Besides mesh options you have components and tools and again, this is just a list of functions from top drop-down menus carefully selected by Autodesk to save time. Next you have your mesh options, this section has a list of functions from the Mesh menu to save time dragging your mouse and searching for them in the sub menu. You have symmetry, selection converters, and so on. You have a list of selection modes, options, and constrains this is basically the main thing when you model and Autodesk solves it. Modeling Toolkit is a very powerful box of tools where you will find all you need for fast and efficient modeling.

Like I said in the introduction, Maya is a huge ecosystem with a lot of functions in every 3D aspect Autodesk did a great job to manage all of them to a logical set up. You can easily set up your custom shelf by clicking on any function with CTRL + SHIFT, and basically build your own box of tools in no time. Of course you have many more tabs and many more ways to get into functions, but lets stick to basics just for now. In Modeling sub menu you will see 3 main tabs for polygonal modeling: Mesh, Edit Mesh, and Mesh Tools, as well one for Curves and one for Surfaces. You have 5 main UI set ups: Modeling, Rigging, Animation, FX, and Rendering. For example, I created this map for a client using Mayas powerful modeling functions.Īt first look Maya UI can be a bit threatening, but when you break it into parts, its actually not that scary and complex. Autodesk Maya is an old player in the VFX world, and because of that there is a lot of documentation, tutorials, problem related posts, plugins and scripts things that will drastically improve the speed of your work and learning curve with it. You will see a lot of pipelines in large and small studios build on Maya, adding their own plugins and establishing work routines. But Maya is a lot more than a modeling software Maya is an ecosystem. Every software has its own strengths and weaknesses and Maya is no exception.

Mesh enabler autodesk 2018