Go into the Windows panel and select Outliner to cause a window to appear on the left hand side of the screen. This woud normally appear as a floating window however you can also create it as part of a viewport. Click on a viewport with multiple windows and then click on the Panels panel. From here click on Panel and select Outliner.
The outliner window contains an entry for every object in the scene. The easiest way to use the object is to use it as another way to select a specific object. Shift + select multiple objects. Can select an object and hold down the shift key, click another object to select a range of objects. Holding down control lets me select multiple objects individually.
Plus side next to some of the objects. If you zoom into the object and hit the F key to frame it up. Click the plus sign to see what an object is made up of. Is called a Heirachy. Objects are a child of the parent object (the overall object) and the child can be a parent of it's other components too. Can have several objects nested away so they can be selected as an overall, within the hierarchy.
Some objects have different icons next to them. Some are made of polygons and this is represented by 4 squares in a diamond shape. Spotlights have a torch like symbol. CAmeras have a camera as a symbol and some others have a blue surface icon which represents NERB surfaces (a patch based not polygonal surface).
Some symbols are greyed out which means its in the scene just not visible.
Can use the search bar to type in a string of characters which will highlight everything with those string of characters in.
Clicking on the Show changes what is visible within the outliner. Can click on what you want to show in the outliner and it will only show what you have selected.
In the display panel you can display and hide specific types of objects. You can click on shape to show all the different shape components of the object which you can view a level of detail of the object. The shape node determines what the geometry for the object is. Can view the details in the attribute editor. Important when you get deeper into maya.
Want to have objects connected to each other. Begin with what is called a flat hierarchy where everything begins on the same level and nothing is really connected to each other. To connect things to each other for you to move everything around together with one button press, you have to make a hierarchy.
In the outliner, hover over an object and middle click. This allows you to move the object. When only a single dotted line appears after you are moving the object, it will only rearrange what you see in the outliner. To create a heirarchy, you need to middle mouse button and move it so a double dotted line appears, if you move some object on top of another, the object you moved is put below the object you moved it on to, thus a hierarchy is formed. You can expand this down by clicking the middle mouse button.
Make sure you organise objects so that ones that should move do move when the other one does e.g. a characters shoulder movement should cause movement in the arm and elbow OR when a record platter moves, the spindle and the record on there should move with it.
Lets you create an arbitrary hierarchy that connects objects that aren't connected logically. No one object that is meant to be the parent, therefore we want to create group. We can do this by hitting Ctrl + G or Edit -> Group. Make sure you have selected the objects you want to group. Creates a group in the outliner. Group can be moved with the move tool, pivot appears at the origin of the scene. Can move the pivot with the D key.
Might also want to group the lighting in the scene. Once grouped, you can modify the pivot by hitting modify -> centre pivot which will place the pivot in the centre of all the objects within that group.
Highlight, double click can allow you rename the group. Can also show up in the channel box/layer editor and attribute editor for the whole group. Another way to control objects.
Can get rid of a group in two ways:
A way, other than the outliner, to view and organise the scene. To access this, go to Windows, general editors, hypergraph hierarchy or hypergraph connections.
Hypergraph hierarchy simulates the function of the outliner. Creates a floating viewport. Can navigate by scrolling in and out to zoom and alt+middle mouse button to move the window. Has one node per object in the scene, similar to the outliner. Can dig down into the objects connected to them. Visually displays the hierarchy of the scene. See how each object is connected. Might want to zoom in and isolate a specific part of the objects. can frame the selected node by pressing the blue box with a blue - in the middle of it. Can also frame the hierarchy that the node is part of with the button to it's right, the hierarchy with a blue box that represents the node. The button next to the frame hierarchy is called frame branch and that shows only the object and what's below it. Frame everything, just the node, everything connected to he node and everything below the node. By default this is organised like the outliner, in the same order. There is a button represented by 3 rectangles in a line that allows you to switch between free-from and automatic. In free form you can organise things how you would like, click it back to automatic to switch it back. Character animation, you can arrange nodes to look like the character.
Two ways to access Hypergraph Connections:
Works more like the attribute editor as you can see the different components that make up an individual object. Can view things like the individual materials that make up an object.
Many times when you have to hide objects from the scene to work on others. Can find the Hide and Show tools under the Display menu. From these menus you can hide or show specific types of objects.
You can hide an individual object by clicking on an object and pressing Ctrl + H and you can undo this by display, show, show last hidden (Ctrl + Shift + H).
Can see this all more deeply in outliner (Windows, Outliner).
Hiding the object, in the outliner, makes the object appear greyed out. Can select it and adjust it at any time. Can select the object, display, show, show selection to show the object again. Can also change this in the channel box/layer editor, by adjusting the visibility. Can change this from off to on or from 0 to 1 to change it from invisible to visible.
Can hide selected or unselected objects from display, hide, hide unselected objects.
Can hide and show by type. Hide cameras for example. Can say show lights and restore the visibility of the lights.
Layers allow us to quickly hide and show groups of objects as well as freeze and template them so we don't accidentally select them. Layers exist in the channel box at the bottom.
Can create a layer by cliking on Layers under display in the bottom right corner of the screen. From here you can do one of two things. Create a layer which is empty or you can create a layer which will include all of the selected objects. Can rename the layer by double clicking and renaming it. Then when you are ready you can click the V button (not the keyboard key but the one that is located in the layers panel). The V being inactive, makes the object invisible. There is a blank button also located, (the tired button here). Clicking this once will cause a T to appear which means the object is templated so you can see where it would appear, just can't interact with it. Pressing it again causes a R to appear which is rendering it, however you still can't interact with it.
If you createan empty layer, you can click on objects and then right click on the layer, then you can add selected objects to the layer. Handy if you don't want to say select the walls and floor of a building, you can group it together within a layer and render it, so it's there but can't be selected.
To remove an object from a layer, you can click on the object, right click on the layer and click Remove Selected Objects.
You can select objects in a layer by right clicking on the layer, Select Objects
Allow you to select only certain types of objects, can isolate what you're working with by category. Might have to expand the selection mask icons by clicking on the little arrow next to the select icons and the snap icons, below mesh and edit mesh at the top of the screen. By default everything is on. Can turn all on/off by left clicking on the down arrow and choosing which you want. If they are off, you can not interact with anything.
The diamond shape lets you turn on anything that has geometry, can't select lights/camera. Right clicking the icon can let you delve deeper e.g. turn off poly surfaces means you can interact with any geometry except poly surfaces.
If I wanted to work on the rendering aspects, I would go to the little clapboard icon which turns on lights and cameras.