Blender complete guide for Maya users (with adapted controll scheme file)

Hi. I am thinking of sharing you some tips, tutorials as well as a custom key configuration I made that mimics Maya behavior. So, firstly, let’s say that you are a Maya user and don’t know anything about Blender.

  1. The first link makes a rough comparasion between both software UI’s, as well as a glimpse on hotkey customizer.

http://annex2nothing.com/blender-overview/

  1. After that, you should take a look at this:

http://annex2nothing.com/modelling-in-blender-and-maya/

This is a dual tutorial, useful for both Maya and Blender users. It presents every Maya modelling tool, then finds equivalents in Blender.

  1. My custom controll scheme:

I have tweaked these for three days, until I got the desired results. Here is the config file:
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=09220265933811387285

It does the following thing:
-Changes right click select to left click
-Enables you to box select whille holding left click
-Hold Shift to select/deselect multiple objects/components, one at a time
-Middle mouse button- set cursor position
-Alt+left click-zoom in/out
-Alt+middle mouse button - pan
-Alt+left mouse button- rotate

In edit mode(TAB to channge) :
Right click -shows you a menu, from which you could select mesh components (edge, face or vertex), like in Maya.

Known issues:
-Normally for selecting edge loops, you use ALT+left click. In the case of this controll scheme, you use ALT+Shift+right click

Blender issues that could you encounter:
-Zooming

In Blender, on rare ocasions, you might encounter a zoom limit. Here is a link on how to fix this:

http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/644/why-does-the-zoom-sometimes-stop-at-a-point
If there are any other tips you wish to share regarding this topic, or correct me on something, feel free to participate/express your oppinion.

Did I said ALT+shift+right click to select edge loop? Actually is ALT+Shift+left click . Sorry.

Hi. I made an update to this guide.

Firstly, I should tell you how to fix the problem with zoom limit: Under user prefferences, under interface tab, there is a checkbox, called auto depht. If you enable it, the problem get fixed and it won’t bother you anymore. You could still use ( . ) on the keypad, to focus on various objects.

Secondly, I would share with you some tutorials about UV and normal mapping. In Maya, the UV mapping is very time consumming. You end up with a lot of shells you need to sew. In Blender, you just place seams, unwrap, optionally arrange the shells and that it is. Because it is so simple, you could even use Blender in pipeline with Maya, to unwrap your model.
In Maya, there are UV Shells. The same shells are called in Blender UV islands.

I’ll give you some hotkeys:
U -unwrap menu
Ctrl-E - edge menu, after selecting your desired edges for seams, go to Mark seam under the menu.
C- circle select- scroll to set radius- a selection method
G- move your selected shells, by pressing X or Y while grabbing, you limit the movement dirrection on that axis
L- select shell
Ctrl-L- select remaining vertex of partly selected shell
Ctrl-A -reset object scale, before unwrap, to avoid some problems.
If you import a mesh that was already mapped externally, to get the seams , go to UV- seams from UV islands.
There are two types of evoved mapping: conformal and angle based. Press F6 after unwrap to select one of these. Angle based is used for correct representation of an object on a 2D surface, while conformal is less precise, but better for simple geometry.

UV Unwrapping
http://cgcookie.com/blender/2011/01/21/intro_uvmapping/

Normal Map
http://cgcookie.com/blender/2010/06/30/normal_maps_blender_2_5/

  Again, please correct me if I made a mistake. You could also participate on this guide with tutorials, tips etc.

Hi again. After the Blender 2.70 update, the key file had some problems. I have updated the config file to work with Blender 2.70. Note that in user preferences (File>User Preferences) , under Input tab, you might want to verify if the following settings are the same:
Select With : Left
Zoom Style - Dolly - Horizontal
In rest…have fun. Here is the file. You load it by clicking Import File Configuration.
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=07409628647644084721

File deleted from server…I would try to upload it again. Do you know any file hosting service that hosts your files forever?

Re-uploaded the file http://www.myupload.dk/showfile/c44q4f.py . There is download now button at the bottom of the page.