, Display, and Window, as is the last menu entry, Help.
Some plug-ins can also add menu items to the main menu bar. If the plug-in is turned off, that menu item is removed. So, don’t panic if you don’t see the same main menu bar pictured throughout this book.
Submenus and the Option Box
Figure 3-4: Submenus and the all-important option box
You’ll notice two different demarcations to the right of some menu items (Figure 3-4): arrows and boxes (called
option boxes). Clicking an arrow opens a submenu that contains
more specific commands. Clicking an option box
(
) opens a dialog box in which you can
set the options for that particular tool.
Marking Menus
Marking menus are a fast UI workflow to allow you to select commands and options without accessing the main menu bar, as you did in the Hypershade in Chapter 2’s solar system exercise. For example, right-clicking any object in your scene gives you the marking menu shown in Figure 3-5. With this particular marking menu you can select vertices on that object by moving your mouse to the vertex marking box, as shown in Figure 3-6.
Figure 3-5: A context-sensitive marking menu appears when you right-click an object. Green entries denote new features in Maya 2015.
Figure 3-6: By using a marking menu, you can easily select components of an object without using the Status line’s icons.
Work Panels and Navigation
The main focus of Maya is its work windows (called panels)—the perspective and orthographic views. You use these windows to create, manipulate, and view 3D objects, particles, and animations.
Perspective/Orthographic Panels
The default Maya layout begins with a full-screen perspective view, as shown in Figure 3-7.
By pressing and releasing the spacebar, you can switch your view from the full-screen perspective to the four-panel layout shown in Figure 3-8. Pressing the spacebar again returns your active view panel to Full-Screen mode.
Orthographic views (top, front, and side) are most commonly used for modeling, because they’re best at conveying exact dimensions and size relationships.
You can also easily change from perspective to any of the orthographic views in the
current panel by clicking the ViewCube (
) in the upper-right corner of any active panel, though by
default the ViewCube is not visible. First you must exit Viewport 2.0 as your
viewpanel’s renderer by choosing Renderer in the view panel’s menu bar, and then
switching to Legacy Default Viewport or Legacy High Quality Viewport. Once you are
in a legacy view, you can see the ViewCube. To enable/disable the ViewCube when in
the legacy viewpanel renderer, in the main menu bar, select Display ⇒ Heads Up
Display ⇒ ViewCube.
Figure 3-7: The full perspective view
Figure 3-8: The four-panel layout
Wireframe and Shaded Modes
When you’re working in the windows, you can view your 3D objects either as wireframe models (as in Figure 3-9) or as solid, hardware-rendered models called Shaded mode (see Figure 3-10). When you press 4 or 5, notice that a text helper opens to tell you your current viewing mode. These messages are called in-view messages and can be helpful as you learn the Maya workflow. You can toggle them on or off by choosing, in the main menu bar, Display ⇒ Heads Up Display ⇒ In-view Messages.
Figure 3-9: Wireframe display of the selected sphere
Figure 3-10: Shaded display of the selected sphere
You can cycle through the modes of display by pressing 4, 5, 6, and 7. Wireframe mode is 4, Shaded mode is 5 and shows you a solid view of the objects, Texture Shaded mode is 6 and shows any textures that are applied to the objects, and Lighted mode is 7 and shows a hardware preview of the objects as they’re lit in the scene. Table 3-1 gives a quick reference for toggling display levels.
Table 3-1: Levels of display detail
| Key | Function |
| 4 | Toggles into Wireframe mode |
| 5 | Toggles into Shaded mode |
| 6 | Toggles into Textured mode |
| 7 | Toggles into Lighted mode |
Pressing 5 for Shaded mode lets you see your objects as solid forms and volumes. Pressing 6 for Texture mode is good for the rudimentary alignment of textures. Pressing 7 for Lighted mode (Figure 3-11) is useful for spotting proper lighting direction and object highlights when you first begin lighting a scene.
Figure 3-11: Lighted mode (press 7) showing a single light shining on the sphere
Other display commands you’ll find useful while working in the Modeling windows are found under the panel’s View menu. Look At Selection centers on the selected object or objects: Frame All (hotkey = A) moves the view in or out to display all the objects in the scene, and Frame Selection (hotkey = F) centers on and moves the view in or out to fully frame the selected object or objects in the panel.
The Manipulators
Manipulators are onscreen handles that you use to manipulate the selected object with tools such as Move or Rotate, as you saw in the solar system exercise. Figure 3-12 shows three distinct and common manipulators for all objects in Maya: Move, Rotate, and Scale. In addition, the fourth manipulator shown in Figure 3-12 is the Universal Manipulator, which allows you to move, rotate, or scale an object all within one manipulator.
Figure 3-12: Using manipulators
You can access the manipulators using either the icons from the Tool Box on the left of the UI or the hotkeys shown in Table 3-2.
Table 3-2: Manipulator hotkeys
| Key | Function |
| W | Activates the Move tool |
| E | Activates the Rotate tool |
| R | Activates the Scale tool |
| Q | Select tool; also deselects any Translation tools |
- Try This In a new scene, choose Create ⇒ NURBS Primitives ⇒
Sphere, drag in a view panel on its grid to create a sphere, and then size it
however you like. If you have Interactive Creation already turned off for NURBS
primitives, a sphere appears at the origin. Press the 5 key in one of the view
panels for Shaded mode. In the previous chapter, you tried the manipulators on a
sphere to get a feel for how they work. In Chapter 2 you may have noticed the
feedback feature on the Universal Manipulator. Select Modify ⇒
Transformation Tools ⇒ Universal Manipulator, and you’ll notice the
Universal Manipulator icon appear just below the Tool Box (
). Manipulate the
sphere in the view panel and take a look.
