One thing Softimage got right was this basic order of operations and
consistently apply it across the application.
Back when I taught XSI, I always explained tool workflow in terms of master
and slave, with the slave being the element that received the operator that
does all the work. In the case of a constraint, it's the object controlled
by the constraint. In the case of an envelope, it's the geometry being
deformed. In the case of a cluster, it's the subcomponents on the geometry.
For setting keyframes, select the parameter(s), then set your key.
The simple rule was:
1 select the slave
2 choose your tool from the menu
3 pick the master(s).
Made teaching (and learning) easy.
One of the biggest problems with Maya, and 3DSMax to a degree, is the
inconsistency of these basic principles. It's like every tool and workflow
was designed and built in a vacuum separate from the rest of the
application. It's painfully obvious whoever came up with many of the
workflows doesn't do 3D work in production. It's like they were given a
spec sheet and built a tool to satisfy the core requirements in principle
but not in spirit. There's no harmony, and seemingly nobody at the wheel of
UI driving those workflows (until now).
Matt
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2015 12:20:21 -0500
From: Luc-Eric Rousseau <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Maya thinks they're clever....and that's the problem
To: "[email protected]"
Hello I know what you're saying, but the way I saw it, those scenarios
were "select the many, and then highlight the one". This allows you
to select everything and then highlight the "target" for example the
motion path or the parent, and the UI supports that paradigm with the
green highlight of The One.
Thinking in terms of source and target is not always unambiguous in
UI. For example, if you have a menu that applies a LookAt constraint,
what's the "target", is it what the object will end up look at, or
what the object the menu command acts upon. A technical individual
might see things as picking all the inputs of an operator and then the
output, and an artistic person might see things differently and read
it like subject/verb/object.
