Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Main Menu Bar
Status Line
Shelf
Figure 2.1
The initial Maya
screen
Viewport Icons
Toolbox
Attribute Editor / Channel Box
Preset Display
Layouts
Time Slider, Range Slider, Playback Controls
To the right of the panels is the Attribute Editor / Channel Box. This is where most
of the information (attributes) about a selected object is displayed and edited. Pressing
Ctrl-A toggles between the Attribute Editor and the Channel Box. In short, the Attribute
Editor gives you access to all of an object's attributes, whereas the Channel Box is a quicker
display of the most commonly animated attributes of the selected object. The Attribute
Editor is typically wider than the Channel Box, so you'll notice a shift in your view pan-
els when you toggle between them. You can set Maya's preferences to treat the Attribute
Editor as its own window, to prevent it from displaying on the right side of the UI. More
on this in the next chapter.
Keys and Syntax in Maya
Maya is case sensitive in that it distinguishes between lowercase and uppercase letters.
The conventions of this topic will be to always print an uppercase letter to denote which
key you must press, but to specify “Shift + the letter” when you must press the uppercase
of that key. In other words, when we ask you to press the E key, for example, you should