The Universal Manipulator interactively shows you the movement, rotation, or scale as you manipulate the sphere. Notice the coordinates that come up and change as you move the sphere. When you rotate using this manipulator, you see the degree of change. Notice the scale values in dark gray on the three outside edges of the manipulator box; they change when you scale the sphere.
Soft Selection
Soft selection is a way to select part of an object (like a vertex) and manipulate it so that neighboring vertices are affected as well, but in decreasing amounts. Soft selection is best described by seeing it in action.
- In a new scene, create a polygonal sphere at the origin.
- Right-click the sphere to bring up a marking menu. Select vertices as shown in Figure 3-13.
- Your display now shows the sphere as cyan and pink points indicating where the vertices are. (I cover vertices in detail in the next chapter.) Manipulating vertices allows you to alter the shape of the polygonal mesh. As you move your mouse over vertices, they turn into red blocks. Click a single vertex to select it.
- Press W for the Move tool and move the vertex away from the sphere, as shown in Figure 3-14. Doing so creates a spike on the sphere.
- This time, let’s go into the options for the Move tool. Select Modify
⇒ Transformation Tools ⇒ Move Tool
to open the Tool Settings window,
shown in Figure 3-15. If you
need to expand the window as shown in Figure 3-15,
click and drag the vertical bar on the right of the Tool Settings window.
- Scroll down to the Soft Selection heading, and toggle on Soft Select,
as shown in Figure 3-16.
Figure 3-13: Selecting vertices
Figure 3-14: Pull a vertex to make a spike.
Figure 3-15: The option box for the Move tool opens Tool Settings.
Figure 3-16: Click Soft Select.
- In the persp view panel, right-click the sphere again, and select Vertex. Select another vertex on the sphere. When you do, a gradient of color from yellow to red to black appears on your model. This gradient shows you the influence of your soft selection. Figure 3-17 shows you the falloff region on the sphere.
- Without adjusting anything, move that vertex away from the sphere.
This time, instead of a spike forming on the sphere, a much larger, but smooth,
bulb forms out of the sphere, as shown in Figure 3-18, much like what would happen if you used
the Soft Modification tool.
Figure 3-17: Soft Select shows you the falloff gradient.
Figure 3-18: Use soft selection to pull out a bulb rather than a spike.
- You can adjust the size of the falloff area by adjusting the Falloff Radius attribute in the Tool Settings. Be sure to turn off Soft Select and close the Tool Settings window.
Using soft selection on a transform tool such as Move allows you to make organic changes to your mesh easily.
Symmetry
Using the Symmetry transformation option makes symmetrical edits to a mesh. Follow these steps to experience Symmetry with the Move tool:
- Create a polygonal sphere at the origin in a new scene.
- Invoke the Move tool options by double-clicking the Move tool icon in
the Tool Box on the left of the UI, shown in Figure 3-19. The options will open just as if you
selected the option box through the menu.
Figure 3-19: Double-clicking the icon will open the options for that tool.
- At the bottom of the Tool Settings window (a.k.a. option box) in the Symmetry Settings section, as shown previously in Figure 3-16, click the Object option. You can also set the axis of symmetry to X, Y, or Z. Select Z for now.
- Enter component selection mode by right-clicking the sphere and choosing Faces from the marking menu that appears.
- Move your cursor over a face and it turns blue, and a face on the opposite side of the sphere turns blue as well. Select a face on one side of the sphere, and a face on the opposite side of the sphere is also selected. Now when you try to move that selected face, the opposite face moves as well in the opposite direction, as shown in Figure 3-20.
- Make sure to turn off Symmetry when you’re done.
Figure 3-20: The user selected the face on the left and moved it. With Symmetry turned on, the opposite face along the Z-Axis is also selected and moved.
Building a Decorative Box
Let’s get back to making things and explore the interface as we go along. In this exercise, you’ll build a decorative box, shown in Figure 3-21. You will learn to use reference images for modeling, model polygons with Bevel and Extrude tools, and then add edges with Edge Loop and Interactive Split. Through the process, the Layer Editor helps you stay organized, and you can hide objects from view. This box will be a fairly simple model to make, but you’ll use it extensively in Chapters 7, 10, and 11 when working with texture, light, and rendering.
Figure 3-21: A photo of the decorative box
Notice that the box has intricately carved grooves and surface features. You’ll build the box to fit the reference and then rely on texture maps created in Chapter 7, “Autodesk® Maya® Shading and Texturing” to create the details on the surface of the box. You’ll begin by creating reference planes in the next section.
Creating Reference Planes
You can use image references from photos or drawings to model your objects in Maya quite easily. These references are basically photos or drawings of your intended model, usually from three different image views of the model (front, side, and top).
The image reference views of the decorative box have already been created and proportioned properly. (You will see a more thorough review of this process for an exercise in Chapter 6, “Practical Experience.”) You can find the images for the box in the Sourceimages folder of the Decorative_Box project. Table 3-3 lists their names, along with their statistics.
Table 3-3: Reference views and image sizes
| Filename | View | Image size | Aspect ratio |
boxFrontRef.tif |
Front | 1749 x 2023 | 0.865:1 |
boxSideRef.tif |
Side | 1862 x 2046 | 0.910:1 |
boxTopRef.tif |
Top | 1782 x 1791 | 1.005:1 |
Figure 3-22: Make sure Interactive Creation is toggled off.
