Zeeshan Academy: Maya Video Training ::.. Lesson 3

Tuesday, 4 February 2014

Maya Video Training ::.. Lesson 3_Maya Viewport (Language Urdu)

The Workspace

The Workspace is composed of one or more view panels used to access different parts of the user interface. By default, only one panel is displayed when you start up Maya. This is the Perspective view, which is shown back in Figure 2-1. Figure 2-8 shows the Maya UI with three panels loaded: the Perspective view, the Hypergraph, and the Graph Editor. The Channel Box appears on the right side of the UI. This type of window layout may suit the needs of an animator pretty well.

In this example, the RT_shoulder object is selected. Its transform node is displayed in its hierarchy in the Hypergraph while the animation data for the object is displayed in the Graph Editor. With all of these panels available, an animator can select objects in the Perspective view window or the Hypergraph and use the Perspective view, Graph Editor, and Channel Box to analyze or make edits to the animation data. The exact use of these panels is discussed later in this chapter in the tutorial section.

The Channel Box

Recall from Chapter 1 that attributes of nodes are also referred to as channels. The Channel Box, shown in Figure 2-9, lets you view, edit, and keyframe all of the keyable attributes on any node of the object that is selected. A keyable attribute is an attribute that a keyframe can set on to enable that attribute to be animated. You will soon learn that most nodes contain a lot more attributes than those displayed in the Channel Box. However, by default, only certain attributes are set up to be animatable.

Maya’s Cameras

As you look at your scene through one of the view windows, it is important to realize that you are actually looking through one of Maya’s cameras. While cameras will be discussed in detail in Chapter 20, it is imperative that you learn right from the start how to manipulate your view as you look through them. The three most common tools used to manipulate a camera are Tumble, Track, and Dolly. The illustration here depicts these three actions as a camera that is viewing a cone object in the scene.

Tumble
Track
Dolly

The Tumble tool allows you to orbit, or rotate, around the camera’s center of interest. This tool will work only in Perspective view, because, for example, if you were to tumble in the Front view, you would no longer be looking at the object’s front—right? This tool can be accessed from the view window by choosing View | Camera Tools | Tumble Tool.

The Track tool will move, or pan, the camera from side to side or up and down. It can be accessed by choosing View | Camera Tools | Track Tool.

The Dolly tool moves toward or away from the center of interest. This tool can be accessed by choosing View | Camera Tools | Dolly Tool. While these tools are all available from the view window’s menu bar, you will probably find it much more efficient to use keyboard/mouse button combinations to access them. The following table describes the shortcuts for accessing these tools. (Note that the Macintosh actions appear in parentheses.)

ACTION TOOL FUNCTION

ACTION                                                            TOOL                   FUNCTION
ALT -LMB-click
( OPTION -LMB-click) and drag—                   Tumble        View your scene from
                                                                                           all around by orbiting

ALT -MMB-click
( OPTION -MMB-click) and drag                     Track          Move a view
    horizontally and vertically

ALT -LMB-click-MMB-click
( OPTION -LMB-click-MMB-click)                Dolly       Move the view forward
                                                                                     and back
ALT -RMB-click ( OPTION -RMB-click) and drag