Catalog / Maya Digital Illustration & 3D Design Cheatsheet

Maya Digital Illustration & 3D Design Cheatsheet

A comprehensive cheat sheet covering essential Maya commands, tools, and workflows for digital illustration and 3D design, helping artists and designers streamline their creative process.

Interface & Navigation

Basic Navigation

Rotate View

Alt + Left Mouse Button

Pan View

Alt + Middle Mouse Button

Zoom View

Alt + Right Mouse Button (Drag) or Mouse Wheel

Frame Selected

F Key

Frame All

A Key

Perspective View

Press the Spacebar (Tap)

Hotkeys

Move Tool

W Key

Rotate Tool

E Key

Scale Tool

R Key

Show/Hide Manipulators

T Key

Toggle Wireframe/Shaded

4 (Wireframe) / 5 (Shaded)

Show UVs

6

Show Textures

7

Panels

Outliner

Window > Outliner

Attribute Editor

Ctrl + A or Window > Attribute Editor

Tool Settings

Double-click tool icon or Window > Tool Settings

Hypershade

Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade

UV Editor

Window > UV Editor

Modeling Essentials

Creating Primitives

Polygon Primitives

Create > Polygon Primitives (Sphere, Cube, Cylinder, etc.)

NURBS Primitives

Create > NURBS Primitives (Sphere, Cube, Cylinder, etc.)

Curves

Create > Curves (EP Curve Tool, Bezier Curve Tool, etc.)

Bevel

Edit Mesh > Bevel

Extrude

Edit Mesh > Extrude

Boolean Operations

Mesh > Booleans (Union, Difference, Intersection)

Mesh Editing

Selecting Components

Right-click > Vertex/Edge/Face

Move Components

W Key (Move Tool) + Drag

Insert Edge Loop

Mesh Tools > Insert Edge Loop Tool

Multi-Cut Tool

Mesh Tools > Multi-Cut Tool (Ctrl to create edge loop)

Merge Vertices

Edit Mesh > Merge

Fill Hole

Mesh > Fill Hole

Modifiers

Smooth Mesh

Mesh > Smooth

Sculpting Tools

Mesh Tools > Sculpting Tools (Grab, Smooth, Push, Pull, etc.)

Duplicate Special

Edit > Duplicate Special

Mirror Geometry

Mesh > Mirror

UV Mapping & Texturing

UV Mapping Basics

Automatic Mapping

UV > Automatic

Planar Mapping

UV > Planar

Cylindrical Mapping

UV > Cylindrical

Spherical Mapping

UV > Spherical

Unfold

UV > Unfold

UV Editor

Window > UV Editor

Creating Materials

Assign New Material

Right-click object > Assign New Material

Lambert

Common Surface Materials > Lambert

Blinn

Common Surface Materials > Blinn

Phong

Common Surface Materials > Phong

AiStandardSurface (Arnold)

Arnold > Surface > aiStandardSurface

Applying Textures

File Texture

In Attribute Editor, click checkerbox icon next to color attribute > File

Layered Texture

Create > Textures > Layered Texture

Projection

Create > Textures > Projection

Bump Mapping

Add file texture to Bump Mapping attribute in material

Normal Mapping

Add file texture to Normal Camera attribute in material

Animation Basics

Keyframing

Set Key

S Key (Sets keyframe on selected attributes)

Graph Editor

Window > Animation Editors > Graph Editor

Timeline Navigation

Use timeline controls to move between frames

Auto Key

Toggle on the timeline to automatically set keyframes

Playblast

Window > Playblast (Creates a quick preview of your animation)

Deformers

Bend Deformer

Create Deformers > Nonlinear > Bend

Twist Deformer

Create Deformers > Nonlinear > Twist

Wave Deformer

Create Deformers > Nonlinear > Wave

Lattice Deformer

Create Deformers > Lattice

Cluster Deformer

Create Deformers > Cluster

Skinning

Skin > Bind Skin (Attaching meshes to skeletons)

Lights & Rendering

Create Lights

Create > Lights (Ambient Light, Directional Light, Point Light, etc.)

Arnold Render View

Arnold > Open Arnold RenderView

Render Settings

Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings

Batch Render

Rendering > Render > Batch Render

Render Sequence

Rendering > Render > Render Sequence