Customizing Maya - Can I do...?
polycounter lvl 18
Maya has been aggravating me for way too long now and I'm trying to customize it. So far, I've happily changed the colours, a few settings here and there and got rid of some menus that I didn't use. But there are some things that I'd love to change, but haven't found any options for so far... which, considering Maya's loads and loads of menus, buttons and whatnot, doesn't at all mean that it's not possible.
I'm using 8.5, by the way.
1) The View Compass has a set speed to turn it around - can I change this? It's wasting a second of my life every time I want another view.
2) If I drag-select over a selection I already made, it deselects what I already had selected. I know Ctrl-Shift LMB-dragging does this, but can I remap that to just LMB?
3) So far, I haven't had to use the Status Line all the time that I've used the software - save for changing the Menubar between Polygons, Surfaces, Animation and Rendering. Is there any way I can still switch between these, but not have a Status Line?
4) I want to change the Hotkeys, and I want to do it thoroughly. I'd like to be able to delete every hotkey entry Maya has already, so that I can use List All to see which ones I've used already and have got left. I did a check, but the userHotkeys file only defines the ones that I've changed... so is there any way to get rid of Maya's default hotkeys?
5) Okay, this one probably isn't a customization issue, but it's really annoying. I'm assuming the yellow axis on the Move/Rotate/Scale thing on your selection is the selected axis, and I think it's very useful that I can use the MMB to translate the object with this quickly. The odd thing is here is that when I use the Compass, it automatically deselects any selected axis - I have no yellow arrow, cube or square anymore. Of course I can click on it or reselect the object, but it doesn't really make any sense that I have to do this.
That's all I can think of at the moment
.
I'm using 8.5, by the way.
1) The View Compass has a set speed to turn it around - can I change this? It's wasting a second of my life every time I want another view.
2) If I drag-select over a selection I already made, it deselects what I already had selected. I know Ctrl-Shift LMB-dragging does this, but can I remap that to just LMB?
3) So far, I haven't had to use the Status Line all the time that I've used the software - save for changing the Menubar between Polygons, Surfaces, Animation and Rendering. Is there any way I can still switch between these, but not have a Status Line?
4) I want to change the Hotkeys, and I want to do it thoroughly. I'd like to be able to delete every hotkey entry Maya has already, so that I can use List All to see which ones I've used already and have got left. I did a check, but the userHotkeys file only defines the ones that I've changed... so is there any way to get rid of Maya's default hotkeys?
5) Okay, this one probably isn't a customization issue, but it's really annoying. I'm assuming the yellow axis on the Move/Rotate/Scale thing on your selection is the selected axis, and I think it's very useful that I can use the MMB to translate the object with this quickly. The odd thing is here is that when I use the Compass, it automatically deselects any selected axis - I have no yellow arrow, cube or square anymore. Of course I can click on it or reselect the object, but it doesn't really make any sense that I have to do this.
That's all I can think of at the moment
.
Replies
1) Goto Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences > Camera category > Change 'Total time' to 0.2 or 0 if you really hate it.
2) As far as I know this is hard coded into Maya and can't be changed (someone correct me if I'm wrong)
3) Yes - just press the Function keys from F2 upwards and you'll see that it changes between the different menus.
4) I'm not sure I understand why you need to do this. As you stated already the 'List all' gives you a list of the ones you've changed. So if you've changed them they're obviously ones you use regularly. I've managed to get by for 6 years by changing what I need and use regularly. You can even bind a single hotkey to multiple commands by making your own custom marking menus - I posted on a thread recently sharing 3 that I use regularly link
5) Are you talking about grabbing and selecting Poly faces? By default they are set to Center and have a small dot that you need to click on or marquee select. You can turn that off by again going to your Preferences > Selection and having 'click drag select' checked and changing Poly Selection to Whole Face.
hope this helps.
1 and 3 are absolutely solved now. I don't know how I overlooked the Camera Preferences
I guess 4 isn't really necessary, but it would have been nice to start with a clean slate; currently I can't see which are the ones I've assigned and which ones are standardly assigned, so I have to actually make a clever plan on paper or look up if I've already used them in the Editor. Well, no big deal.
About 5: I'm afraid I worded it wrongly, because I only just found out what my problem actually was. I'm assuming the yellow axis on the Move/Rotate/Scale thing on your selection is the selected axis, and I think it's very useful that I can use the MMB to translate the object with this quickly. The odd thing is here is that when I use the Compass, it automatically deselects any selected axis - I have no yellow arrow, cube or square anymore. Of course I can click on it or reselect the object, but it doesn't really make any sense that I have to do this.
(I'll edit the first post with this explanation, the other one really made no sense at all in retrospect).
also, pink vertices, nicely complimented by turquoise mesh highlights, what an eye-sore. designed in the eighties? let me change it!