Maya Frequently Asked Questions

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Q: I'm trying to follow a tutorial and it says I need to go to the "Modeling" menu set, its not there, why?

Menu set selection

A: In later versions the menu set "Modeling" was split up into "Polygons" and "Surfaces". If this doesn't sit well with you then you can choose "customize" and create your own set.

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Q: I clicked something or pressed a key and my shelf and toolbar thing went missing, what do I do?

A: If you pressed Ctrl + Space then you've hidden most of the UI, pressing it again will bring it back.  Also you can bring back individual portions of the interface by going  to Display>UI Elements and checking on whatever you need or just show/restore them all and that option is found under the same Display menu. If you've hidden the main menus then you can access this display menu from the hotbox, simply hold down the space bar.

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Q: My models have jagged edges in the rendered image, why?

jagged edges and noise

A: The anti-aliasing samples are too low, check the render settings but just don't go crazy since these will beef up render times.  I think anything over 2 max samples is overkill in most instances.  Anti-aliasing also affects noise and "graininess".
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Q: Why are the points/edges/etc I select on my model colored orange/red/yellow, and why does moving them affect more of my model than I want them to?

Soft selection activated

A: You turned on Soft Selection [most likely by hitting the "b" key] Hitting the "b" key again will turn it off, or you can open the tool settings and toggle it there.


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Q: Where did my Mental Ray renderer go?

A: It's probably not loaded, go to Window>Settings/Preferences> Plug-in Manager and look for "Mayatomr.mll".

Loading Mental Ray

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Q: I can't see my manipulators why why why?

Missing manipulators

A: Hit the + or - key to resize the them.  Also, if the rotate tool just won't show, it could be a display problem, might need to update or roll back your graphic drivers. In all fairness, I've closed and reopened Maya and had the problem go away [yeah what the hell right?]

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Q: Why I can't I see my texture on my model?

A: Hit "6" on the keyboard, this goes into hardware texturing mode. If that doesn't help, open the Attribute Editor on the material and scroll down to the "Hardware Texturing" section and make sure the "Textured channel" is NOT set to "none". If that doesn't work, then check the "Shading" menu in your panel[s] and make sure "use default material" is NOT checked.

Troubleshooting texture display

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Q: Why is my texture acting weird in the viewport when I move my model in 3D space?

A: Chances are you need to delete history on the model.

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Q: Why do my objects disappear into 3D space when I zoom out?

A: This happens when the camera "clips" objects off for the sake of performance, select the camera, open the Attribute Editor and increase the far "clip plane".

Geometry disappears into 3D space

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Q: Why is my animated object moving through my texture in my rendered animation?

A: Chances are, you plugged a 3D texture or a projection into the shader and its staying stationary while your model is moving, so the texture placement node needs to be parented to the object.

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Q: Why is the texture on my model all squashed and stretched?

A: Your UV's aren't laid out properly, look into UV Mapping. Going into detail on this subject isn't FAQ material so tough break.


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Q: I just created a new cube and I'm trying to change the number of divisions in the channel box but there are no inputs why?

Missing inputs

A: You need to turn on construction history in order for Maya to keep track of such things. It's the little icon in the upper right side portion of the screen with the white page on it. If you're using a version previous to 2009, then the icon looks more like a scroll than a flat sheet of paper.

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Q: Why does my image within the Maya render view have jagged edges no matter what renderer and render settings I use?

A: If you've already cranked up your anti-aliasing settings then chances are its something really simple like the rendered image is being scaled down to fit inside the render window, so all you need to do is hit the "1:1" icon to display the actual size.

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Q: Why does my model have these blocky patterns when I render it?

Overlapping faces

A: More than likely, you have a duplicate of your model in the same exact position as the original or your model has laminar faces (faces that sit in the exact same space). Identical geometry sitting on top of each other can result in garbled shading in the rendered image.


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Q: Why are my raytraced shadows so grainy?

A: The sampling is too low. Increase the shadows rays on the light[s], same goes for its "Area Light" samples of the Mental Ray section if you checked it on. These attributes in addition to the anti-aliasing in the render settings can eliminate grain at the cost of render speed so being careless with sampling can make you want to drop kick your machine.

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Q: Why is my glass rendering black?

Low trace depth

A: Could be one or a combination of reasons.

-raytracing isn't turned on in the render settings


-even if its turned on, the refraction traces may be too low to pass through the surfaces [also, max trace settings must be high enough to cover both reflection and refraction traces].

-if Final Gathering is enabled the tracing should be checked as well, its very much like the raytrace settings.

-last but not least, the material's refraction tracing. Refraction Limit on standard Maya shaders and Max Trace Depth on mia_materials.

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Q: How do I make a chrome material?

A: Chrome is highly reflective, but in the 3D world, a highly reflective shader looks kind of crappy without an environment to reflect, which is something that is taken for granted in the real world where we are automatically surrounded by tiles, ceilings, desks, windows, trees, sky, buildings etc. Making chrome is as easy as making a dark colored shader and giving it high reflectivity. Why make the shader dark? Because if you don't, the reflection will be added onto the color and the shader will look brighter and not as reflective as it should, its especially obvious on the standard Maya shaders [of course some degree of reflection blurring will make it look better -Mental Ray can do this but Maya Software renderer can't].

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Q: What's "Three point lighting"?

A: It's a lighting setup that uses one light as a key light or your main source of light. Another for a "fill" light, you know, the light that illuminates the spots where the key light doesn't hit, to eliminate pitch black areas and simulate indirect illumination. And a "rim" light that is placed more in the back of the subject to create an outline that accents the subject's contours.

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Q: What are the differences between polygons subdivisions NURBS?

A: Polygons are surfaces made up of faces, each face is an enclosure of edges, whether it be three edges, four edges, or more(n-gons). Each edge runs in a straight line so more of them are required to form curvy surfaces, so it's takes less geometry to create hard, sharp surfaces.

NURBS geometry is made of patches generated from curves. They easily form curvy rounded surfaces, placing points closer together enables the user to create sharper corners.

Subdivisional surfaces allow the user to focus on detailing regions instead of making the entire mesh heavier, hence the name subdivision. It feels like a hybrid of NURBS and polygons, easily generating smooth and rounded surfaces like NURBS while utilizing many polygonal tools.

So they are all capable of taking you to the same destination just using a different road, it's not uncommon for a modeler to convert back and forth between different geometry types. But at the end of the day it's all about your preference so try them all.

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Q: Why do my models stretch and distort when I try to rotate them?

A: Sounds like a case of double grouping, check your Outliner and ungroup them.

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Q: Which is better, Max, Maya or XSI?

A: They all can do pretty much the same things and they all have not so perfect sides to them, there are trials and learning editions, try them, find what suits you best and make a decision. It doesn't stop with those three programs, there is Lightwave, Cinema 4D and Blender (which is taking big steps and is free).


Yeah yeah, I know the Maya icon is old but its my favorite <3.