Maya Hot Keys

Bobby J Rice 3rd

Hi,

I'm abit illiterate when it comes to maya. I've not used Maya in 3 years and I'd like to change up some hotkeys.


This is basically what i need.

ALT nav to "S"
Window resizing to "Tab"

My problem is finding designations of these in the Hotkey editor.

Please help.

Thanks.

Progg

Hey Crazy. I think I can help. First off let me say I love you work/portfolio. It is truly an inspiration to people just starting out in this industry like myself. Now to the help:

Alt Nav is on the Left Image (track,tumble,dolly tools : just rebind s+middle mouse/left mouse/etc,etc)

Window resizing is controlled by the same key bound to the hotbox. So if you rebind the TAB key to the hotbox control and tap that in the window it will scale to that viewport, whereas holding that key would bring the hotbox menu up. (i think that's what you meant?). SEE IMAGE ON THE RIGHT

Bobby J Rice 3rd

Progg, Thank you for taking time to help and, wow, thanks for the diagram as well.

For Nav function, i was able to input S but it never seemed to stay bound. I would bind S to the next function and the previous would erase its binding. Therefor only allowing me to use S on one of the 4 instead of all 4. Any way around this by any chance?

For the Hotbox, i opened the key field rollout menu but "tab" did not seem to be in the list.
up, down, right, left, f1-f12 etc, seemed to be the only available options. Any way around this?

Thanks for the help before and in advance. I'm on the right track. I just need to keep pushing untill i resolve this.

Progg

Well. I thought I knew a lot about Maya, but I think you have stumped me. I've tried editing the hotkey files as well as some of the script and it will not allow me to assign those keys... ha. Well, I think I may know a work around. It sucks to have to do this but you may be able to get it to work. I know for some old applications I had to use a hotkey mapper. You can try to find a key mapper? (I think this is what it is called) and remap Alt to S and Tab to Spacebar and run it before you run Maya. I know a few people that are really old school Maya users and helped author some of the initial stuff. I'll try to find out more about this and get back to you on it.

Progg

I sent an email to a guy that is really great with MEL scripts in Maya. Im sure I will get a good response from him about it and I'll get back to you on this.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

Progg,

Thank you for the help and taking the time regardless. Maya is certainly a program with many limits.

Hopfully it's just my lack of understanding rather than program flaws.

Thanks again.

MoP

It won't let you bind TAB to anything, as far as I know. This is because TAB is a reserved key by Windows standards to change the data entry field. You'll notice that if you hit TAB in pretty much any Windows application, it will move you along to the next data field, UI control or hyperlink.

You'll probably just have to get used to using a different key for toggling window maximise/minimise, but that shouldn't take long. What's wrong with space, are you using that for something else?
I ended up re-binding Space in Max because the default bind as selection lock is next to useless, and it's much easier than hitting the default of CTRL-W or whatever it was.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

Tab was the window enlarging function i used in softimage. It was easily accessible with the pinky finger, but I could probably get used to space again. I think i just don't like the Hotbox breifly becoming visible while switching views. It can cause accedental selection issues.

Out of the 2 functions i prefer using S over Alt because i like the positioning of the keyboard to my hand. I'm sitll trying to figure that one out. Problem i run into is i cannot map mouse keys with S. I type in S into the "Assign New Hotkey" Field but it does not stay bound once i move on to the other 3. I think the problem is related to binding S with mouse functions, but how do you assign mouse click functions?


MoP, Progg,

Is there a way to bind the marking menu "Vertex, Face, Edge" to letters on the keyboard?

Progg

Crazyeyes wrote: »

Problem i run into is i cannot map mouse keys with S. I type in S into the "Assign New Hotkey" Field but it does not stay bound once i move on to the other 3.

That's because ALT isnt bound by itself to begin with. It is bound Alt +MMB / LMB/ and RMB for dolly zoom and pan. There is a way to Assign S + the mouse buttons but not through that Editor. I'll let you know when I get a response from my friend.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

i figured that might be the case. XSI also handles the Pan/zoom function separately from Keyboard mapping as well.

Progg

Crazyeyes wrote: »

MoP, Progg,

Is there a way to bind the marking menu "Vertex, Face, Edge" to letters on the keyboard?

What exactly do you mean? Binding a key to enter edge mode or face mode on a mesh?