The idea here is to map these photos to planes created in Maya. First, press Ctrl+A to toggle off the Attribute Editor if it currently appears to the right of the UI. Toggling off the Attribute Editor displays the Channel Box. Next, be sure Interactive Creation is turned off under Create ⇒ Polygon Primitives (Figure 3-22), and then create the reference planes in steps 1 through 3 with the ratios shown in Table 3-4.
- In the front view panel, create a polygonal plane by choosing Create
⇒ Polygon Primitives ⇒ Plane
. This plane is for the front
image, so in the option box, set Axis to Z, Width to 0.865, and Height to 1.0. Make sure
the check box for Preserve Aspect Ratio is deselected, as shown in Figure 3-23. Setting Axis to Z
will place the plane properly in the front view. Click Apply to create the plane
and keep the option box open.
Table 3-4: Reference planes and sizes
Reference plane Width Height Front 0.865 1 Side 0.910 1 Top 1.005 1 
Figure 3-23: Option box for creating a plane for the front view
- Switch to the side view panel. Create a second plane, this time with a width of 0.910 and height of 1. Set Axis to X, and make sure Preserve Aspect Ratio is unchecked. Click Apply to create the plane.
- Switch to the top view panel. Create a third plane with a width of 1.005 and height of 1, and set Axis to Y. Make sure the Preserve Aspect Ratio box is still unchecked, and click Create to create the plane and close the option box. Your planes should look like those shown in Figure 3-24.
- Select the front image plane. In the Channel Box, double-click pPlane1, and rename it to frontPlane. Select the side plane, and rename it from pPlane2 to sidePlane. Rename the top plane from pPlane3 to topPlane.
- You still need to place and scale these planes to align them. Take a
look at Figure 3-25 to size your
reference planes and place them as shown. There are two ways to position these
planes. You can manually scale and move them to visually match what you see in
Figure 3-25, or you can enter the exact values for
scale and translation as shown in Table
3-5 using the Channel Box or Attribute Editor (I discuss these windows
next before continuing with the box exercise).
Table 3-5: Reference planes: scale and position
Reference plane XYZ scale XYZ position Front 4.711, 4.711, 4.711 0.134, 0.017, –2.167 Side 4.856, 4.856, 4.856 –1.979, 0, 0 Top 4.28, 4.28, 4.28 0, 0, 0.133 - Save your work using the main menu bar by choosing File ⇒ Save Scene As. Name your work, remembering to use version numbers to keep track of your progress.
You can compare your progress to boxModel01.mb in the Scenes folder of
the Decorative_Box project on the book’s web page, www.sybex.com/go/introducingmaya2015.
Figure 3-24: The three view planes are ready and waiting at the origin.
Figure 3-25: Arrange the reference planes for the box model.
The Channel Box/Attribute Editor Explained
To the right of the panels is the Attribute Editor/Channel Box. This is where you’ll find (and edit) most of the information, or attributes, about a selected object. Pressing Ctrl+A toggles between the Attribute Editor and the Channel Box.
Figure 3-26: The Attribute Editor docked to the main UI
The Channel Box lists an object’s channels—that is, the attributes of an object that are most commonly animated. When an object is selected in one of the main views, its name appears at the top of the Channel Box, and its channels are listed. You can edit all the channel values and rename the object itself here.
Toggle on the Attribute Editor by pressing Ctrl+A. This window gives you access to all of a selected object’s attributes, whereas the Channel Box displays only the most commonly animated attributes.
Tabs running across the top of the Attribute Editor give you access to the other nodes related to that object, as shown in Figure 3-26.
You can click and drag the top of the Attribute Editor to undock it from the main UI. Once you have it in its own window, pressing Ctrl+A will open the Attribute Editor in its own window from then on. However, you can dock the Attribute Editor to the main UI by dragging it back over to the Channel Box area. After that, pressing Ctrl+A will toggle between the Channel Box and Attribute Editor again.
Mapping the Box’s Reference Planes with Hypershade
Now you’ll import the three reference JPEG images from the Sourceimages folder into
Maya through the Hypershade window. Click Window ⇒ Rendering Editors ⇒
Hypershade to open this highly powerful texturing window. In a file browser (Windows
Explorer in Windows or the Finder in Mac OS X) window, navigate to the Sourceimages
folder of the Decorative_Box project from the companion web page. One by one, select
boxFrontRef.tif, boxLeftRef.tif, and
boxTopRef.tif and drag them individually into the bottom Work Area
section of the Hypershade window, as shown in Figure 3-27.
Figure 3-27: Drag the JPEGs one by one into the Hypershade window.
Once you have imported the JPEG images, the Hypershade displays them in the Work Area. The Hypershade window has tabs along the top. Click the Textures tab, and you will see the three JPEGs there as well. Return to the Materials tab to display your scene’s materials, a.k.a. shaders. The bottom Work Area is just that: a work area for you to create and edit materials for your scene. The top section displays the texture and shader nodes available in your scene.
Now you need to create three new shaders to assign to the reference plane objects.
You can load the scene file to boxModel01.mb in the Scenes folder of
the Decorative_Box project from the companion web page or continue with your own
scene.
- Create three Lambert shaders in the Hypershade by clicking three
individual times on the Lambert button in the Create Bar on the left side of the
Hypershade window, as shown in Figure 3-28. Simply move the thumbnail icons around in the Work Area so
you can see them all. You use the familiar Maya Alt+ LMB, RMB, or MMB key
combinations to pan and zoom in the Hypershade window.
Figure 3-28: Create three new Lambert materials.
