Maya Tips--2: Shelf Buttons

In order to more quickly select specific groups of controls--or to repeat most other commands in Maya--we can create Shelf Buttons to make this happen with a single mouse click. In the following example we want to act on all three of a rig's basic right eyebrow controls:

1. The Script Editor (2.) is launched with this icon in the far lower right of the workspace. To simplify your task, consider 3. choosing Edit > Clear History to give you a clean view of the commands you will be working with

1. Holding down the Shift key, select all of the controllers ✵ you wish to bundle into the Shelf Button--in this case Taylor:Brow[In,Mid,Out]RT. 2. In the Script Editor, L-drag all of the text that was generated by your selections up into an empty space 3. under the Custom tab of the Shelf field. Maya will prompt you for the coding language of preference: MEL or Python. We can use either, for our purposes in this particular course.

1. R-click on the new icon created to pull up the Shelf Editor.

1. in the Shelves tab of the Shelf Editor, type a name for your icon in the 2. Icon Label field. This will show up in ✵ the Icon Preview and on ✵ the icon itself in the Custom shelf. Now, when you press the browR shelf button, the three brow controllers will become active for animating.