Bobby J Rice 3rd

yes

Progg

Vertex = F9, Edge = F10, Face = F11 by default. Just search for those in the hotkey editor and rebind them if that is what you meant.

More specifically under HotKey Editor it is "Status Line" on the left and the commands are SelectEdgeMask, SelectEdgeFace, SelectEdgeVertex etc etc.

erikb

These are some of the first keys I change myself as well, I need something like 1,2,3,4 for Vertex, Edge, Polygon, Item selection mode, and QWE for translate, rotate, scale. Don't like Mayas default setup at all. But haven't used Maya for years now, only used it on location not at home.

throttlekitty

Can you explain having a hotkey to resize windows? I'm curious as to how that works, or what you're doing.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

what really sucks about this is having to dig through lists upon lists of categories to find a single function. For example, the move, scale, rotate functions are spread out across different categories. It's a VERY slow process. Shame this is not like XSI's keyboard mapping: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/images/5/59/Keyboard_sm.jpg

I'm assuming Vertex , Edge , Face is equally spread out as well.

Progg

Well, I learned on Maya and I do enjoy it for it's ease of use in other areas, but when it comes to keymapping and customizing that is the one thing I absolutely hate about it. Luckily I'm pretty comfortable with the setup by now.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

Progg wrote: »

Well, I learned on Maya and I do enjoy it for it's ease of use in other areas, but when it comes to keymapping and customizing that is the one thing I absolutely hate about it. Luckily I'm pretty comfortable with the setup by now.

I used to be just as comfortable with its set up as well. Don't ever learn XSI. You'll NEVER want to go back.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

any idea how to set a "left, right, middle" click designation in the Hotkey Editor?

sama.van

Crazyeyes wrote: »

any idea how to set a "left, right, middle" click designation in the Hotkey Editor?

To be honest you should create a mel-script file with your personal modifications...

For example in your MyDocument/maya/XXXX/scripts directory, you will find userSetup.mel file.

Just open it, and add the following line :

source "Crazyeyes_PersonnalHotKeys.mel";

Close the file and create a new ASCI file you will rename as "Crazyeyes_PersonnalHotKeys.mel"

Open it and here you can create melscript command for creating a hotkey...

I always think this is better to resolve his own problem with mel script because this is only on file you can move and save very easy...

About the hotkey files for the preferences of Maya you will need to save 3 files for the hotkeys :
- prefs/userHotkeys.mel
- prefs/userNamedCommands.mel
- prefs/userRunTimeCommands.mel

I personnaly think this is better to have his own modification in one file...


This is very easy to create and will allow to do more thing later....


Here is a simple example you can copy&past in your "Crazyeyes_PersonnalHotKeys.mel" file and it will help you to understand how it works :

//-------- Skin Option ------------------------------------------------//
nameCommand
	-annotation "SAMA_SkinOption"
	-command "artAttrSkinToolScript 3 "
	SAMA_SkinOptionNameCommand;
hotkey -k "v" -alt -ctl -name "SAMA_SkinOptionNameCommand";

//-------- Mapping Editors ------------------------------------------------//
nameCommand
	-annotation "SAMA_UnwrapUVW"
	-command "TextureViewWindow"
	SAMA_UnwrapUVWNameCommand;
hotkey -k "g" -alt -ctl -name "SAMA_UnwrapUVWNameCommand";

//-------- Material Editor ------------------------------------------------//
nameCommand
	-annotation "SAMA_MaterialEditor"
	-command "HypershadeWindow"
	SAMA_MaterialEditorNameCommand;
hotkey -k "m" -alt -ctl -name "SAMA_MaterialEditorNameCommand";

Important note :
Every time you will read SAMA, it means this is a function of mine. then it helps to remember I created it and this is not a Maya thing. This is very important because sometime name you will give to your hotkey are similar with function name ....



And answering to your question about the LMB/MMB/RMB, it doesn't work like that in Maya.
You can assing a pop up menu to a press and release action...
But I personnaly never successed to understand how works the snap commands in Maya with the LMB.

I found the files in the ...\Autodesk\Maya2009\scripts\startup
- defaultRunTimeCommands.mel
- hotkeySetup.mel
- namedCommandSetup.mel

But really this is an hard part ... do not play Indiana Johns O=o...