- Select the first Lambert node, and press Ctrl+A to open the Attribute
Editor. MMB+drag the top reference JPEG thumbnail icon (a.k.a. node) to the
Attribute Editor and drop it on the Color attribute for that selected Lambert.
Doing so will connect the JPEG to the color of the Lambert material (see Figure 3-29). Rename that
Lambert material to topImage.
Figure 3-29: Connect the top image JPEG node to the Color attribute of the first Lambert.
- Repeat step 2 two times to connect and rename the materials for the front and side views. Make sure you label the materials properly; it’s tough to tell the side and front images apart.
- To assign the materials, simply MMB+drag each shader’s thumbnail icon (or node) from the Hypershade to its respective reference plane in the persp view panel. Press 6 for Texture mode in the Perspective window, as shown in Figure 3-30. Close the Hypershade.
- Choose File ⇒ Save Scene As to save a new version of your work.
You can compare your progress to boxModel02.mb in the Scenes folder of
the Decorative_Box project at the companion web page.
Figure 3-30: The images are applied.
The Hypershade Explained
Just as the Outliner window lists the objects in your scene, the Hypershade window lists the textures and shaders. Shaders are assigned to objects to give them their visual appearance—their look and feel.
The Hypershade (Window ⇒ Rendering Editors ⇒ Hypershade) displays shaders and textures in a graphical flowchart layout (see Figure 3-31). The Hypershade window has three main areas: the Create/Bins panel, the render node display, and the Work Area. The three icons at the upper right let you easily switch views.
- The Create/Bins Panel The Create/Bins panel is divided into two tabs, Create and Bins, as shown in Figure 3-31 on the left side of the window. Selecting the Create tab gives you access to creating a variety of render nodes (shaders and textures, for example) by clicking them. The Bins tab adds a level of organization by letting you store sets of shaders in different bins to sort them. The bar at the top switches between Create Maya Nodes and Create Mental Ray Nodes.
- The Render Node Display Area After you create a render node, it appears in the display area as a thumbnail icon as well as in the Work Area and is available for editing. Double-clicking an icon opens the Attribute Editor. You can also use the MMB to drag any icon to the Work Area, where you can work on making or editing shading networks.
- The Work Area The Work Area is a free-form workspace where you can connect render nodes to form-shading networks that you can assign to your object(s) for rendering. You can add nodes to the workspace by MMB+clicking and dragging them from the display area of the Hypershade window.
Figure 3-31: The Hypershade
Organizing Workflow with the Layer Editor
Now that you have the reference planes set up and mapped, you’ll create display
layers to help organize the scene before you actually start modeling. You
can load the scene file boxModel02.mb in the Scenes folder of the
Decorative_Box project from the companion web page or continue with your own
scene.
Figure 3-32: The Display tab in the Layer Editor
- Select the three reference planes, and toggle off the Attribute Editor to show the Channel Box. Under the Channel Box is the Layer Editor. Click the Display tab, as shown in Figure 3-32.
- With the planes selected still, click the Create A New Layer And
Assign Selected Objects icon at the top of the Layer Editor, as shown in Figure 3-33. Doing so creates a
new layer for these three reference planes.
Figure 3-33: Click to create a new display layer and add the selected objects automatically.
- In the Layer Editor, double-click the name layer1 to open the Edit
Layer window. Rename the layer to referenceLayer2, as shown in Figure 3-34.
Figure 3-34: Name the new display layer.
- Toggle the display of this layer by toggling the V icon, shown in Figure 3-35.
Figure 3-35: Toggle the visibility of the reference layer.
- Save another version. You can compare your progress to
boxModel03.mbin the Scenes folder of the Decorative_Box project.
Display layers allow you to easily turn on and off the display of the reference planes as you model the decorative box. Become familiar with this feature early because it will be a valuable asset when you animate complicated scenes.
To add items to an already created layer, select the objects; then right-click the desired layer and choose Add Selected Objects. You can also use the layers to select groups of objects by choosing Layers ⇒ Select Objects In Selected Layers or by right-clicking the layer and choosing Select Objects. To change the name and color of a layer, double-click the layer to open the Edit Layer window, as shown earlier in Figure 3-34.
Modeling the Decorative Box
Make sure you are in Texture mode (press 6) so you can see the reference plane and the images on them in the persp view panel. Also be sure to toggle on visibility of the references’ display layer. In Chapter 4, I’ll cover in more detail the modeling tools you’ll use.
You can load the scene file boxModel03.mb in the Scenes folder of the
Decorative_Box project from the companion web page or continue with your own scene.
To model the box to fit the references, follow these steps:
- With Interactive Creation turned off, select Create ⇒ Polygonal Primitives ⇒ Cube. Position and size the cube to roughly match the size of the reference planes for the decorative box.
- To make it easier to see the reference planes and their images in
relation to the box you just created, in the menu bar of the persp view panel,
select Shading ⇒ X-Ray, as shown in Figure 3-36. Now you can see the box and the
reference images at the same time.
Figure 3-36: Set the display to X-Ray mode so you can see how the poly cube and the decorative box line up.
- Scale and position the cube to match the size of the main part of the box, as shown in Figure 3-37. Don’t bother sizing the box to include the little feet on the bottom of the box. Use X-Ray mode in the Side, Front, and Top modeling panels in Maya to line up the cube as best as you can. This will be the base model for the decorative box.
- Switch off X-Ray mode in your views (in the persp view panel’s menu bar, select Shading ⇒ X-Ray). Let’s work on the rounded bevel on top of the box, where the lid is. Select the poly cube, open the Attribute Editor (Ctrl+A), and click the pCubeShape1 tab to access the shape node attributes.
