Hypergraph overview
 
 
 

Window > Hypergraph: Hierarchy

Window > Hypergraph: Connections

In scene view: Panels > Hypergraph Panel > Hypergraph Hierarchy

Presents a graphical view of the scene hierarchy or dependency graph, with boxes representing nodes and lines representing relationships.

Related topics

Toolbar

Enter text to filter listing

You can enter syntax to limit the node listing in your Hypergraph panel. The syntax is case-sensitive. Every listed child node is displayed with its corresponding parent node even if the parent node would not otherwise be shown because of the filter.

For example, P* shows only the nodes beginning with the letter P.

Graph area

The graph area shows the network of boxes representing nodes, and lines connecting them representing relationships. You can use the Hypergraph to view and edit hierarchical relationships or dependency relationships (input and output connections between attributes).

Use the camera move keys ( + and + ) to move around the graph the same way you move around in view panels.

Hypergraph menus

Edit Menu

Rename

Rename the selected node.

Expand

Expand a node to one level below.

Collapse

Collapse the selected node.

Expand All

Expand all subnodes below a node.

Show Selected

Display and expand a node that is currently not visible in the graph.

Container

Contains options to manage containers.

Create Container

Adds a new container node to the Graph area and adds any selected nodes to it. For more information see Assets > Create Container.

Transfer Container Values

Transfers the values of any identically named published attributes from the first container selected to the second. For more information see Edit > Transfer Attribute Values.

Publish Connections

Publishes all attributes connected to a node outside the selected container(s). This includes both incoming and outgoing connections.

Publish Parent Anchor

Sets a node to retain its plug information. This allows you to perform hierarchical or name changes to the node without breaking its relationship to future child nodes.

Publish Child Anchor

Sets a node to retain its plug information. This allows you to perform hierarchical or name changes to the node without breaking its relationship to future parent nodes.

Unpublish Parent Anchor

Resets the node currently published as the parent of the container to not retain its plug information.

Unpublish Child Anchor

Resets the node currently published as the child of the container to not retain its plug information.

Set Current Container

Lets you set a container in the scene as the current container. For more information see Assets > Set Current Container.

Remove Container

Deletes the selected container node from the Hypergraph. Any nodes within the selected container are moved out of the container before it is deleted.

When the container node is nested within one or more other container nodes, the nodes within the container are moved one level up in the hierarchy.

To delete a container node and its contents, press the Delete key.

Collapse Container

Reduces the selected container node to the size of one node. The container node is easily differentiated from other nodes in the Input/Output connections graph via its thick, round-cornered border.

Expand Container

Increases the display size of the selected container node(s) to display all of the nodes contained within it.

Reset Freeform Layout

Display the Hypergraph hierarchy as the last saved freeform layout.

Clear View

Clear the current hierarchies and return an empty Hypergraph panel.

Attributes

Open the attribute editor showing information of a selected node.

View Menu

Previous View

Show the previous view.

Next View

Show the next view.

Frame All

Zoom in to view the entire Hypergraph within the frame of the panel.

Frame Selection

Zoom in to view only the selected nodes.

Frame Hierarchy

Zoom in to view only the hierarchies of the selected nodes

Frame Branch

Zoom in to view only the branches of the selected nodes.

Set Background Image

Lets you import and adjust the position of an image that displays behind the nodes within your Hypergraph panel when displaying in either the dependency graph mode (input/output connections) or for scene hierarchy mode when set to Freeform display.

Background images can be displayed in both scene hierarchy and input and output connections display modes. You can only use image formats accepted by Maya. For more information, see Supported file formats.

Background images are saved when using the Bookmarks feature.

Image

Lets you specify the background image to load. Click the Load button to select an image from either your local drive or network.

Horizontal position

Adjust the horizontal position of the currently loaded image by using the slider or typing a number into the text field.

Vertical position

Adjust the vertical position of the currently loaded image by using the slider or typing a number into the text field.

Scale

Adjust the scale of the currently loaded image uniformly by using the slider or typing a number into the text field.

Fit to width

Scales the background image to fit exactly within the entire width of the current Hypergraph panel while maintaining the original aspect ratio of the image.

Fit to height

Scales the background image to fit exactly within the vertical region of the current Hypergraph panel while maintaining the original aspect ratio of the image.

