Is it me, or does it seem that the Softimage modeling tools are far easier and faster to use than Maya. Here are some examples of key commands I use for the majority of my modeling tasks:
Add Polygons
“N” Add Polygon Tool - Select one edge and then another and they automatically bridge together. This works for both quads and triangles. You can visually see how the combine before you commit.
Move/Combine Geometry
“M” Move Component Tool - Mouse Down on either a polygon, edge or point, and move around. Mouse up lets you select another. Toggling a button in the GUI allows you to merge geometry just by dragging it onto another, so drag a point onto another merges them.
Add Edges
"" Add Edge Tool - Click one point and then another to add an edge. Click anywhere on an edge to add a point and then click on another edge or point to add an edge between those.
Raycast Edge Select Tool
“I” Allows you to “paint” to select edges. Double-clicking on an edge selects a loop. Clicking on one edge and shift-clicking on another further down model selects the edges in-between.
Raycast Polygon Select Tool
“U” Same as the raycast edge, but for polygons.
**Extrude **
Using the Raycast options above, click CTRL+D to duplicate a polygon or edge, then use the move, scale, rotate tools to change the location. Double-click and edge or polygon to select the loop, and duplicate that as well.
I’m relatively new to Maya, but I did spend some time seeing if Maya had something similar. The only similar tool I found is Target Weld. Everything else seems to take a few clicks to achieve the same results, or you have to bring up the Marking Menu frequently. Ideally I would love to only use Maya since I’m using Epic’s ART, but I always seem to find myself going back to Softimage for modeling.
I would love to hear suggestions of shortcuts to do the tasks I outlined above!