- Under Object Display ⇒ Drawing Overrides, check Enable Overrides to enable it. Deselect Shading to display the poly cube as a wireframe while the reference planes remain displayed as textured planes. This way, you can more easily match the cube to the decorative box (see Figure 3-38).
- Right-click the box and select Edge from the marking menu, as shown in Figure 3-39.
- Select the top four edges of the cube and switch to the front view, as shown in Figure 3-40. Using the front view, you’ll shape the top of the cube.
- Make sure you are in the Polygons menu set; then select Edit Mesh
⇒ EDGE ⇒ Bevel. Don’t worry about the settings; you’ll adjust them
after the fact. You should now have something like Figure 3-41 if your bevel options were at the
defaults. Because you created a bevel operation on the cube, Maya has created a
new node connected to the cube. You will access this bevel node to adjust the
bevel settings on the cube.
Figure 3-37: Size the cube to fit the box references.
Figure 3-38: Display the cube as a wireframe.
Figure 3-39: Select Edge from the marking menu.
Figure 3-40: Select the top four edges.
Figure 3-41: Default bevel
- Right-click the cube, select Object Mode from the marking menu, and then select the cube. Toggle on the Attribute Editor, and select the new polyBevel1 tab. Using the front view panel, set Offset so that it lines up with the rounded top of the box, at about 0.26. Set Segments to 12. Make sure Auto Fit, Offset As Fraction, and World Space are all checked. Also make sure UV Assignment is set to Planar Project Per Face (see Figure 3-42).
- In the side view panel, move the bottom corner vertices on the cube to line up the bottom corners of the box to the reference image.
- In the front view panel, move the bottom corner vertices to match the bottom of the box in the image (see Figure 3-43). Don’t worry about the curvature in the middle of the box or the feet just yet. Save your work.
- Let’s take a quick look at how this box will look rendered now. Click anywhere in the persp view panel to make it the active panel. In the Status line (the group of icons at the top of the screen), click the Render The Current Frame icon, as shown in Figure 3-44.
- Save your work. You can compare your progress to
boxModel04.mbin the Scenes folder of the Decorative_Box project from the companion web page.
When you rendered your work in step 12, the Render view opened to show you a gray shaded box with the reference planes barely showing, as you can see in Figure 3-45.
Figure 3-42: Set the bevel to fit the rounded top of the box in the front view panel.
Figure 3-43: Taper the bottom of the cube.
Figure 3-44: Render a frame of the box from the Status line.
Figure 3-45: The model thus far is rendered.
Status Line Explained
The Status line (see Figure 3-46) contains a number of important and often used icons.
Figure 3-46: The Status line
The Status line begins with a drop-down menu that gives you access to the menu sets in Maya. You’ll notice that intermittently throughout the Status line are white vertical line breaks with either a box or an arrow in the middle. Clicking a break opens or closes sections of the Status line.
Some of the most often used icons are identified here.
Scene File Icons
The tools in the first section of the Status line deal with file operations; they are
Start A New Scene (
),
Open An Existing Scene (
), or Save Your Current Scene (
).
Selection Modes
Selection modes allow you to select different levels of an object’s hierarchy (see Table 3-6). For example, using a selection mode, you can select an entire group of objects, only one of the objects in that group, or even components (vertices, faces, and so on) on the surface of that object, depending on the selection mode you’re in.
Table 3-6: Selection modes
| Icon | Name | Description |
 |
Hierarchy and Combinations mode | Lets you select groups of objects |
 |
Object mode | Lets you select objects such as geometry, cameras, lights, and so on |
 |
Component mode | Lets you select an object’s components, such as vertices, faces, UVs, and so on |
You’ll work with these selection mask filters throughout the book, but you will likely access them through marking menus as you have already done to select vertices and edges of a polygonal object. For a quick preview, hover your cursor over each of the icons to see a tooltip that gives the icon’s name and describes its function.
Snapping Functions, or Snaps
The icons with the magnets are called snaps. They allow you to snap your
cursor or object to specific points in the scene, as you saw in the solar system
exercise. You can snap to other objects, to CVs or vertices (
), and to grid
intersections (
) and
other locations by toggling these icons. Table 3-7 shows the various snaps.
The Channel Box/Layer Editor Icons
These last four buttons on the Status line (Figure 3-47) toggle between the Attribute Editor, Channel
Box, and Modeling Toolkit view on the right side of the UI. Clicking the first icon
(
) shows or
toggles the Modeling Toolkit. The second icon (
) toggles the Attribute
Editor, much the same as pressing Ctrl+A. The third icon (
) displays or hides the
Tool Settings window along the left side of the UI, as you’ve seen with soft
selections. The fourth icon here (
) toggles the display of the Channel Box, again much the
same as pressing Ctrl+A.
Figure 3-47: Attribute Editor/Channel Box/Tool Settings icons
Table 3-7: Snap icons
| Icon | Name | Description |
|
Snap To Points | Lets you snap objects to object points such as CVs or vertices. |
|
Snap To Grids | Lets you snap objects to intersections of the view’s grid. |
 |
Snap To Curves | Lets you snap objects along a curve. |
 |
Snap to Projected Center | Lets you snap to the center of a selected object. |
 |
Snap To View Planes | Lets you snap objects to view planes. |
 |
Make The Selected Object Live | This icon has nothing to do with snapping but is grouped with the Snap To icons. It lets you create objects such as curves directly on a surface. |
Editing the Decorative Box Model Using the Shelf
Back to work on the box model. You will use the Shelf in the UI to access some of the commands for the next series of steps as you continue working on the box. The Shelf runs directly under the Status line and contains an assortment of tools and commands in separate tabs, as shown in Figure 3-48.
