Autodesk Maya layers

Click on the far right icon which when you hover over it says Show or hide the Channel Box / Layer Editor this should open a panel to the right of the interface (marked yellow). Make sure also that the Display tab is showing (marked orange). You can also click on Display > UI Elements > Channel Box / Layer Editor as seen in the image below which will display or hide the channel box. If the box is ticked then the panel will be displayed, otherwise with no tick the panel wont be displayed.

I have created two objects (sphere and a cube) and I am going to put them both onto separate layers.

You can select one of the objects, for this example I am going to use the sphere. With the channel box/ layer editor panel open along with the display tab, you can click on the Create a new layer and assign selected objects. This is located on the far right (marked orange). You will now see it has created Layer 1

The V icon means that the layer is visable, click on this to toggle the objects within the layer visable or invisible.

Layer is visable.

Layer is invisible.

The icon to the right of the V toggles the layer between template (T icon) and a reference (R icon).

Layer is transparent with a wireframe. The T is also known as Template.

Layer has a black wireframe around the object(s) within that layer, the R is also known as Reference) However to display the black wireframe (or R icon) around the object(s) you need to toggle between three options. Wireframe - This makes all the objects in the scene turn to wireframe. Smooth shade all - this makes all the objects in the scene to a default shade. Wireframe on shaded - This displays a wireframe on all the objects within the scene. These options are highlighted orange.

Wireframe on

Smooth shaded on

Smooth shaded and wireframe on shaded If you have smooth shaded and wireframe on shaded, and you have in the layer 1 transparent setting set to R for reference you should see the black line - second option of the layer 1 (Visable, display type)

You can now click on the icon and this will display a pop-up box where you can do a variety of things. You can also double click on the Layer 1 and it will also display the pop-up box.

Name:

This is what the layer is called, for example we could call this layer Sphere because it just has the Sphere in it. If we have multiple objects for example a table and a chair, we could call this layer Table_and_chair This is the T and R icons, also known as the template and reference. If you keep it as normal then the objects wont have the template/ reference wireframe. If the box is ticked then the layer is visible, otherwise if the box is not ticked then the layer is not shown. This is where you can choose what the colour of the wireframe for the particular layer. This is a great way to distinguish layers though a complicated scene without having to turn each layer invisible. If you want to use the default colour which Maya uses for wireframe choose the first option (one with the white / slash through it).

Display type:

Visible:

Color:

Now that we have created a layer called Sphere we can also create a layer called Cube, this can be done slightly another way but you have to add the objects to the layer.

Click on the third icon (highlighted orange) which says Create a new layer. This should create a new layer called Layer 1 this is because we have re-named the previous layer to Sphere. If you kept adding more layers without changing the layer name it should keep counting upwards (layer 1, layer 2, layer 3 and so on). Display the pop-up box again and call it Cube

You should now have two layers, one called Cube and another called Sphere, however only one layer has an object in - the Sphere layer.

Select the cube, make sure you have the Cube layer selected, right click and choose Add selected objects This will add the cube to the cube layer. You can test if the object is in the layer by clicking the V icon, toggle it off/ on. You can also remove objects by selecting them in the scene, right click on the layer and Remove selected objects, however just remember to check you are selecting the correct object(s) and the correct layer.

If you create another object, such as a cylinder with another layer, call that one cylinder and add the object to that layer, you should now have three objects with your scene and three layers (cylinder, cube and sphere).

Now that you have three layers you may want to sort them out alphabetically, (Cube, Cylinder and Sphere) or depending how you wish to sort out your layers is up-to you. The first icon (highlighted orange) moves the layer upwards in the layer list, if you select the Cube layer and click this button it will move the layer up one, so the list will now be Cube, Cylinder and Sphere If you now click on the Cylinder layer and click the second icon (highlighted red) this moves the layer down one so the list will now be Cube, Sphere and Cylinder.

Unfortunately you cannot group layers or put them into a folder to make it easier to navigate the layers.

Few helpful tips

1) Name your layers appropriately 2) When youve created several objects, put them into a layer it makes it easier to work with especially if youre creating a complex scene. 3) Order your layers appropriately (Chair seat, chair wheels, Chair arms and so on), this will make it a lot easier to find a particular object and tweak it. 4) Name your objects appropriately, select the object, make sure the Channel Box/ Layer Editor

is open and double click on the object name, when you double click you get a textbox to type whatever you want the object to be called.

5) Follow tutorials on the internet, there are some good ones on YouTube a) How to create a wine glass b) How to create a temple (part 1) c) User interface and controls d) User interface (part 1 of 10) e) Creating basic polygon shapes f) Creating a house 6) If you are going to follow tutorials there maybe some features which maybe missing due to either you having the up-to date version of the software or the tutorial is using an older version.

Major helpful tip to consider is when creating a new scene/ project it is ideal to create a folder for it. You can do this by File > Project > New

Name: Location:

This is the name of the project which it is going to be called Where about on the pc/ laptop the project is going to be saved

When you have defined those two you can click on Use Defaults at the bottom, this will create a series of folders for specific things, for example Scenes is where you are going to save the scene, Images is when you render all the render images will be in there, source images is ideal for reference images to be saved. When you have clicked on Use Defaults, click Accept and you will now be able to start creating a scene which you desire.

However just remember to create a new project each time you are going to create something new, for example you dont want to a 3D model of a car, to be in an Ocean scene. You can create multiple scenes within one project and then import the objects into the main/ master scene later on.