So what does that mean again????
A Useful list of vocabulary specific for 3D Modeling and Animation:
Attribute Editor An editing window that shows all the attributes of one particular node in detail, using an explanatory interface. The Attribute Editor is useful for viewing and changing detailed information about an object. Selection Change into face mode Select four faces from a polygon object, Select some more random faces, Deselect some of those faces, Manipulate these faces,Change back to object mode .ma file format Maya ASCII, the native ASCII file format used by Maya atmosphere - In rendering, the environment that surrounds the objects in a scene. For example, the simulation of fine particles (fog, smoke, or dust) in the air. Autodesk Maya 2014 The Software we use axis - One of three vectors (X, Y, and Z) that define the three dimensions of a scene. backdrop An image that you display in the background of a scene. bump map In rendering, the simulation of 3-dimensional surface detail effects by creating the illusion of bumps or other types of surface relief. camera In Maya, the method for setting up the view of a scene, especially one that will be rendered.Like a real-world camera, the Maya camera frames the view of a scene by tracking, tumbling, panning, and zooming.Unlike a real-world camera, the Maya camera does not automatically capture lighting, motion blur, and other effects. These effects must be explicitly created, turned on, and in some cases rendered. Channel Box An editing window where you can view and edit an object’s keyable attributes (such as transformations, keys, and expressions) character In animation, a model that uses special attributes such as skeleton joints and IK for animation. These attributes are set up and animated together, making it possible to create the complex mechanics required by characters. character setup In animation, the process of preparing a 3D model with accompanying joints and skeletons for animation.Also known as rigging. control curve In painting, curves that are associated with strokes. You can set stroke tubes to follow or be attracted to control curves, for example if you want to simulate lightning. control point A point that controls the shape of a deformable object. Examples of control points include NURBS control vertices (CVs), polygonal vertices, and lattice points control vertex (CV) In modeling, a point that controls the shape of a NURBS curve or surface. It is displayed as a small filled box. Creation Make your Own depth map In rendering, an image file that represents the distance from a specific light source to the surfaces that the light source illuminates, from the point of view of the light source. Each pixel in the depth map represents the distance from the light to the nearest shadow-casting surface in a specific direction. depth of field In photography, the range of distances within which objects will be sharply focused. (Objects outside of this range appear blurred or out of focus.) edge In modeling, a side or edge of a polygonal model, represented by a straight line between the two ordered vertices that define it. edge loop A path of polygon edges connected in sequence by their shared vertices. extrude In polygonal modeling, the process of extending a vertex, edge, or face, thereby creating additional faces off of surrounding faces. face In polygonal modeling, the closed space formed when three or more vertices are linked by edges. falloff In shadows or soft deformation, the point at which a deformation falls off to zero. Defined in terms of a falloff radius Graph Editor window for editing animation curves. handle In general, an icon displayed in the workspace that you can use to manipulate objects. hierarchy In general, the arrangement of parent-child relationships for all connected nodes that make up an object (also known as object hierarchy) or a scene (also known as DAG or scene hierarchy). hinge joint In animation, a joint that can rotate only about one of its local axes. A human knee is a good example of a hinge joint. Hot Keys change between these manipulation Hypershade A window where you can create, edit, and connect rendering nodes, such as textures, materials, lights, rendering utilities, and special effects. image plane A 2D object (plane) that enables the placement of an image file into a view. Image planes are used extensively to create backgrounds and environments (for reflections). Layer Editor A window that helps you organize large-scale pieces of the scene so you can show, hide, or edit them all at onc locator A particular position in world space, marked by a small gnomon whose lines extend in each direction along the X, Y and Z axes. loft In modeling, a series of splines that define the shape of an object, then can be lofted together to form a surface.An analogy is to boat building, where a skeleton of ribs is built, then covered by planks or metal sheets to form the hull. luminance The measurable brightness of a surface. manipulate Move an object in all directions manually and in the channel box, Scale an object manually and in the channel box, rotate an object manually and in the channel box manipulator A visual and interactive tool for changing an object's attributes. Many Maya tools provide manipulators for you to directly position and scale objects in the workspace. material In rendering, a description of what an object looks like when it is rendered. MEL Maya Embedded Language, Maya’s interpreted command and scripting language. mental ray An integrated plug-in renderer that allows interactive and batch mental ray rendering from within the Maya user interface.mental ray offers all the features traditionally expected of photorealistic rendering, and includes functionality not found in most rendering software mesh In polygonal modeling, a collection of polygons, which can be of different types (triangles, quads, n-sided). Movement Zoom in and out, Panel around the screen, Roll around the screen, Change perspective node A construct that holds specific information, along with the actions associated with that information. NURBS Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline. A type of geometry that includes curves, patches, surfaces, etc. Are empty and act like a skin object In Maya, any entity in a scene. opacity A material property that prevents light from passing through an object. Outliner A window that lists the objects, lights, cameras, and other items in a scene.You can use the Outliner to examine the structure and components of the scene hierarchy, display shape nodes, connections, and attributes, select and rename an object, and reorder nodes panel In general, a part of the Maya interface that allows you to view objects or use controls parent constraint A constraint relating the position (translation and rotation) of one object to another object, so that they behave as if part of a parent-child relationship. parent object An object or other item that controls the attributes of one or more child objects. A parent can also be the child of another parent. path In animation, a curve that controls the motion of an object. plateau tangent In animation, a type of tangent that forces animation curves to respect the positions of keyframes so that maximum and minimum values (hills and valleys) do not extend past the keyframes. Plateau tangents are useful to keep the animation timing exact. Playblast The Playblast process takes a screen grab of the view at each frame, and then plays (blasts) the resulting images to a desktop movie player or the FCheck utility plug-in An add-on module that extends Maya’s capabilities. You can create or purchase specialty plug-ins to customize Maya for a specific job (for example, for importing or exporting file formats, for rendering, etc.) point light A light that illuminates in all directions, radiating from a point in space. For example, a point light can simulate an incandescent light bulb. point of view In general, the location from where the camera is viewing a scene. primitive A simple shape that can be molded or expanded to add more detail. Primitives include spheres, cubes, cylinders, cones, planes, and toruses. ramp A 2D texture or color gradient in which the color or grayscale value changes from one value to another across the extent of the image. raytracing A rendering technique used to create photorealistic reflections and refractions on reflective surfaces, and to produce shadows. Raytracing is a high-quality alternative to reflection mapping, although it requires more computation time. real time In film and video compositing, the display, recording, or playback speed at which motion appears natural. In NTSC, real time is 30 frames per second; in PAL, it is 24 frames per second. refraction In general, the bending of light as it travels through dense transparent material such as glass or water. render settings Attributes that affect all rendering tasks in a scene or layer (for example, how renders display, what format they are in, and whether or not shadows or other rendering components are included). Render View A window that interactively renders a single view (or a single frame of an animation). revolve surface A surface created by revolving a profile curve about an axis. The profile curve can be a curve, curve-on-surface, surface isoparm, or trim edge. rotation A transformation that turns (or orients) an object about an axis roughness The property of a surface that causes scattering as light reflects off of it. Script Editor An editor for developing MEL scripts set A collection of objects. shader The specification of properties and lighting for a surface. shadow In general, an area that is totally or partially obscured from light by an object.In Maya, an individual light source can produce no shadows (the default), depth map shadows or raytraced shadows.You can combine depth map shadow casting lights and raytraced shadow casting lights in a scene. Adjusting the attributes of depth map shadows or raytraced shadows can simulate shadows from many different types of real-world light sources and objects. shininess In rendering, the intensity of the shiny attribute of a surface. For example, a wet fish has a shinier surface than a dry leaf.In animations, surfaces reflect light in different ways depending on their shininess. The Blinn material is preferable for shiny surfaces in animations. Highlights on other specular materials, like Phong and PhongE, may flicker when animated. Short Cuts One button press to do something specular reflection A type of reflection that occurs when light hits a shiny surface. It causes highlights on the object. spline a curved line, made up of segments and defined by control points (for example, CVs). spot light A light that shines evenly within a narrow range of directions (defined by a cone) from the light’s location.Spot lights create a beam of light that gradually becomes wider (for example, a flashlight or car headlight). surface In modeling, a connected sequence of curves. tangent In graph editor, a line or vector that indicates the slope of a curve at a given point. tangent constraint In animation, a constraint that keeps an object moving along, and oriented to, a curve. The curve provides the path of the object’s motion, and the object orients itself to point along the curve. texture An image that modifies surface detail. transparency A surface can be transparent or opaque. When ray tracing a transparent surface, light rays that penetrate the surface bend, and the light is refracted. zoom In general, the act of moving closer to or farther away from an object. In Maya, zooming a camera means changing the lens’s focal length. The camera does not move, but the scene in the camera’s view becomes larger or smaller.
