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Home: Autodesk Maya Online Help
Interface overview
Interface overview
3D coordinates
Working in Maya
Maya is the
premier application for creating compelling 3D digital content, including
models, animation, visual effects, games, and simulations.
The work you do in Maya
generally falls into these categories:
- Creating models. Polygons, NURBS, and
subdivision surfaces are different object types with different ways
of modeling. Each has its own strengths, and different artists prefer
working with different types.
- Polygons let you model a surface by building
up and reshaping a number of simple surface facets.
- NURBS let you easily create smooth, curving
surfaces with high-level control.
- Subdivision surfaces let you edit surfaces
at a high level with minimum overhead data, while still letting
you work with subsections of the surface as if they were made from
polygons.
- Character rigging. Most animations involve
“characters,” articulated models such as a person, an animal, robot,
or anything else that moves by articulation. Maya lets you define
internal skeletons for characters and bind skin to them to create
realistic movement with deformation.
- Animation. Just about everything you
can think of in Maya is keyable or able to be animated.
- Dynamics, fluids, and other simulated
effects. Maya includes a comprehensive suite of tools for simulating
real world effects such as fire, explosions, fluids, hair and fur,
the physics of colliding objects, and more.
- Painting and paint effects. Maya includes
an incredible system for using a graphics tablet (or the mouse)
to paint 2D canvases, paint directly on 3D models, paint to create
geometry, scriptable paint, and virtually limitless other possibilities.
- Lighting, Shading, and Rendering. When
you want to render a still image or movie of you scene or animation,
you can create them using your choice of renderers.