Need Maya 2008 workflow advice urgently

John Warner

hey folks. i've got a quick gig coming up here soon, and i'll be working in maya 2008. I know the software okay, and can model/unwrap/texture fine, for the most part. i have a pretty decent understanding of maya in terms of the whole "connected nodes with attributes" thing.... but what i'm lacking as of yet is to work out a real, efficient work flow -- i've still got that "modeling with broken hands" feel. i have a friend who tells me that there are like 8 tools in maya that you can basicaly use everywhere, and i was going to sit down with him and figgure out his workflow, but i might not get a chance to.

can anyone share with me some tips they've learned to become articulate with the software? I'd like to get a great flow figured out before i sit down and start work.

edit - i just realized how silly this thread tittle is. this is urgent guys. the French are coming.

DLoud

The best workflow I've found for modeling is to use the shelf for menus (outliner, UV texture editor, hypershade, etc) and custom marking menus for most of your tools. I have all the modeling tools on one marking menu (merge, append poly, insert edge loop, extrude, split poly tool, etc). Marking menus are the quickest way to navigate through tools imo. It just takes time to get used to the layout of them and where the individual tools are. As for navigating between views, just hit spacebar to go to the quad view, mouse over the one you want and hit spacebar again. It helps to quickly move between them. Aside from that just getting fluent with the hotkeys will probably help you the most. Hope this helps

ivars

Have a look in the Max vs. Maya thread, it has some great tips and scripts you might find useful.
My tips are:

Get familiar with the MiddleMouseButton!

Whenever using a extrude, bevel, merge or whatever, I find it quicker to just apply it with default settings and changing the values in the channelbox afterwards. Instead of going through the optionbox and guess blindly.

Snap! Remeber that you can snap in constrained axises, that you have component selection pivots, and that you can toggle "retain component spacing" in the move tool settings.
Also by default "j" toggles snap rotate, and discreet move.

It's hard to help with an actual workflow unless you tell us a little bit more what you're trying to do.

thomasp

Whenever using a extrude, bevel, merge or whatever, I find it quicker to just apply it with default settings and changing the values in the channelbox afterwards. Instead of going through the optionbox and guess blindly.

speaking of which - can you set the range for values for that somewhere? i usually end up with sliding between "by far not enough" and "totally through the roof", with little usable settings inbetween.

ghib

I created some user marking menus for some of the functions that I use on a regular basis (and also made some very simple scripts for things like mirroring and instancing etc) Just stick em in your 'My Documents\maya\x.x\prefs\markingMenus' then goto Window > Settings/Preferences > Marking Menu Editor. You should see disp_lay, object_facilities and tools_facility. click on each and set them to be used tin Hotkey Editor. press Apply after setting each.

Set them to hotkeys A, S ,D and you have loads of functions on just 3 keys. Marking menus aren't for everybody but once you get used to them and the fact that you don't need to wait for them to display really speeds things up.

download here

admittedly it looks like a mess displayed like that but you don't see it like that at all times. i.e. to rotate UVs Clockwise 90degrees just hold 'S' and flick the mouse diagonally down right and let go.


maybe they'll help.

John Warner

awesome! thanks guys. yes, this is definitely helpful stuff.

thanks a lot ghib, that's a great help! thanks for taking the time.

ivars

When sliding values with the MMB pressing Ctrl will increase the sensitivity (lowering each step by 10 times) and pressing Shift will decrease the sensitivity (multiplying each step by 10)

Mique

oh, using shift and ctrl when adjusting values was a new one for me

one thing that i use very often is that i isolate objects,

here's a nice script that isolate the selected objects, i've put this script on the i button, and it's toggles isolate select on and off. saves me a lot of time

$currentPanel = `getPanel -withFocus`;
$state = `isolateSelect -q -state $currentPanel`;
enableIsolateSelect $currentPanel (!$state);

Pseudo

My favorite button in maya is 'g'

It repeats the last action used.