Attribute Editor An editing window that shows all the attributes of one particular node in detail, using an explanatory interface. The Attribute Editor is useful for viewing and changing detailed information about an object. Selection Change into face mode Select four faces from a polygon object, Select some more random faces, Deselect some of those faces, Manipulate these faces,Change back to object mode .ma file format Maya ASCII, the native ASCII file format used by Maya atmosphere - In rendering, the environment that surrounds the objects in a scene. For example, the simulation of fine particles (fog, smoke, or dust) in the air. Autodesk Maya 2014 The Software we use axis - One of three vectors (X, Y, and Z) that define the three dimensions of a scene. backdrop An image that you display in the background of a scene. bump map In rendering, the simulation of 3-dimensional surface detail effects by creating the illusion of bumps or other types of surface relief. camera In Maya, the method for setting up the view of a scene, especially one that will be rendered.Like a real-world camera, the Maya camera frames the view of a scene by tracking, tumbling, panning, and zooming.Unlike a real-world camera, the Maya camera does not automatically capture lighting, motion blur, and other effects. These effects must be explicitly created, turned on, and in some cases rendered. Channel Box An editing window where you can view and edit an object’s keyable attributes (such as transformations, keys, and expressions) character In animation, a model that uses special attributes such as skeleton joints and IK for animation. These attributes are set up and animated together, making it possible to create the complex mechanics required by characters. character setup In animation, the process of preparing a 3D model with accompanying joints and skeletons for animation.Also known as rigging. control curve In painting, curves that are associated with strokes. You can set stroke tubes to follow or be attracted to control curves, for example if you want to simulate lightning. control point A point that controls the shape of a deformable object. Examples of control points include NURBS control vertices (CVs), polygonal vertices, and lattice points control vertex (CV) In modeling, a point that controls the shape of a NURBS curve or surface. It is displayed as a small filled box. Creation Make your Own depth map In rendering, an image file that represents the distance from a specific light source to the surfaces that the light source illuminates, from the point of view of the light source. Each pixel in the depth map represents the distance from the light to the nearest shadow-casting surface in a specific direction. depth of field In photography, the range of distances within which objects will be sharply focused. (Objects outside of this range appear blurred or out of focus.) edge In modeling, a side or edge of a polygonal model, represented by a straight line between the two ordered vertices that define it. edge loop A path of polygon edges connected in sequence by their shared vertices. extrude In polygonal modeling, the process of extending a vertex, edge, or face, thereby creating additional faces off of surrounding faces. face In polygonal modeling, the closed space formed when three or more vertices are linked by edges. falloff In shadows or soft deformation, the point at which a deformation falls off to zero. Defined in terms of a falloff radius Graph Editor window for editing animation curves. handle In general, an icon displayed in the workspace that you can use to manipulate objects. hierarchy In general, the arrangement of parent-child relationships for all connected nodes that make up an object (also known as object hierarchy) or a scene (also known as DAG or scene hierarchy). hinge joint In animation, a joint that can rotate only about one of its local axes. A human knee is a good example of a hinge joint. Hot Keys change between these manipulation Hypershade A window where you can create, edit, and connect rendering nodes, such as textures, materials, lights, rendering utilities, and special effects. image plane A 2D object (plane) that enables the placement of an image file into a view. Image planes are used extensively to create backgrounds and environments (for reflections). Layer Editor A window that helps you organize large-scale pieces of the scene so you can show, hide, or edit them all at onc locator A particular position in world space, marked by a small gnomon whose lines extend in each direction along the X, Y and Z axes. loft In modeling, a series of splines that define the shape of an object, then can be lofted together to form a surface.An analogy is to boat building, where a skeleton of ribs is built, then covered by planks or metal sheets to form the hull. luminance The measurable brightness of a surface. manipulate Move an object in all directions manually and in the channel box, Scale an object manually and in the channel box, rotate an object manually and in the channel box manipulator A visual and interactive tool for changing an object's attributes. Many Maya tools provide manipulators for you to directly position and scale objects in the workspace. material In rendering, a description of what an object looks like when it is rendered. MEL Maya Embedded Language, Maya’s interpreted command and scripting language. mental ray An integrated plug-in renderer that allows interactive and batch mental ray rendering from within the Maya user interface.mental ray offers all the features traditionally expected of photorealistic rendering, and includes functionality not found in most rendering software mesh In polygonal modeling, a collection of polygons, which can be of different types (triangles, quads, n-sided). Movement Zoom in and out, Panel