NoteResizing the Hypergraph panel may require readjustment of the Horizontal, Vertical, and Scale settings in order to match your node layout.
Show Background Image

Toggles the display of the currently loaded background image on or off.

Bookmarks Menu

Create Bookmark

Store the current node arrangements as a quick reference. Select options to name the bookmark, otherwise the bookmark is assigned a default name.

Bookmark Editor

Edit the stored bookmark.

Graph Menu

Scene Hierarchy

The scene hierarchy is the grouping of child nodes under parent nodes. For more details, see Scene hierarchy.

Input and Output Connections/Input Connections/Output Connections

You can show Input and Output connections to a selected node. An Input connection is a node that provides input to the selected node. An Output connection is a node that receives input from the selected node.

To see connections to most objects, you must select the shape node of the object rather than the transform node.

When you display output connections for a node, you see the chain of nodes that output to each other, all the way through to the end receiving node.

Example

You create a wine glass surface by revolving a NURBS curve. The following dependency graph appears when you select the revolved surface’s shape node and select Graph > Input and Output Connections:

NoteThis graph is shown vertically. By default, a dependency graph displays horizontally.

The connection lines between nodes show connection direction. The connection line originates at a node that outputs data, and the line points to a node receiving the data as input.

The example graph shows that a curve provides input to the revolve operation node. The revolve operation generates a revolved shape—the wine glass. The revolved shape is connected to initialShadingGroup, which sets the default color of all geometric shapes created in Maya.

If you move your mouse pointer over a connection line, small white boxes appear next to the input node and output node. The white box next to an input node shows the node’s name and attribute that receives the input.

The white box next to an output node shows the node’s name and attribute that provides the output. Each node name and attribute is separated by a period.

In many cases, you must be familiar with Maya’s internal operation details to understand the node and attribute names you see in the white boxes.

NoteThe dependency graph and scene hierarchy display animated nodes as slanted boxes. If you animate a node with an expression, it displays a regular rectangle rather than a slanted box. All other animation techniques display a slanted box. Specifically, a slanted box indicates Ball has a param curve connected to it.
Example

Keyframe the translateX attribute of a NURBS sphere named Ball. If you select Ball’s transform node and display all Input and Output Connections, this graph appears:

The slanted box indicates Ball’s transform node has been animated. The graph doesn’t indicate which type of animation technique controls the attribute.

Connection line colors

The connection lines are color-coded to indicate the type of attribute that is connecting the nodes. In this case, attribute types are single, double, triple, data, and array.

See the following table for an explanation.

Default Color Attribute Type Example Attributes
Blue Single transform.translateX, makeNurbsSphere.radius
Cyan Double file.repeatUV, cameraShape.cameraAperature
Green Triple transform.translate, lambert.color
Magenta Data nurbsSurface.create, makeNurbsSphere.outputSurface
Red Array particleShape.position, particleShape.velocity

You can change these default colors in the Colors window ( Window > Settings/Preferences > Color Settings).

TipA dotted line in the scene hierarchy indicates a connection to an underworld node or an instanced object.
Layout

Restores the hierarchy arrangement to the original Input and Output Connections layout.

Rebuild

Update your scene hierarchy or dependency graphs when it does not update automatically. For example, if you add an object to a scene and it doesn’t appear in the scene hierarchy, rebuild the graphs to make the scene hierarchy aware of the object’s presence.

Increase/Decrease Depth Traversal

You can limit the number of nodes graphed in the connection mode of the Hypergraph. By default, depth traversal is unlimited (set to -1).

Use the Hypergraph > Graph > Increase Depth Traversal and Hypergraph > Graph > Decrease Depth Traversal to increase or decrease the depth traversal. You can also use the arrows or enter an integer into the numeric field of the Hypergraph menu bar to change the depth traversal value. Click the Unlimited button or set the number to -1 to remove the depth traversal limit.

NoteUse the MEL command Hypergraph, -lgt/limitGraphTraversal, to limit the number of nodes only in connection mode. The flag takes a single integer value.

hyperGraph -e -lgt 0 [HyperGraphControlName];

This sets the traversal limit to 0 for the specified Hypergraph.