What exactly do you want to assign to your LMB/MMD/RMB?

MoP

BTW, I'd recommend looking into the context-sensitive marking menus before getting too used to hotkeys for everything - I've found it can be a lot faster in some cases (and doesn't require hunting through the hotkey menu for commands!).

Basically if you have a mesh selected, right-click on it and you will get a radial menu. Notice that the left direction is "Vertex" mode. That means if you right-click and drag left really quickly, you will go into vertex mode. You won't even see the menu, since it has a delay so it will only pop up if you don't move your mouse.

This means that each direction (gesture) you move will call a different command.
And you can use CTRL+right-click for a "conversion" menu (eg. convert selected polys to vertex selection by CTRL+right-click then dragging left, same direction as just to go to vertex mode).

SHIFT+right-click gives you modelling commands, so if you SHIFT+right-click on a mesh with edges selected, the default action for moving right is "Bevel". Again when you get used to doing this quickly it can be super-fast and you don't need to use any hotkeys which saves your left hand some stress.

Obviously not absolutely every command is in the right-click context menus but most of the regular ones are, and you can use the Marking Menu editor to set up a custom marking menu that pops up when you press a hotkey, so you could assign 8 or more commands to a hotkey and associated gesture movement.

I dunno how many people use this functionality but the people I see using it are usually very, very quick.

BTW the same applies with Space bar for toggling window size, if you just tap it then the hotbox never comes up, it has a delay on it too so you actually have to hold the key down for a bit if you want the hotbox.

sama.van

I follow MoP for the Marking Menu!
I personally really use it a lotk with several sub menu and with a quick mouse draw you can access to the option without popping the menu!

But for quick tools like cute, extrude, etc... hotkey will be the more quick if you can access to your keyboard without giving a look!

Progg

I talked to that friend of mine that is very knowledgeable of Maya and he told me that as far as he knows, TAB is impossible to rebind in Maya unless you use a hotkey editor. Same with the S Key. It has something to do with the internal programming and the fact it is a major windows function key. You can try the .mel script, but it is probably going to override the key binding.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

Wow you guys are really rolling out the red carpet. Thanks for all this. It's alot to digest.

sama.van wrote: »

What exactly do you want to assign to your LMB/MMD/RMB?

I want to replace Alt with S and leave the LMB/MMD/RMB alone.



I think i might just start off with the easier mapping functions and go from there.

stuff like:

Move, Scale, Rotate = (CATAGORIE - Tools)

TranslateToolWithSnapMarkingMenu = W Change to V
RotateToolWithSnapMarkingMenu = E Change to C
ScaleToolWithSnapMarkingMenu = R Change to X


Face Vertex Edge = (CATAGORIE - Status Line)

SnapToPoint = V change to Alt V

SelectVertexMask = F9 Change to t
SelectEdgeMask = F10 change to e
SelectFacetMask = F11 Change to u

(Catagorie - Surfaces)
Change poly Extrude to Ctrl D release.


All poly edit functions like Slice, Cut, Bevel will get mapped to keys like
[ , ] , \



As far as i can tell, these are are possible to do. Only experimentation/ trial and error will tell. I'm a big keyboard fan.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

Shame maya does not have XSI's equivelent of the M tool.

It's a nifty tool that when turned on, will allow you to select any point, edge, or face without changing modes. snap, weld and move at any given moment without a mode change. I found this tool exceptionally powerful.

MoP

There is "Multi Select Mode" which sounds a bit like what you're after?
It allows you to select faces, edges or vertices without manually switching modes.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

oh nice. That sounds good. What's the default keystroke for it? Does it weld verts automatically upon snapping to other verts?

I hate that i have to try and change Maya so much. XSI set a really high bar and in a way really f'd me a little when trying to go back. But i'm glad you guys are so helpfull.

BTW, thank you.

MoP

No, it doesn't automatically weld verts on snapping by default, but you can download a script called Target Weld from CreativeCrash.com which will do it.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

sigh, all these additional scripts. Makes me think Autodesk is letting the Maya creators be lazy

Thanks MoP.

Progg

There isn't an auto weld function in Maya by default. You get use to it. I usually just snap all of the verts where I need them to be then highlight the whole damn model and merge everything lol. If you didn't know, "C" + MMB snaps vertices to edges/vertices.

