Maya Workflow Tips: Tools to get the job done faster (2023)

no matter what3DNo matter which app you use, it's always good to find new ways to streamline your workflow. Your workflow is extremely important as a 3D artist as it not only speeds up the process but can also help you create even better 3D artworks.maiais a powerful program with several tools that can help you establish a better workflow for your projects, whether forModel,Animationorreproduction🇧🇷 Let's take a look at some essential Maya tools and tips so you can start streamlining your workflow for your next project.

Tips for modeling workflows

When it comes to modeling, you know it involves a lot of vertex pushing and pulling, there's not much you can do to speed up that workflow. However, there are many different ways to help with this process, taking advantage of some of Maya's customization features.

custom shelves

The shelf really can be your best friend when it comes to modeling because, as you probably know, there are many different tools involved in modeling, from the Extrude command to the Insert Edge Loop tool. The list is long. Navigating through the various modeling menus takes a lot of time, and that time could be spent modeling. The bookshelf exists to give you quick access to the tools you use most, so make use of it!To create a new shelf, all you have to do is go to the shelf tab, open the dropdown menu and select a new shelf, name it and you're done! To add a tool to your new shelf, simply go to one of the menus and use CTRL+SHIFT to select a tool, for example the Bridge command, and it will be placed on your shelf.Pretty cool huh? Well, the shelf doesn't stop there, as you can create custom shelf buttons from regular commands, for example B. choose your rendering camera or toggle orthogonal camera views. To do this, open the script editor window, which is the little icon at the end of the command line.After opening it, go to Commands > Echo All Commands. This will open the script for almost every action you take.With Echo All Commands turned on, go to Panels>Orthographic>Front. You should see this command echo in the script editor. The resulting script should look like this,lookThroughModelPanel front modelPanel1;Just highlight this text and MMB click and drag it to your shelf.You can right click on the new icon and select edit and go to the bookshelf editor. There you can change the symbol label as you like, and change the symbol graphic itself. You can create a custom button for each command, as is often the case in Maya.

custom bookmark menu

Shelf not only speeds up your workflow, but you can also create custom dropdown menus for quick access to your favorite tools. If you don't know what a markup menu is, it's the viewport pop-up menu. For example, if you right-click on a polygon object, you will see a markup menu with objects such as object, vertex, edge, etc. Well, you can actually create your own custom markup menus in Maya. As you can imagine, custom markup menus can greatly speed up your workflow. Let's see how to set up a quick modeling markup menu using some of the most commonly used tools.Go to Window > Settings/Preferences > Markup Menu Editor. Once the Markup Menus window opens, select Create Markup Menu. This will open the box for creating the markup menu. You should see several gray boxes, this is where each command will be placed in the markup menu. To start adding things to your markup menu, simply use the MMB to drag tools from your shelf and place them wherever you want in the markup menu.For this example, the Insert Edge Loop, Extrude, Vertex Merge, and Intersect Faces tools have been added to the markup menu. After naming the bookmark menu, click Save.You should see the bookmark menu added to this list. Now all you have to do is define the hotkey command. From the Use Marking menu, set the Hotkey Editor from the drop-down box and apply the settings.Now go to Window>Settings/Preferences>Hotkey Editor. Scroll through the categories and find user tag menus.Assign the desired hotkey combination to the selected print command. This means that pressing these hotkeys will bring up your custom markup menu.

Save viewport layouts

Modeling often requires more than one viewport to be open. You may often have multiple viewports open while modeling. Consider leaving the front and side views open while locking the base mesh of an image layer. Well, it's a good idea to save different viewport layouts that you like to work with. Think about how you want to use your viewport for the texturing process. You'll probably want one window with the UV Editor, another with the Hypershade, and the next with the Perspective View. Start saving these custom layouts so you don't have to worry about them the next time you launch Maya. You can quickly choose your texturing layout when you're ready to texture and model the layout when you're ready to model. These custom layouts will save you a lot of time when you need to go back to a project.To save your layout, just go to Window > Save Current Layout. You just need to name it and click OK. You can find your new layout in the "Window" > "Saved Layouts" area.

Animation workflow tips

When it comes to animation, finding ways to speed up your workflow and get things done faster is just as important.

automatic key

Using the Autokey feature as an animator is actually quite easy. If you don't want to go easy on the "S" key, the Autokey feature is a huge boon.At first glance, the Autokey feature sounds almost like the hidden "Auto-Animate" button everyone wants on a keyboard. Unfortunately this is not the case, but the autokey feature is crucial for automatically setting keyframes when you move any piece of control gear. To set a keyframe in Maya, you need to press the "S" KEY to lock it. That can mean a lot of unnecessary "S" key presses, because when you think about it, when you really get into the details of an animation, for example B. Facial animation or polishing, you're going to be making a lot of small adjustments and pressing the "S" key repeatedly will slow you down.

move keyframes

The timeline in Maya can do a lot more than just set your keyframes. When animating, you'll likely need to adjust the keyframes, either moving them to improve timing or copying a keyframe to maintain that position or pose. You can do this on your dope sheet, but it's usually much faster to just work on the timeline.If you want to move your keyframes around the timeline to adjust the timing of an action, simply hold down the Shift key and click and hold the left mouse button on the keyframes you want to change. The selected area turns red and you can move the keyframes left or right, or select the two middle arrows to move them across the timeline at the same time.

copy keyframes

You will likely come across the scenario where you need to copy a certain pose to create a moving support for your character or object. This is done in a few seconds. Just select the keyframe you want to copy and hold CTRL+MMB. On the timeline, click and drag where you want to place the copied keyframe and press the S key.

Adjusting the timeline

When you're animating, the place you'll pay the most attention is the timeline. That's why it's useful to customize the timeline to suit your needs. You can go into the animation settings and set the timeline height to 2x. By default it's set to 1x, which is fine, but when you're animating you want to fully see the timeline, frame numbers, and keyframes within it.You can even go one step further and adjust the keytick size to make the red keyframe markers larger in the timeline so they are more visible.

scale your animation

Have you ever run into the issue where your team leader asked you to slow down the entire animation by 20%? Well, this might be a little confusing at first, but it's actually quite simple in the diagram editor. In this example, it's just a simple ball animation, but you can also do this with a complex rig. If you need to speed up or slow down the animation, select all the translation buttons in the diagram editor and activate the interval sizing tool. If you check off all curves in the Graph Editor, you should see a gray box around all keyframes. You can select the box on the right to smoothly speed up or slow down the entire animation by dragging the box left or right. This is a great way to make big timing changes to your animation without destroying poses or keyframes.

Editable motion path

An editable motion path is an amazing tool in Maya that will quickly become your best friend when trying to adjust the arc of a motion. You can select individual curves, e.g. B. hand and go to Animate > Make Editable Motion Track. This will create a red motion trail with each keyframe you create.You can see exactly where your object is moving in 3D space by the red line and you can see how good the arcs are. You can make changes to keys on the motion track and the animation will update to follow the new track. This is a great way to interactively adjust the arcs in your animation and get instant feedback on how the change affected your animation.Be sure to keep these workflow tips in mind, whether you're working on a model or animating a battle scene. Maya's tools help you speed up your workflow and get the job done faster. If you want to know more, stop by10 ways to increase your productivity in Maya.