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Grab Brush:

The Grab Brush Context was created to help with moving vertices where you wanted brush control without having to go to Mudbox or Zbrush. Click on the icon and you will enter the Grab Brush Context. You will see your cursor change to a cross hair and any mesh that was selected will automatically highlight into vertex mode. The beauty of this brush is that it can work on a polygon mesh that is not selected or highlighted. This is actually where most of the power comes in since it lets you see the mesh clearly when editing without any distractions. A green soft selection circle will be drawn when you hover over any Mesh.

CONTEXTS:

A lot of the times I mention contexts to people who use Maya, they tend to not understand what they mean or how they are used within Maya. Let me explain so you have a better understanding of what these custom contexts do and do not do and why.

Above is a picture of the left side toolbar in default Maya. If you do not click any of these icons, I am sure you enter them at some point mostly by hotkeys. Each icon above is a context that Maya has created. The default Maya hotkey for the move tool is "W"... when you hit "W" on your keyboard, you are entering the "Move" context which is highlighted above.. Clicking "Q" enters the default selection Context or the top icon, the arrow.. The "Move" context allows the user to select as well as move both objects or components. The default select tool only allows the user to do selecting. If you want to actually move something, you must exit the context and enter the "Move" context. Maya also has special contexts for splitting edges or extruding faces.

Why am I telling you all of this? Users tend to not understand the principal of switching contexts and the limitations that contexts have. For example, if you are in the splitting edge context, you cannot move an object until you exit the splitting edge context and enter the "Move" context. Hopefully this makes sense.

GRAB BRUSH CONTEXT:

The Grab Brush Context is not an object selection tool. As described above in the context section, one must program the context specific to do specific functions. Therefore, if you click on the Grab Brush Context Icon and try to drag and select objects, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN! This is very important. Please be aware of what context you are in when trying to perform actions in Maya. If you want to select an object, click "Q" to exit the Grab Brush Context and enter Maya's default selection Context.

HOW TO USE:

If you are familiar with Mudbox or Zbrush and have used thier grab or move brush, this should feel very similar. However, since there is no multi subdivision built into Maya or this tool, you do not get the benefits of sculpting on extremely high polygon objects. Lots of optimizations have gone into allowing the highest amounts of polygons possible to move with before becoming unusable. This could be in the range of 50-100k polygons and sometimes even higher.

MIDDLE CLICK AND DRAG:

Clicking and dragging the middle mouse button will increase or decrease the radius of the brush.

LEFT CLICK + DRAG:

Left clicking and dragging will drag the vertices based off of the camera.

As you can see from the gif above, you do not have to have a mesh selecte in order to move them. This is extremely powerful as it allows you to move multiple objects very quickly! If you do have an object highlited, that object will become the main focus of the grab brush.

SHIFT AND LEFT MOUSE CLICK:

Holding down the shift button and left clicking will smooth the vertices

CTRL AND LEFT MOUSE CLICK:

Holding down the ctrl button and left clicking and dragging will move the vertices based off of the first hit components averaged normal. (example: vertex hit occured, it will use the vertex normal. Face was hit, it will use the face normal) This is a very fast way to move things without having to be screen aligned.

CTRL AND SHIFT LEFT MOUSE CLICK:

Holding down the ctrl and shift button and left clicking and dragging will "bulge" the vertices that are in the radius.

NOTE: You can use this brush both on polygon objects that are not selected or by highliting a polygon object and viewing the vertices at the time of sculpting.

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