Changing layout in Maya

[Fekke]

Hi

I´m just wondering how you change the layout in Maya on a Mac. In windows its fairly simple, but I dont know how to do it on a mac.

[Nojoy]

I dont really understand the question 100 percent about changing the layout on a mac. I myself use one too and really love it dearly. However back to the question usually the exact same way you would in maya. Use the Menu Bar on top or the Hot box and go into the preferences areas - UI areas on the menu bar the same way you would on a windows maya version. You even have a bit faster acces to the Preferences through the Finder of Maya since the Preferences as in every Program on the Mac are included under the Name of the Software in the Finder. Take a look and you will see. Incase you worked on a WinMashine before as I did, and upgraded :) to the mac, I'm sure you'll get the hang quickly of it as I did. Some things are bit differrent and takes getting used too. Also, you obviously dont have as many plugins on the OSX side and overall it's hard to find mac specific training material nowadays. A few years ago it seemed differrent. Good thing that the deck of cards have been remixed with the new intel based mac's both worlds are open to the artist.

Please let me know if you have a specific question on handling or dealing with a single menu node. I'll try to help you out as im in one boat with you on this one. Let the tiger growl :)

[Fekke]

Oh. I said layout, but what i really mean is the color.
Here is a picture of what I mean: (Sorry for the misunderstanding)

http://bildeopplasting.com/t_1579.jpg (http://bildeopplasting.com/f_1579.jpg)

[Fekke]

Is this post forgotten, or doesn´t anyone know how to fix it?

[Nojoy]

alt + B s changes the Background color instantly between 3 grayscaled backgrounds (very light, medium grey, or black). Often used for looking at the silhouette of an object like in your image above artist often take it to black for a short while and switch again to grey for modeling usually a white shader is ablied to the object so the edges of the object really pop out. You can also in the Windows - Setting/preferences - color - 3d views set the color to some outragous color of your choice like red. I like to do this in work enviroments when I leave the table to really tell somebody just by color to leave his hands off my scene, through the use of a quick mel. ;)

[Fekke]

Thanks for that, but how about the colors around, like in the channel box etc? I don´t think I can change that in the colors preferences.

[Nojoy]

Well if one could it would be in the preferences, with mel and a little maya api im sure you can even pull that off since may is wide open. However I would'nt change anything visually exept the viewports. The channel box for instance often uses color highlighting on thiere channels to let one quickly know whats keyed or not, what has expressions, etc etc. Meaning depending on what you do the individual channel on a node, maya sets a specific color coding on the channel for quick visual feedback. I know XSI uses color coding to quickly let the user know in what module one is currently. A similar thing would be nice for maya aswell :)

[Fekke]

Ok. I havent really thought of it like that. Thanks for your replies.