Visor

The Visor displays textures, images, and shading nodes in the project directory.

Visor tabs contain a collection of items in the scene, or directories and files on disk. You can customize the way you view files, and create and customize tabs.

You can also -drag items from the Visor into Hypershade to create a new node, or onto a swatch in Hypershade to connect nodes.

To view an image

Double-click an image file in the images directory to view the image in fcheck.

To create a new tab

Select Tabs > Create New Tab.
Enter a new tab name.
Select a Tab Type and specify the corresponding options.
Click Create.
Scene

Displays a collection of nodes in the current scene.

Disk

Displays files on disk, such as a texture library.

Paint Effects

Displays Paint Effects files, such as brush settings.

Show Nodes Which Are

For Scene tabs, select to display only certain nodes types within a specified tab.

Root Directory

For Disk and Paint Effects tabs, either type the path name if you know it, or click the folder icon to browse through directories to select the directory where the items are stored.

Only Show Files (Hide Directory Tree)

For Disk and Paint Effects tabs, turn this on or off to hide or show the directory tree. This is especially helpful if you find you routinely work with files located in one specific directory. You can switch between viewing directory folders or just the files within that directory.

Menus

File menu

Import

Opens the Import dialog box so you can select a Maya scene file (such as a file containing a shader) to import into Maya.

Import Selected Scene Files

Reads information from another file and loads it into the current file.

Import Selected Image Files

Select an item from the pull-out menu to select how to import image files. Include Placement is on by default.

As Normal: For normal textures, Maya applies a texture map according to the geometry characteristics—textures are placed onto polygons based on UV information or placed onto NURBS surfaces based on parametrized information.
As Projection: To create projection textures, Maya applies a texture map to the surface of a 3D object by projecting a 2D texture into 3D space—in other words, Maya projects the texture maps independently of the geometry characteristics.

Tip
For textures created with As Projection turned on, you need to explicitly connect the texture to the bump so the texture is visible in the bump map.
As Stencil: Lets you place an image file or texture on a surface and manipulate its placement and size to look like a label. You can use masking techniques to hide unwanted parts of the image.
Include Placement: When on, Maya automatically creates a texture placement node when you create a texture render node. The default setting is on.

Export Selected Network

Exports the selected item into a new file. The file browser opens to its best guess directory, but can browse to any directory, or cancel, before exporting.

View menu

Frame Selected: Frames only the selected nodes in the current Visor layout.
Frame All: Frames all the nodes displayed in the current Visor layout.

Tabs menu

Each tab contains the nodes that make up the current scene. These options let you create new tabs and customize the default tabs.

Create New Tab: You can create and name tabs to help you organize a scene’s rendering elements.
Move Tab Left/Right: Select a tab then select one of these options to re-arrange the tabs.
Rename Tab: Select a tab then select this option to rename it.
Remove Tab: Select a tab then select this option to remove it.
Revert to Default Tabs: Removes new tabs and reverts to the default organization.
Current Tab Options: Select a tab, then select one of these options to control the display: Show Directories Only, Show Files Only, Show Both, Refresh File Listing.