Autodesk 663B1-05A111-1001 User Guide - Page 87

5 | Nodes and attributes About > Two views of the scene: hierarchy and dependency This lets you control attributes (such as how far around the centerpoint the surface goes) simply by dragging a handle. You can also show manipulators for individual attributes to edit their values visually. Keyable attributes Animation in Maya is not limited to making things move. You can animate practically any attribute of any node in Maya. Attributes that control how a surface is constructed, or the look of a texture, or the influence of a deformer or physical force, can all change over time. MEL MEL stands for Maya Embedded Language. It is Maya's scripting language. It is deeply integrated with Maya, and allows you to do anything from open a window or perform a simple action with a command, to total customization of the Maya interface, to writing an entirely new application on top of Maya. Practically everything that Maya can do can be accomplished through MEL (and what can't can be done in another language with the Maya API). Two views of the scene: hierarchy and dependency There are two basic ways to view your scene in Maya: • As a hierarchical list of nodes. This shows which nodes are parents and children of other nodes. See "Scene hierarchy" on page 87. • As a graph of connections between nodes. This shows which nodes provide input or output to other nodes. See "Dependency graph" on page 89. Scene hierarchy The scene hierarchy is the grouping of child nodes under parent nodes. While you could create a scene without establishing a hierarchy, you will find that it makes modeling and especially animation much easier. Basics 87