around the screen, Roll around the screen, Change perspective node A construct that holds specific information, along with the actions associated with that information. NURBS Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline. A type of geometry that includes curves, patches, surfaces, etc. Are empty and act like a skin object In Maya, any entity in a scene. opacity A material property that prevents light from passing through an object. Outliner A window that lists the objects, lights, cameras, and other items in a scene.You can use the Outliner to examine the structure and components of the scene hierarchy, display shape nodes, connections, and attributes, select and rename an object, and reorder nodes panel In general, a part of the Maya interface that allows you to view objects or use controls parent constraint A constraint relating the position (translation and rotation) of one object to another object, so that they behave as if part of a parent-child relationship. parent object An object or other item that controls the attributes of one or more child objects. A parent can also be the child of another parent. path In animation, a curve that controls the motion of an object. plateau tangent In animation, a type of tangent that forces animation curves to respect the positions of keyframes so that maximum and minimum values (hills and valleys) do not extend past the keyframes. Plateau tangents are useful to keep the animation timing exact. Playblast The Playblast process takes a screen grab of the view at each frame, and then plays (blasts) the resulting images to a desktop movie player or the FCheck utility plug-in An add-on module that extends Maya’s capabilities. You can create or purchase specialty plug-ins to customize Maya for a specific job (for example, for importing or exporting file formats, for rendering, etc.) point light A light that illuminates in all directions, radiating from a point in space. For example, a point light can simulate an incandescent light bulb. point of view In general, the location from where the camera is viewing a scene. primitive A simple shape that can be molded or expanded to add more detail. Primitives include spheres, cubes, cylinders, cones, planes, and toruses. ramp A 2D texture or color gradient in which the color or grayscale value changes from one value to another across the extent of the image. raytracing A rendering technique used to create photorealistic reflections and refractions on reflective surfaces, and to produce shadows. Raytracing is a high-quality alternative to reflection mapping, although it requires more computation time. real time In film and video compositing, the display, recording, or playback speed at which motion appears natural. In NTSC, real time is 30 frames per second; in PAL, it is 24 frames per second. refraction In general, the bending of light as it travels through dense transparent material such as glass or water. render settings Attributes that affect all rendering tasks in a scene or layer (for example, how renders display, what format they are in, and whether or not shadows or other rendering components are included). Render View A window that interactively renders a single view (or a single frame of an animation). revolve surface A surface created by revolving a profile curve about an axis. The profile curve can be a curve, curve-on-surface, surface isoparm, or trim edge. rotation A transformation that turns (or orients) an object about an axis roughness The property of a surface that causes scattering as light reflects off of it. Script Editor An editor for developing MEL scripts set A collection of objects. shader The specification of properties and lighting for a surface. shadow In general, an area that is totally or partially obscured from light by an object.In Maya, an individual light source can produce no shadows (the default), depth map shadows or raytraced shadows.You can combine depth map shadow casting lights and raytraced shadow casting lights in a scene. Adjusting the attributes of depth map shadows or raytraced shadows can simulate shadows from many different types of real-world light sources and objects. shininess In rendering, the intensity of the shiny attribute of a surface. For example, a wet fish has a shinier surface than a dry leaf.In animations, surfaces reflect light in different ways depending on their shininess. The Blinn material is preferable for shiny surfaces in animations. Highlights on other specular materials, like Phong and PhongE, may flicker when animated. Short Cuts One button press to do something specular reflection A type of reflection that occurs when light hits a shiny surface. It causes highlights on the object. spline a curved line, made up of segments and defined by control points (for example, CVs). spot light A light that shines evenly within a narrow range of directions (defined by a cone) from the light’s location.Spot lights create a beam of light that gradually becomes wider (for example, a flashlight or car headlight). surface In modeling, a connected sequence of curves. tangent In graph editor, a line or vector that indicates the slope of a curve at a given point. tangent constraint In animation, a constraint that keeps an object moving along, and oriented to, a curve. The curve provides the path of the object’s motion, and the object orients itself to point along the curve. texture An image that modifies surface detail. transparency A surface can be transparent or opaque. When ray tracing a transparent surface, light rays that penetrate the surface bend, and the light is refracted. zoom In general, the act of moving closer to or farther away from an object. In Maya, zooming a camera means changing the lens’s focal length. The camera does not move, but the scene in the camera’s view becomes larger or smaller.