I've been modeling in Maya for 6-7 years and I use to use Max. I guess I've gotten so use to the workflow it doesn't bother me. I don't use any custom scripts for Maya except a random numerical value script every now and then to get some non uniform translations.

pior

About the marking menus. Is there a way to make them pop instantly instead of that annoying delay? I know that if one knows the gesture, there is no need to wait for the actual display ; but since the display is so slow, I never got to learn the marking menus locations. If they were popping instantly, I would definitely learn them...

throttlekitty

I've been slogging through that issue lately, pior. In XP, I didn't really have an issue until some ATI driver updates. I've discovered lowering the poll rate for the mouse helps a ton, at least with this logitech mouse of mine. In Win 7, Device Manager > HID > Wacom HID Device can be disabled, along with the new windows options for pen flicks and ink.

I still have quite a delay, and even gestures won't always pop for me, so I'm still digging.

MoP

pior: but making it pop instantly would mean the gestures no longer work...

pior

I guess I would love to see a ghost of the marking menu about to appear with maybe a hint of the path to the gesture ? I know the only one I seem to remember is edge mode. Care to share the ones you use the most, guys? And a rough description of the flick you perform.
Thanks!

MoP

pior: I don't understand what you find so hard about memorising the directions. It's either left, right, up, down or 45 degrees between. Points of a compass.
The ones I use the most are the select modes and convert modes (left for vertex, down for edge, up for face, right for UV if i remember right) and holding CTRL will convert the selection to those modes.

SHIFT + down on a mesh is Extrude, SHIFT + right on a mesh is Bevel.
Another one I use a lot is soft/hard edges, SHIFT + down+right -> up+right for soft edge, SHIFT + down+right all the way for hard edges.
SHIFT+ up then right is Merge Vertices which I use a fair bit.

There's more but it's muscle memory and i can't remember the commands, i just do the gestures

If you just look at the direction you're moving in when accessing the "slow" menu with the buttons, you'll easily see what the gesture is. Just try them all out on a cube primitive right now or something.

pior

Well I know its kinda weird to explain but yeah I am much more likely to memorize something if I see it all at a glance (like on your post! perfect!) - as opposed to painfully waiting for a weird visual and laggy representation to appear on screen, then memorize that. Not to mention that it would mean having to explore all the marking menu hierarchy to maybe find something useful.

Thats why Max was so smart back in the days with the flash boot screen with hotkeys reminders. After a while you simply learn them because you see them instantly and feel like, 'oh ill try that one! looks handy'

For me its another example of the elegant maya core, very badly presented. They could have a gesture learning tutorial showing the most useful ones. If Max had such a feature you can be sure there would be a few help pages describing them!

Thanks for the post!

MoP

Fastest way for you then might just be to select a polygon object, and just swiftly move the right-click up, down, left, right and all the 45 degrees things just to see what happens

I think it flashes up one you highlighted after you complete a valid gesture.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

All that sounds ok. But i think i'll try and customize those features to one key stroke rather than multi-strokes. XSI was incredibly simplistic and stream lined that way and (for me) was less cluttered. I'll probably have to make alot of concessions and sort of down grade my modeling speed abit for the program but i'm sure once i get used to it , i'll speed up again.

It does seem that i can get most of the basic modeling functions tagged to the keyboard instead of the right click marking menu. Things like Bevel, Cut, Edge loop split, edge loop select, Vertex, Face, Edge, etc. I'm going to have to give up Alt being S and Space bar being Tab.

Progg

It's just the way it has to be sometimes when moving between programs. I know logically I could move to Max right now only from the knowledge I learned in Maya, but I'm restricted by different function names and hotkey setups. It is just the way it is.

Here's a real challenge. Go model in Houdini 9 (I had to do that for Visual Effects for 2 years). Talk about a backward ass setup.... it use to not even be able to UV Edit.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

Well, alot of the guys in this thread seem to make the case that maya is flexible enough to accomidate most needs. We'll see what i can pull off.

Chances are, where ever i go, i'll just take the free Mod Tool from Softimage XSI site with me and model in that then transfer the 3d to what ever package other companies are using.

