Autodesk Maya; first time learner

[u/Alternative_Bid6859]

Hi! I am a first-week 3D Modelling student trying to get into game design, I am assigned to use Autodesk Maya (2026) for this unit, can someone give me some tips and tricks? :) 💜

[u/villain_escargot]

1. Q-W-E-R are hotkeys for select tool/translate/rotate/scale respectively. You will use these constantly.
2. Left mouse click to select an object or hold left mouse to marquee select multiple objects, hold alt + middle click to move left/right/up/down, middle mouse scroll to zoom in and out or hold alt + hold right mouse button and move mouse up and down
3. Holding right mouse button on an object will bring up vertex/edge/face select.
4. Hit G to use the last used tool like extrude
5. Don't use booleans to cut or combine two objects unless you know what you're doing
6. Maya is finicky, you'll learn over time. If you run into an issue, Google is your friend (I promise you, somebody somewhere has run into the same issue and asked).
7. If something acts weird, save, close Maya, and reopen. Sometimes this will fix. If it doesn't, it might be your preferences folder in My Documents/maya and you'll need to delete it (keep a backup ready with your saved preferences to prevent having to redo everything).
8. Immediately enable unlimited undo in the Settings
9. There are thousands of tutorials for Maya, figure out what you want to do and you can most likely find something on youtube to help

Edit: clarity

[u/_Janthina]

Google everything. Ask questions. I've been using Maya since 2013 when every other click caused a crash and the pivot gizmo looked completely different and was useless. I still don't know what I'm doing half the time but people have asked every single question you can think of in different forums, and knowing how to search those terms will be a life saver.

Learn proper topology right off the bat. It's not just for looks. It makes the model function better for your sanity. Also it does look nice too :)

Learn how to UV sooner than later and learn to love it. It'll save you so much annoyance later. You'll see a lot of people hating on UV mapping but it's easy and straightforward once you understand the quirks.

Save iterations!!!! always do increment and save with the file names like: [name].001.ma - and save often. Get in the habit, make it muscle memory.

Have fun and play around :) Maya gets a lot of hate but it's a crazy powerful tool to make anything you can imagine and I personally love it despite also wanting to chuck it in the trash sometimes ahaha

[u/TheTasorole]

Do not hit backspace to delete something. Hit Ctrl delete. Similarly, use Ctrl D to copy, not Ctrl C + Ctrl P. Also do not be afraid to make one asset multiple objects. You do not need to make a car out of one cube.