The default value is set to -1 (no depth limit).

Rendering Menu

Show ShadingGroups/ Show Materials/ Show Textures/ Show Lights

You can show connections to shading groups, materials, textures, and lights. See Rendering for details.

Example

Suppose you create a NURBS sphere, then use the Hypershade to create and assign a Phong shading group to it. Next you use the Hypershade to create a 2D checker texture and assign it to the Phong node.

The Hypershade displays the following contents:

The following dependency graph appears when you select Rendering > Show Shading Groups in the Hypergraph.

The connection lines between nodes show connection direction. The connection line originates at a node that outputs data, and the line points to a node receiving the data as input. The example above shows that the flow of output goes from the phong1SG shading group to the renderPartition.

Although you can see most of the same nodes in the Hypershade, the dependency graph shows the nodes in a flow diagram. This makes it easy to see the connections between the nodes that make up a shading group.

If you glide the mouse pointer over a connection line, small white boxes appear next to the input node and output node. The white box next to an input node shows the node’s name and attribute that receives the input.

The white box next to an output node shows the node’s name and attribute that provides the output. Each node name and attribute is separated by a period, for example, checker1.outColor and phong1.color. In the preceding figure, the outColor attribute of checker1 is output to the color attribute of phong1.

In many cases, you must be familiar with Maya internal operation details to understand the node and attribute names you see in the white boxes.

Create Render Node

Create a render node with a texture map in the Hypergraph.

Options Menu

Display > Shape Nodes, Hidden Nodes, Underworld Nodes

By default, the scene hierarchy does not display shape nodes, hidden nodes, or underworld nodes. It displays only transform nodes—nodes that hold attributes and other information on an object’s transformation and parent-child relationships.

Shape node—holds an object’s geometry attributes or attributes other than the object’s transform node attributes. A shape node is a child of a transform node. A transform node has only one shape node.

Hidden node—any object hidden using Display > Hide from Maya’s menu bar. The default cameras top, front, side, and persp are also hidden nodes.

Underworld node—a pair of nodes below a shape node. When you create a curve on a NURBS surface, Maya generates an underworld transform node and shape node below the shape node of the surface. The CV positions of underworld nodes have UV coordinates on the surface rather than coordinates in world or local space.

A dotted line in the scene hierarchy indicates a connection to an underworld node. Connections to instanced objects are also indicated by dotted lines.

NoteHypergraph option settings are saved with a scene file. The options are not saved for Maya globally.

Example 1

If you select Create > NURBS Primitives > Sphere to create a sphere, Maya creates a transform node and a shape node.

The sphere’s shape node holds the mathematical description of the sphere’s shape. The sphere’s transform node holds the sphere’s position, scaling, rotation, and so on. The shape node is the child of the transform node.

If you select Options > Display > Shape Nodes in the Hypergraph, the scene hierarchy shows these nodes for the sphere:

Maya gives the nodes the default names shown in the preceding figure. The transform node is nurbsSphere1, the shape node is nurbsSphereShape1. If you rename the transform node, for example, to Bubble, Maya renames the shape node to BubbleShape.

If you rename the shape node, Maya does not rename the transform node. Maya doesn’t transmit a child’s attribute changes up to its parent.

Example 2

If you select Create > NURBS Primitives > Sphereto create a sphere, Maya creates a transform node and a sphere node. If you then select Modify > Make Live, then use the Create > CV Curve Toolto draw a curve on the surface of the sphere and turn on the display of shape nodes and underworld nodes, the scene hierarchy appears as follows:

Maya gives the nodes the default names shown. The transform node is nurbsSphere1, the shape node is nurbsSphereShape1. The curve1 and curveShape1 nodes are underworld nodes for the curve created on the sphere’s surface.

When a curve-on-surface is hard to select in the workspace because of crowding or complex geometry, you can select it easily in the scene hierarchy with underworld nodes displayed.

Display > Expression Connections/Constraint Connections/Deformer Connections

You can display color-coded lines in the scene hierarchy that illustrate nodes connected by an expression, constraint, or deformer.

Example

Create a NURBS sphere named Ball and a NURBS cone named Cone. Write an expression to assign the value of Ball’s translate Y attribute to Cone’s translate Y attribute. The expression links the two values. When you move Ball up or down in the view (in a Y-axis direction), Cone moves up or down the same amount.