Figure 3-48: The Shelf
You can load the scene file boxModel04.mb in the Scenes folder of the
Decorative_Box project from the companion web page or continue with your own scene.
In the following steps, you have to add surface detail to the model so you can more adequately adjust its shape:
Figure 3-49: The Interactive Split Tool icon in the Shelf
- Orient the persp view panel so you can see the bottom of the box and then select the box model. In the Shelf, click the Polygons tab. Double-click the Interactive Split Tool icon to open its Tool Settings, as shown in Figure 3-49. Set Snap Magnets to 0. The Interactive Split tool is only selectable through the Shelf and is no longer shown in any of the menus.
- Your cursor will change to a solid triangle. Click, as shown in Figure 3-50, to select a point along the bottom-left edge of the box that corresponds with where the box’s feet begin.
- Click a second point on the opposite edge on the bottom of the box to
create a new edge line, as shown in Figure 3-51. Click the RMB to commit the new edge line. This creates
surface detail along the bottom of the box for you to model the feet for the
box. This methodology is explained in detail in Chapter 4.
Figure 3-50: Select the first point for the interactive split.
Figure 3-51: Create a new edge line along the bottom of the box.
- Using the same procedures in steps 1 through 3, create three more edge lines for a total of four separate splits in the bottom face of the cube that line up with the legs of the box, as shown in Figure 3-52. The preceding three steps have created a surface detail called faces that allow you to create the feet for the box.
- Click the Select Tool icon in the Tool Box to the left of the UI
(shown in Figure 3-53) to exit
the Interactive Split tool. Your cursor returns to the regular Maya cursor.
Figure 3-52: Split the bottom face four times to create divisions for the box’s feet.
Figure 3-53: The Select tool in the Tool Box
Figure 3-54: Select Face from the marking menu.
- Right-click the box, and select Face from the marking menu (Figure 3-54). As you hover your
mouse over the parts of the box, the new faces in the four corners of the box
you just created will highlight in red. Shift+click the four corner faces to
select all four faces, as shown in Figure 3-55.
Figure 3-55: Select the four corner faces.
- With the four faces selected, go into the Shelf and select the Extrude
icon shown in Figure 3-56. This
tool is also accessible through the menu Edit Mesh ⇒ FACE ⇒ Extrude.
Figure 3-56: The Extrude icon in the Shelf
- Your manipulator will change, as shown in Figure 3-57. Grab the Z-axis move handle, and drag it down to “pull” the feet out of the bottom of the box as shown.
- By moving vertices, taper the feet to match the reference images in the front and side view panels; see Figure 3-58.
- Save your work. You can compare your progress to
boxModel05.mbin the Scenes folder of the Decorative_Box project.
Figure 3-57: Extrude the feet.
Figure 3-58: Move the vertices on the feet to line them up to the reference images.
The Shelf and Tool Box Explained
Here is a brief explanation of the tools and icons in the Shelf and Tool Box.
The Shelf
The Shelf, shown earlier in Figure 3-48, is an area where you keep icons for tools. It’s divided into tabs that define functions for the tool icons in the Shelf. Don’t worry too much about the Shelf right now; it may be better to use the commands from the menus first before turning to icons and shelves.
The Tool Box
The Tool Box, shown in Figure 3-59, displays the most commonly used tools. Table 3-8 lists the icons and their functions.
Figure 3-59: The Tool Box
In addition to the common commands, the Tool Box displays several choices for screen layouts that let you change the interface with a single click. Experiment with the layouts by clicking any of the six presets in the Tool Box.
Table 3-8: Tool Box icons
| Icon | Name | Description |
 |
Select | Lets you select objects |
 |
Lasso Select | Allows for a free-form selection using a lasso marquee |
 |
Paint Selection Tool | Enables the Paint Selection tool |
 |
Translate (Move) | Moves the selection |
 |
Rotate | Rotates the selection |
 |
Scale | Scales the selection |
 |
Last Tool Used | Shows the last tool that was used (shown as Split Polygon Tool here, sometimes shown blank) |
Continuing the Decorative Box Model
Back to work! You’ll be spending more time getting the box in shape. You can load the
scene file boxModel05.mb in the Scenes folder of the Decorative_Box
project or continue with your own scene. In the following steps, you will add more
faces and edges to the model surface (a.k.a. mesh) so you can add detail to the
shape:
- The middle of the box has a bit of a curve; you will need to create a
new edge line that runs across the middle of the box so you can bow out the
sides in the middle. In the Layer Editor, toggle off visibility for the
reference images by clicking the
icon for reference planes. Now you can see just the
model of the box. - Select the
box, and in the Polygons tab of the Shelf, double-click the Interactive Split
Tool icon (
) for
the options and set Snap Magnets to 1 and the
Magnet Tolerance to 0.5, as shown in Figure 3-60. (This tool is only
selectable through the Shelf, and not through the main menu bar as of Maya
2015.) You will be using the Snap Magnets setting for this tool to help you
place the new edge line you’re about to create. 
Figure 3-60: Interactive Split tool options
- Move your triangle cursor along one of the box’s edges. With Snap Magnets set to 1, you will notice the cursor will snap at the corners and in the middle of the edge. Drag the mouse along the box’s first edge to snap the placement in the middle of that edge, as shown in Figure 3-61.