Question:

I changed the vertex, face, edge mode to U -I -T and when i enter any of these modes, i seem to get a Symmetry and Soft Selection effect. How do i turn off soft selection and Symmetry in maya?

sama.van

Crazyeyes wrote: »

How do i turn off soft selection and Symmetry in maya?

- soft selection on : softSelect -e -softSelectEnabled 1;
- soft selection off : softSelect -e -softSelectEnabled 0;

sama.van

Crazyeyes wrote: »

I changed the vertex, face, edge mode to U -I -T

I think this modification is the most stupid one....

In Maya everything is connected ....

The W,E,R keys are not only for changing mode....
If you combine this keys with LMB, you will access to more parameter of this manipulators.


If you need to work on Maya learn the program as the program is.
And then with time you will understand why Maya has been created like that.

Starting to change all your keyboard will close to you lot of possibilities with Maya like the example I give on the top.


If you want some extra script it doesn't exist in Maya, you can add a button or hotkey Maya doesn't use, but do not change everything...


But Anyway, your Maya is not my Maya and I already know Maya


This is like you ask to me to start with Maxscript and I will change the Maxscript for getting back my Melscript on 3dsmax.. completly no sense hahah...

pior

Well if he is just starting there is no way he could know that these things are connected! Calling him stupid is a bit harsh :P

MoP

Pior, Crazyeyes: I just remembered since someone mentioned Soft Select and Symmetry (I guess you mean "Reflection" as it's called in Maya) - if you hold down CTRL+SHIFT and right-click you get the marking menu for that stuff - CTRL+SHIFT+RMB move down quickly toggles soft selection on and off, and CTRL+SHIFT+RMB move up quickly toggles reflection on and off.

Also in case you didn't know and you use Soft Selection a lot, if you hold down B and LMB+drag, it gives you a nice dynamic real-world falloff radius for the soft selection. This is something I really wish Max had (I wrote a maxscript a while back to do something similar but it didn't have a real-time, correct-scale preview like Maya's does).

tacit math

and also. one i didn't realize for the longest time. tapping b will toggle the soft select too ( save that half a second it takes to go through the marking menu )

MoP

Haha, I never knew that either! Nice tip

pior

Woah you guys didnt know THAT!!
:P

Yup B tap for toggle, B hold for drag resize.

Firebert

also holding down w+lmb is the same as ctrl+shit+rmb, which i guess just works better for me since if i am going to be accessing that menu, it will be transform related usually, so my hand just moves to the transform shortcuts automatically......n-e-ways....

i agree with sama.van to some extent. remapping everything might not be the best answer, especially if you start diving into any tuts. if they start reviewing any shortcuts, you could just end up even more confused... "shit, i remapped that one which is also tied to that one if you hold down that button with it"

maybe just me, but i tried remapping keys when i was switching from maya to max, and i ended up just restoring the default keys and learned the app as is first.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

sama.van wrote: »

I think this modification is the most stupid one....

In Maya everything is connected ....

Maya has ALOT of default junk built by monkeys. The keyboard set up is the biggest offender and I"m trying to cater my key strokes in maya like XSI or close because XSI has a better keyboard setup. But if it's that interconnected then i'll probably have to lower my standards until i get used to it as you said. I had no idea it was so interconnected. Thanks for clarifying that. It definatly makes sence why after i change something, something else freaks out.

I come from a Maya background. And coming from maya initially, and now knowing the differences in quality of all three programs, this explains why i want Maya to mirror xsi keystrokes as i felt (for me) it was the best modeling program.

I don't wanna slow down when i go to a new place. I want to maintain my current speed as my modeling speed alone is significantly faster in XSI than the rest.

Bobby J Rice 3rd

How do i restore default keystrokes for all keys at once in Maya? In XSI you are forced to save a separate file for keystrokes so as to not obliterate your original. Is Maya the same way? Is there a nice clean reset?

Firebert

in the hotkey editor, on the right hand side at the top... restore defaults, should do the trick. if worse comes to worse, delete your prefs files... if you delete all those scripts in the user>maya>version>prefs they will regenerate upon next startup.

i hear ya man. it can be set up the way you want for the most part, but you would really need to invest a good amount of time in switching keystrokes around with common used functions... it can be a big headache to deal with if you are trying to get back into the app... the payoff would be well worth it though after your re-rinse your feet

so are you doing this for a new gig or just preparation for just in case?