I'm compiling some tips and tricks into a database here:
https://aljavgames.notion.site/Aljavs-game-dev-tips-0ed8961228234ff28b571ed0c73472cc?pvs=4There are a few maya things there now might be helpful. Will add more. I'll post the Maya and other 3d specific things here.
The website is just a notion page made public. It's not for any professional benefit to me, just tips I learned that I wish would have learned sooner. If you have anything you think is good to add please let me know. You can also duplicate the database and keep copy in your own notion projects, download as PDF, CSV, etc.
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Anytime you customize Maya’s UI, there is a chance you will incur some strange bugs
The go to solution you will find 90% of the time you google search is “Reset the preferences”
And following that, a number of people complaining that this solution sucks because it means you lose all your customized settings
How to reset Mayas preferences
Go to Mayas folder in Documents
C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\Documents\maya
Look for the prefs folder
When Maya starts, it looks for a folder called prefs. If there is no folder called prefs, it creates one.
- To reset the prefs, you just rename or delete that folder, and then Maya will create a new default one
Okay solutionYou can copy and paste from your old preferences into the new preferences folder (your custom shelves, layouts, hotkeys, etc)
Better solution
Just delete the new preferences folder and rename the old one back to pref so that it becomes the new preferences again.
This solves a lot of common problems and does not require you to copy/paste anything
I recommend to try this first because it is the easiest thing to do and seems to work every time I have had to do it
BONUS TIP
Favorite that Maya folder so that it is easy to get to. When Maya borks itself it is shit icing on a shit cake to have to remember where the folder is and click through a thousand directories to get to it. Do yourself a favor.
But many of them are click and drag which causes wrist strain
You can do almost everything in Maya without having to click and drag the gizmo
Autosave and Incremental Save so that you dont lose work on a crash in Maya
Solution -
Autosave found in Windows -> Preferences -> Files/Projectis
Problem - I made a mistake an hour ago but only discovered it now. I wish I could go back in time to where I made that mistake.
Solution -
Incremental Save
Simple Version Control for Artist