If you select Options > Display > Expression Connections, the scene hierarchy displays this:

TipYou can change the color-coding of the connection lines and other important entities by selecting Window > Settings/Preferences > Color Settings from Maya’s main menu bar and expanding Hypergraph/Hypershade.
Background Image (In Freeform Layout)

Show a background image in the Hypergraph panel.

Show Cached Connections

Show cached connections.

Graph Layout Style

The Graph Layout Style lets you rearrange the layout style of nodes to suit your needs. This option is only available in the Connection View. Rearranging the layout can make the connections and their relationships more meaningful.

Circular Layout

Displays the Hypergraph connections in a circular fashion by placing nodes in circular cluster arrangements.

Hierarchical Layout

Displays precedence relationships in the graph by placing nodes at different levels.

Orthogonal Layout

Aligns nodes within the graph vertically and horizontally.

Symmetric Layout

Displays the Hypergraph nodes symmetrically when the topology of the nodes allows for it.

Tree Layout

Displays the Hypergraph hierarchy as parent/child relationships with the root nodes at the top and child nodes further down the hierarchy.

Orientation

Select one of the following orientation options.

Horizontal

Display the Hypergraph hierarchy horizontally.

Vertical

Display the Hypergraph hierarchy in a vertical arrangement.

Schematic

Display the Hypergraph hierarchy in a schematic arrangement where nodes are spaced evenly apart and children appear under their respective parents.

Layout

Select one of the following layouts.

Freeform Layout

Place nodes or groups of nodes in any location without conforming to structured hierarchy layouts.

Automatic Layout

Automatically groups the nodes into default hierarchies.

Transitions > Animate Transitions, 5/10/15/20 frames

By default, Maya dollies from one view to another instantaneously when you change the panel view of a graph. (For example, by selecting View > Previous View.) You can slow Maya’s transition speed between views to make the view change action easier to see.

20 Frames dollies slowest, 5 Frames dollies fastest.

Update > On Nodes Creation, On Selection

The Hypergraph automatically updates the scene hierarchy when you add or delete an object, rendering node, or other item in the scene

When you select an object in the scene hierarchy or dependency graph, the object is also selected in the workspace, Outliner, and elsewhere in Maya. Also, when you select an object in the workspace, Outliner, and elsewhere in Maya, the object becomes selected in the scene hierarchy or dependency graph.

These updates slow Maya operation when you work with a complex scene or when you’re examining nodes or dragging nodes to new positions in a free-form hierarchy. You can turn off the updating option to improve operation speed.

Node Display Override Color

Display layer colors on the nodes. Coloring the nodes helps you organize and distinguish the nodes in their respective layers.

Show Cached Connections

Shows any connections that are cached.

Heat Map Display

Colors nodes in the Hypergraph based on their timed performance. Nodes with a 0 timing value appear grey, while nodes with a positive timing value are displayed in increasing shades from blue to red.

While you can set Heat Map Display on or off for individual Hypergraph windows, all Hypergraph windows are subject to the same set of Heat Map Display options.

For more information about the Heat Map Display, see Performance monitoring with the Heat Map Display.

Metric

Determines timing metric for the nodes.

Type

Determines the timing type.

Threshold

Determines how custom thresholds affect the Heat Map Display.

Remap colors adjusts the color scheme relative to the current threshold instead of the highest/lowest timing value node.

Hide nodes automatically hides all nodes whose timing values are higher or lower than the Upper threshold and Lower threshold respectively.

Upper threshold / Lower threshold

Lets you set a custom boundary for the upper (red) and lower (blue) thresholds of the Heat Map Display.

Selection cutoff

Allows you to add nodes over the cutoff value relative to the threshold measured in percentage.

Timing

Turns global node timing on and off.

Reset timers

Reset all node timers to 0.

Redraw HyperGraph(s)

Regenerates and redraws all Hypergraph windows currently with Heat Map Display mode enabled.

Show Relationship Connections

Shows connections that do not represent data flow.

Merge Connections

Displays multiple connections between two nodes as a single, bold line. For more information, see Merge connections.

Opaque Containers

Displays expanded container nodes with an opaque background.