- Snap a new split point in the middle of the next edge of the box, creating an edge line along one side of the box. Continue to snap two more split points in the middle of each remaining edge to create a horizontal split line in the middle of the box, as shown in Figure 3-62. When you place your last point at the same point where you started, right-click to commit the action. You now have a horizontal split along the middle of the box.
- Click the Select Tool icon in the Tool Box to the left of the UI () to exit the
Interactive Split tool and close the Tools Settings panel to gain more screen
space. Your cursor returns to the regular Maya cursor. Turn on the
referencePlanes layer to show the image references.
- Right-click the box, and choose Vertex from the marking menu. Move the new vertices in the middle of the box to bow out the box slightly. Move the rest of the vertices to match the model to the box images in the side and front view panels (see Figure 3-63).
- Save your work. You can compare your progress to
boxModel06.mbin the Scenes folder of the Decorative_Box project.
Figure 3-61: Click and drag the Interactive Split tool on this edge of the box and snap the point at the middle.
Figure 3-62: Create a horizontal edge line all the way around the box.
Figure 3-63: Adjust the cube to fit the reference images.
Time Slider and Help Line Explained
In this section, you will examine the bottom part of the UI where the Help line and Time slider live.
Time Slider/Range Slider
Running horizontally across the bottom of the screen are the Time slider and the Range slider, as shown in Figure 3-64. The Time slider displays the range of frames available in your animation and gives you a gray bar, known as the Current Time indicator. You can click it and then drag it back and forth in a scrubbing motion to move through time in your sequence. (When instructed in this book to scrub to a certain point in your animation, use this indicator to do so.)
Figure 3-64: The Time and Range sliders
The text box to the right of the Time slider gives you your current frame, but you can also use the text box to enter the frame you want to access. Immediately next to the current time readout is a set of DVD/DVR-type playback controls that you can use to play back your animation.
Below the Time slider is the Range slider, which you use to adjust the range of animation playback for your Time slider. The text boxes on either side of this slider give you readouts for the start and end frames of the scene and of the range selected.
You can adjust any of these settings by typing in these text boxes or by lengthening or shortening the slider with the handles on either end of the bar. When you change the range, you change only the viewable frame range of the scene; you don’t adjust any of the animation. Adjusting the Range Slider lets you zoom into sections of the timeline, which makes adjusting keyframes and timing much easier, especially in long animations.
Command Line/Help Line
Maya Embedded Language (MEL) is the user-accessible programming language of Maya. Use the Command line (see Figure 3-65) to enter single MEL commands directly from the keyboard in the white text box portion of the bar.
Figure 3-65: The Command line and the Help line
Below the Command line is the Help line. This bar provides a quick reference for almost everything on the screen. It also prompts you for the next step in a particular function or the next required input for a task’s completion. The Help line is useful when you’re not really sure about the next step in a command, such as which object to select next. You’ll be surprised by how much you’ll learn about tool functions by reading the prompts displayed here.
Finishing the Decorative Box Model
Now that you have the overall shape of the box finished, you need to add a few
finishing details to the box. You will round out the edges of the box so they are
not sharp, as well as add a line around the top of the box for the lid’s seam and
hinges. You can load the scene file boxModel06.mb in the Scenes folder
of the Decorative_Box project or continue with your own scene.
To make a model more dynamic, you can round or bevel the edges to heighten the realism of the model when it is lit and rendered.
- Let’s turn off the image reference planes again, but this time, let’s
do it a different way. Open the Outliner window by choosing Window ⇒
Outliner. You are already somewhat familiar with the Outliner from the solar
system exercise in the previous chapter. Select frontPlane, sidePlane, and
topPlane in the Outliner, and hide them by selecting Display ⇒ Hide ⇒ Hide
Selection or by pressing Ctrl+H. This way, you can individually hide any object
in your scene. Notice that when an object is hidden, its Outliner entry is
grayed out (Figure 3-66).
Figure 3-66: Hiding objects using the Outliner
- Select the box, and open the Attribute Editor. Under the Object
Display ⇒ Drawing Overrides headings, uncheck the Enable Overrides box, as
shown in Figure 3-67, to display
the box in Shaded mode again. This will help you see how the bevel works.
Figure 3-67: Turn off Drawing Overrides in the Attribute Editor to display the box in Shaded mode again.
- You will bevel the edges of the box throughout to soften the crisp corners of the cube that the real box doesn’t have. Right-click the box and choose Edge from the marking menu. Shift+select all the outer edges of the cube, as shown in Figure 3-68.
- With those edges selected, select Edit Mesh ⇒ EDGE ⇒ Bevel
. Set everything to the defaults,
but change Segments from 1 to 3. Click Bevel, and
your box should resemble the one shown in Figure 3-69.
- Select the cube, and delete its history by selecting Edit ⇒ Delete By Type ⇒ History. This process essentially cleans up the model and the procedures it has undergone. You’ll learn about History in the following chapters.
- You have one final detail to tend to on the lid. You need to add the hinge area you can see in the side view panel’s reference image. Select the reference planes in the Outliner (pPlane1, pPlane2, and pPlane3), and press Shift+H to unhide them (you can also choose Display ⇒ Show ⇒ Show Selection). Make sure you’re in Texture Shaded mode in your views (press 6) to see the box images.
- Select the box. Turn its display back to wireframe by going into the Attribute Editor and, in the pCubeShape1 tab, turning on Enable Overrides under the Object Display ⇒ Drawing Overrides heading.
