Mesh/Maya Tutorial Layout

Autodesk Maya is one of the most common software for Creating Mesh for Second Life as well as the leading standard for 3D modeling and animation in film, television, and video games. Due to the extensive capabilities it has for such a wide range of applications, navigating the wealth of features packed into this program and finding what is needed to specifically design for Second Life is rather difficult. The following is a collection of lessons to focus specifically on what is needed to use Maya to make Mesh for Second Life.

Video Tutorial

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Getting Started With Maya - Layout

Main Menu Bar

There are several levels of depth to the Main Menu Bar. All the menu sets after “Window” can be changed. Select the menus to appear in the Main Menu Bar from the drop-down tab in the upper left corner.

‘Polygons’ will be used most frequently for modeling mesh for Second Life. ‘Animation’ has a few helpful tools plus options for Rigging Clothing and Avatars. The ‘Rendering’ set has options for baking textures and shadows for your model.

Status Line

The Status Line displays a variety of options right below the Main Menu Bar, the most important being the Main Menu Bar selection. Most other actions here do not need to be used often for Second Life besides the snap tools.

Shelves

Each shelf contains different groups of shortcuts for tools found in the Main Menu Bar. You can also create your own Custom Shelf by selecting the small triangle on the far left of the shelves and selecting “New Shelf.” Find the tools you would like to add in the Main Menu Bar and add them by pressing shift + ctrl + Left Mouse Button. As you learn which tools you use most often, adding them to a shelf can save a lot of time in your workflow and make the other shelves almost obsolete to your workflow.

Tool Box

The Tool Box has a few of the basic tools such as the Move, Rotate, and Scale. You cycle through these much faster using the shortcuts on your keyboard using W (Move), E (Rotate), and R (Scale).

Main Window

Your main workspace is viewed by default from a Main Perspective Camera. You can move the camera around several ways, by clicking on the cube in the upper right corner of the window or dragging it around, by holding down alt + Left Mouse Button and panning around, or by selecting one of the camera tools from View > Camera Tools. There are also side, front, and top-view cameras that can be view individually or in a Four View, accessible from the Tool Box.

Channel Box, Attribute Editor, and Tool Settings

The are three small buttons in the top right, and each is very important and will be used constantly throughout the modeling process. Each can be dragged from its dock and either placed on the opposite side of the main window, or can remain overlapping on one side.

• The far right is for your Channel Box. This displays the basics stats for your selected model, light, material, camera, etc, including it’s position, scale, angle, and the history of modifications to it. Here you can make specific adjustments to these stats. As you make changes to your selection, the history will add up. You can access each until you ‘delete history.’

• On the far left is the Attribute Editor. This is like an extension of the channel box, giving a lot more depth to the amount of options available to your selection. A new tab will appear for each tool used or material added, allowing more options and settings to be adjusted.

• In the middle is the Tool Settings. When a tool is selected, it’s options will be displayed in the Tool Settings, allowing you to manipulate how the tool with function.

Hypershade Editor

This can be access from your Tool Box on the left as well as Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershape. This will be used for managing all your textures, materials, and lights in a very convenient and useful space. Learning how to use the Hypershade Editor is essential to creating textures and shadows for your model.

Outliner

The outliner can also be accessed from the Tool Box or Window > Outliner. This reveals a hierarchy of every item in your scene, allowing you to quickly navigate between different items as well as hidden ones.

Time Slider

At the bottom you will find a bar that is divided into increments. Each increment represents different frames that can be played back to animate a model. This is mainly useful for using with Second Life to model fabric using the nCloth system to drape things like blankets or clothing.

Command Line

Here you can use Mel or Python scripts which can be imported. One example was the sculpty exporter plugin for Maya made for making sculpties for Second Life.

Help Line

At the very bottom of Maya, you will find a bar that reveals various help information for where your mouse is hovering over.

Resources

• Create Mesh offers a variety of comprehensive, step-by-step instructional videos online, everything from basics, to modeling clothing and rigging to your avatar, rendering textures and shadows, and creating a physics model, as well as personal help from instructors.