Maya Cheat Sheet

After opening Maya...

• Set your preferences to "infinite undo."
• Set the "set key" option so that the tool will give you a prompt box and will set keys below.
• Check that your animation units are set to 30 fps.

Shortcuts

General

• "q" is the selection tool (also good for quickly canceling other tools)
• "w" is translate
• "e" is rotate
• "r" is scale
• "CTRL+h" is hide selection, "SHIFT+h" is unhide selection
• "CTRL+d" is duplicate
• "f" frames the selection in the active window
• "x" is grid snap

Setting Keys

• "s" sets key
• "SHIFT+w" sets translate key
• "SHIFT+e" sets rotate key
• "SHIFT+r" sets scale key

Graph Editor

• "ALT+SHIFT+middle click" lets you move the view in the direction you move the mouse.
• "SHIFT+middle click" moves keys and curves in one direction. The direction is the first direction your mouse moved in.
• "w" and "r" can be used for translate and scale in the graph editor and dope sheet.
• To weight tangents, you have to first specify that tangents be weighted (tangents > weighted Tangents) and then you have to free the tangent weights.
• You can set the way your keys are set through Options > General Preferences > Animation > Keys. You can change how the default tangent comes in and how the default tangent goes out.

Channels Box

• Dark gray means the attributed is locked, light gray means it's non-keyable.
• Orange means there's a key on it.
• If you highlight the attribute itself (not its value) middle mouse click in the scene view and drag left and right to alter the value. This is called the "virtual slider".

Outliner

• To select multiple items, hold down the "CTRL" key.
• You can drag things by holding down the middle mouse button. You can also use this to move things under groups, to parent and un-parent items.
• If you click the "+" symbol, you'll see what's immediately childed under the object. If you hold the "SHIFT" key while clicking the "+" symbol, you'll see the entire tree of parents and children.