Attribute – An aspect of a node. For example, rotation values, translation values, and scale values are all attributes of a node.
Bake – A term used to describe the process of making a change permanent, such as deleting history bakes changes to the geometry.
Biped – Characters that walk around like a human, stand upright, and walk on two feet.
Blendshape – A deformer that changes the shape of one piece of geometry to look like the shape of another.
Character analysis – The answers to questions that round out a character and define their appearance, background, and emotional makeup.
Character sheet – A series of drawings of your character from different views, such as front, side (profile), top, back, and ¾.
Child – Something in the Maya scene that is controlled by a parent object. It is important to note that a child can also be a parent of another child object. A child can only have one parent.
Construction history – A list of everything you do to an object. This list can be seen in the INPUTS section of the channel box and can be edited.
Deformer – A tool that changes the shape of an object.
Dolly – The camera physically moves in and out, closer or farther from your subject. This is not a zoom. Many students confuse a dolly move with a camera lens zoom. A zoom is a change in the focal length of the lens of a camera, for example, 35 mm to 50mm.
Double transformations – A double transformation is when an object moves, rotates, or scales twice as much as you think it should. This is caused by getting the same transform information twice. This can occur to an object when it is parented to something else and skinned (the information then comes from the parent AND from the joints).
Euler rotation – A system of calculating the rotation of joints according to the degree set along the X, Y, and Z axis but evaluates the rotation based on the chosen rotation order. This is the default rotation calculation that Maya uses to figure joint rotations during the animation process.
File texture – A raster image created from photographs or painted in a 2D or 3D software package that is connected to a shader’s color attribute.
Forward kinematics – A method where a hierarchy of joints (or objects) is rotated one at a time to create a pose. A key is then set on the rotation channels for each joint (or object). The position of a joint in the hierarchy is calculated based on the positions of each and every joint above (from the top of the hierarchy down, in a forward direction).
Gimbal – Only a single X, Y, or Z rotation axis value in the channel box will change when clicking on the specified color ring.
Gimbal lock – A problem that arises during gimbal rotation where 2 axes align, causing the inability to rotate in a particular direction.
Hierarchy – The structure of parents and children in the Maya scene file, and looks very similar to a family tree.
Hotbox – A quick method for accessing menu items and tools wherever your cursor is located.
Hotkeys – Maya’s keyboard shortcuts to access different tools and commands.
Hypergraph – Shows everything in the scene in node format, and how each node is connected to others in the scene that contains information and actions for that information. The data is provided, held, or received with attributes. A node appears as a rectangle or box in the hypergraph. Nodes can be joined to each other by connecting one attribute to another, resulting in a node network.
.iff – Maya’s image file format where an image is saved with no data loss.
Inverse kinematics – A mathematical system that calculates the rotations of a joint chain from the identified start joint all the way to the established end joint of the chain. An IK handle is created at the end of the chain that allows the animator to position the location of the end of a limb. Because of this, IK is a more intuitive way of positioning a character, much like a digital puppet. Once the handle is positioned, the calculations then occur to position the rest of the chain based on the location of the end joint, all the way back up to the start joint (from the bottom of the hierarchy up, or in an inverse direction).
Isoparm – A shortened form of isoparametric curve which is a line that runs across a surface on the U or V.
Keyframe – A defined position of an object or objects on a particular frame.
LMB – Left mouse button.
Local rotation axis – A separate coordinate system for joints where the axis of a joint is determined by the position of its child.
Local space – A coordinate system where an object uses the origin and axes of its parent for its position in space.
Marking Menu – A quick method for accessing a subset of menu choices of the most commonly used tools for a particular object.
MEL – Stands for Maya Embedded Language. This is the scripting language that Maya uses to do everything and anything. The true power of the Maya software is its ability to be customizable using MEL by an end user.
MMB – Middle mouse button.
Normal – A line that is perpendicular to the face of an object. Faces are only rendered correctly when the normal points outwards.
Ngon – A term used in computer graphics to refer to Polygons made of more than four sides.