- Select Mesh Tools ⇒ EDIT ⇒ Insert Edge Loop Tool. This
tool is like the Interactive Split tool in that it inserts new edges into a
model. Your cursor will change to the solid triangle again. Click the upper edge
of the box and drag a dashed line to line up with the lid’s seam in the box
reference images, as shown in Figure
3-70. Once placed and you release the mouse button, the edge line will
be completed, and the dashed line will turn solid.
Figure 3-68: Select all of these edges for beveling.
Figure 3-69: The beveled edges of the box
- In the side view panel, insert four more horizontal edge loops for a
total of five edge loops, as shown in Figure 3-71. This gives you edges with which to
create the wedge cutout where the box is hinged, and that gives you a little
indentation where the lid meets the box. You won’t create a separate lid because
you won’t animate the box to open or close, and you don’t need to see the
inside.
Figure 3-70: Insert an edge loop to line up with the seam in the real box.
Figure 3-71: Insert these five edge loops for the lid of the box.
- In the side view panel, select the appropriate vertices (see Figure 3-72), and move them to
create the wedge-shaped indentation as shown.
Figure 3-72: Move the vertices to create the hinge area in the back of the box.
- Choose Select ⇒ Select Edge Loop Tool. Select the middle edge loop you created earlier for the indent where the lid meets the box, as shown in Figure 3-73. Press R to scale the edge loop very slightly inward, as shown.
- Hide the reference planes again through the Layer Editor and turn
Shading back on for the cube in the Attribute Editor. Figure 3-74 (left) shows the completed box. But
there’s still a little snag. Notice the dark area where the lid meets the box,
where you just created the slightly indented seam line. This is because of
Normals. It makes the lid look as if it’s angled inward.
Figure 3-73: Select this edge loop, and scale it to create an indent line where the lid meets the box.
Figure 3-74: The completed box needs one more adjustment (left). The box now looks better after adjusting Normals (right).
- Select the box and choose Normals ⇒ Set Normal Angle. In the Set Normal Angle window that pops open, set Angle to the default of 30, and click Apply And Close. Doing so fixes the darkening, as shown in Figure 3-74 (right). For more on Normals, see the “Normals” sidebar. Select the box and delete its history by choosing Edit ⇒ Delete By Type ⇒ History.
- Save your work, grab someone you love, and give them a hug.
You’re finished with the modeling portion of this decorative box, and you’ve gotten
to know the interface much better. In later chapters, you’ll texture, light, and
render the box with photorealism in mind. You can load boxModel07.mb
from the Scenes folder in the Decorative_Box project to compare your work.
The Attribute Editor and Outliner Explained
You have worked with the Attribute Editor and Outliner several times already. Here’s a brief overview of these all-important windows in the workflow in Maya.
The Attribute Editor Window
Figure 3-75: You can keep notes with an object’s attributes in the Attribute Editor.
To use the Attribute Editor, select Window ⇒ Attribute Editor (Ctrl+A). The Attribute Editor window is arguably the most important window in Maya. As you’ve already seen, objects are defined by a series of attributes, and you edit and even set keyframes for these attributes using the Attribute Editor. Some attributes listed in the Attribute Editor are also shown in the Channel Box. These attributes, despite being shown in two places, are the same.
The Attribute Editor has tabs that correspond to the object’s node structure. You learned a little about the Maya object structure in the previous chapter.
You’ll see an area for writing notes at the bottom of the Attribute Editor. This is handy because you can put reminders here of important events, such as how you set up an object or even a birthday or an anniversary. If you drag the horizontal bar, you can adjust the size of the notes space, as shown in Figure 3-75.
The Outliner
The Outliner is perfect for organizing, grouping objects, renaming nodes, and so forth, as you’ve already seen.
To use the Outliner, select Window ⇒ Outliner (see Figure 3-76). It displays all the objects in your scene as an outline. You can select any object in a scene by clicking its name.
The objects are listed by order of creation within the scene, but you can easily reorganize them by MMB+clicking and dragging an object to a new location in the window. This is a fantastic way to keep your scene organized. Additionally, you can easily rename an object by double-clicking its Outliner entry and typing a new name.
A separator bar in the Outliner lets you split the display into two separate outline views. By clicking and dragging this bar up or down, you can see either end of a long list, with both ends having independent scrolling control.
Introducing the Modeling Toolkit
As you’ve seen in the interface, alongside the right of the UI where the Attribute Editor and Channel Box reside is a third tab called Modeling Toolkit, shown in Figure 3-77. This suite of tools makes polygon modeling more efficient since the most often used tools are centralized into one place. In addition, the Modeling Toolkit, when activated, allows for faster and easier component selection and editing.
In the Modeling Toolkit, the top half centers around making selections, while the bottom half lists important polygon workflow tools such as Bevel and Extrude. All of the Modeling Toolkit tools work slightly differently than the standard Maya tools of the same name; however, the results of the executed tool are identical. This tool set is explored in depth and put to good use in Chapter 4.
Figure 3-76: The Outliner
Figure 3-77: Modeling Toolkit tab
Summary
In this chapter, you learned more about the user interface and the primary windows used in Maya as you worked on modeling the decorative box. The user interface combines mouse and keyboard input as well as plenty of menu and tool icons that you can select and use to accomplish your tasks.
You’ll be quizzed in 10 minutes. Do you have it all memorized? Don’t worry if you haven’t absorbed all the information in this chapter. Now that you’ve had some exposure to the Maya user interface, you’ll be familiar with the various windows when you really get to work. You can always come back to this chapter to refresh your memory. Remember, you should learn the Maya program using its default settings. When in doubt, remember to access the Maya Help system (F1 keyboard shortcut or the Help menu in the main menu bar).