2010

Table Of Contents
This chapter covers some of the fundamental concepts and skills for Maya in
four lessons:
Lesson 1 The Maya user interface:
Introduction on page 15
Lesson 2 Creating, manipulating, and viewing objects: Introduction on
page 29
Lesson 3 Viewing the Maya 3D scene:
Introduction on page 42
Lesson 4 Components and attributes: Introduction on page 60
Preparing for the lessons
To ensure the lessons work as described:
Ensure Maya is installed and licensed on your computer.
If you have not installed Maya yet, refer to the Installation and Licensing
manual that accompanies your Maya software package. It outlines the
requirements for installing Maya and procedures for installation and
licensing Maya on supported hardware platforms.
If you have never started Maya on your computer before, it will start for
the first time using the default preference settings.
If you have run Maya before, you should ensure that your Maya user
preferences are reset to their default setting. This ensures that the lessons
appear and work as described.
Refer to
Restoring default user settings on page 11 for instructions on
resetting user preferences to the default setting.
Unless otherwise indicated, the directions in this chapter for making menu
selections assume youre working from the Polygons menu set.
NOTE Before you perform the lessons in this book, ensure that the Interactive
Creation option for primitives is turned off by selecting Create > Polygon
Primitives > Interactive Creation and Create > NURBS Primitives > Interactive
Creation. That is, ensure a check mark does not appear beside these menu
items.
14 | Chapter 2 Maya Basics