Remember the Alias party line: Maya is nodes with attributes that are connected? Well the Attribute Editor is the main panel you will use to change these attributes on your objects, lights, cameras, and shaders. The Ctrl-a keyboard shortcut brings it up quickly, so that you may use it without interrupting your workflow. Its contents are determined by the attributes present in the selected node. Here is a sphere’s shape node in the Attribute Editor (see Figure 3.1).
Note how some of the attributes are only informational while others are editable. You’ll find that switching to the input node that was used to generate the sphere allows you to alter settings such as the sweep angles and radius used to create the object. (OK, it’s a cheap trick, but you really should try animating the NURBS sphere’s sweep angles for some cool Pac-Man chomping action.)
Figure 3.1: Attribute Editor