Node – An element in the scene.
Nonmanifold geometry – Geometry that creates deformation and rendering issues because of faces whose normals face inconsistent directions; faces, vertices, or edges that lie directly upon each other.
NURBS – Stands for Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline and are curves and surfaces represented by mathematical algorithms, originally created by engineers to make an exact representation of the organic surfaces of ships.
Object space – A coordinate system where an object uses the origin and axes of itself for its position in space.
Origin – The point on the X, Y, Z coordinate system where the X, Y, and Z values are 0.
Parent – Something in the Maya scene (a joint, a piece of geometry, etc.) that controls the position, rotation, or scaling of something else – which is considered a child of that parent (such as another joint, or geometry). It is important to note that a parent can also be a child of another parent object. A parent can have multiple children.
Path – The place where the computer looks to find the file, or other files that are mapped within the file itself, such as a file texture. An absolute path (outside the project folder) to an image file looks like this: G:jodysourceimagesjody_front_1095_ 1647.tif, while a relative path (inside the project folder) to the same image file looks like this: sourceimagesjody_front_1095_1647.tif.
Pivot – The point around which an object rotates.
Preferred angle – An angle created when a joint is rotated. Setting a preferred angle signals Maya by indicating the direction that the joint should rotate when an IK solver runs through it.
Polygons – A straight, three or more sided shape, called a face. Connected faces are called polygonal objects or meshes.
Quaternion rotation – A system of calculating the rotation of joints according to the position of the joint on the X, Y, and Z axis based on XYZ curves plus a fourth curve (W).
Rig – The skeletal structure and a system of controls for that structure.
Raster image – An image made of squares of color, or pixels, saved with file extensions such as a .jpg .tiff, or .tga.
Real numbers – Numbers that have an infinite decimal representation such as 5.3592847529…
RMB – Right mouse button.
Selection masks – Determine what type of objects or components you can select. Maya has a specific order of selecting things. Sometimes, it is difficult to select one thing over another. For example, this can be particularly helpful when working with skeletal joints, because Maya selects geometry before joints, as joints are usually placed inside of geometry. By turning off surface objects, you are no longer able to select geometry, making it easier to select the joints.
Scene file – The file created as you work in Maya.
Scrub – Clicking on the indicator in the time line and dragging the mouse left to right to see action.
Shader – Also known as a material, defines the way the surface of an object appears once it is rendered, for example, shiny, glossy, matte, transparent, rough, smooth, etc.
Skinning – The skin deformer uses joints to move geometry points. The term skinning usually refers to the process of setting up the skin deformer.
Skin weights – The amount of influence that a point on the geometry is given to a joint, or several joints. This amount must total “1” and with the smooth bind, can be spread over several joints.
Specular highlights – A concentrated area of reflected light from a surface caused by bright lights or sunlight on a highly reflected surface, such as metal or glass.
Subdivision surfaces – Unique to Maya, these surfaces are a blend of NURBS and polygon characteristics.
Tangent – A line that touches a curve at a single point without crossing.
.tif – A 32 bit raster image file format (so that it could store CMYK color data), traditionally used for print media, that allows for lossless data compression – the ability to have smaller file sizes but be able to reconstruct the data back to the exact original image.
.tga – A 32 bit raster image file format (so that it could store RGBA color data), traditionally used for video media, that allows the storage of an Alpha channel – the ability to have transparency data for each pixel of the image.
Track – The camera physically moves horizontally and vertically.
Tumble – The camera rotates the view around a focal point. To create a focal point, select an object and then press (f) to frame the object.
Topology – The parts that make up an object and their relationship to each other. For example, a polygonal piece of geometry is made up of faces, edges, and vertex points. Each edge should be shared by only two faces.
UVs – A 2D coordinate system that corresponds to positions on polygonal geometry which makes the placement of image texture maps possible on a 3D surface.
Visual death – A term used to describe a lifeless area in art, such as a section of an artwork that has nothing going on in it, making it boring.