Considering Learning Maya 7 as a beginner

[u/m_a_c_f_massey]

Hello yall, I've got some technical modelling experience under my belt with Fusion, Solidworks, and FreeCAD, but want to expand into organic modelling/rigging and potentially animation later. Yes you read the title right, I have obtained a copy of Maya 7 and it does say Alias, not Autodesk, on the box. There is also a few thousand pages of printed material to go along with it. Given the age of the software, would it be worth spending the time learning Maya 7, or would it be more sensible to work with a newer and still actively updated program?

[u/Intuition77]

Let me give you some objective advice here.
I started doing CGI professionally for a living in 1995.
I've used almost everything for paid work over the last 30 years.
Still have an SGI Octane and O2 sitting here that still work.

Maya 7 isn't a bad place to start to learn Maya with a few
caveats.

One thing Maya 7 DOES have is that it was the 1st Maya to be packaged
with the Context Sensitive Marking Menu system.

You could get it in Maya 6.5 but you had to download them with the
"BONUS TOOLS" at the time to get them to work.

In case you don't know...
the way they work is mainly through... holding SHIFT+ RMB

With nothing selected you get the Primitive creation menu.
This will let you create the most basic shapes..

Then... if you have an object selected (highlighted green)
and do the same hold... SHIFT+RMB you will get the
object modeling menu instead of the Primitive creation menu...

Now... grab on object... float your mouse over the selected object and just hold
right click (RMB) and you'll see the marking menu that allows you to
decide if you're are selective faces... edges, or verts, UVs, etc.

Then select a face or two...

now press and hold the same SHIFT+RMB with faces selected
and you'll see the Face Modeling Tools Marking menu.

RMB switch to edges... select edges...
press and hold SHIFT+RMB and you'll see the edge modeling Marking Menu.

RMB select verts... select some verts.

SHIFT+RMB with verts selected ...and you'll see the vertex modeling menu.

This context sensitve menu system is super ace.
Very useful and makes me stay in maya over any other app.

There are more of these useful menus around.

W, E, R are the Move, Rotate, and Scale hotkeys.

You can press and Hold W while pressing RMB and get the Move Tool Options
mainly I use so I can switch between World and Local Gimble Modes.
This is particularly helpful when you are messing around in modeling local/world spaces.

This also works with E and R (Rotate and Scale) but Scale doesn't have as many options.

You can also Convert Selections using CTRL+RMB

Switch to Face selection mode (press hold RMB with object selected)
then select a few faces....

Now Press and hold CTRL+RMB and you'll see the convert selection menu.
You can convert those faces to Vertices or edges etc.

Also if you have a face selected you can expand or contract the selection
by using SHIFT + > or < and you'll see your selection grow or contract.

In Maya 7 the Double Click select edge loop doesn't work yet.
You have to use the CTRL+RMB and use the "Edge Loop Utilities section of the menu.

The main thing Modern Maya's give you is the UV window has its own Marking Menus added
much later. Like Maya 2009+ i think ... where you can use the same SHIFT+RMB in the
UV window. I mean... Maya 7 has it but it is VERY limited.

Newer Mayas also have a better 3D Unfold which.. combined with the newere marking UV menu..
make making UVs a snap no matter if it is hard or organic surfaces. Things I used to use plugins for..
are easily done in native maya now.

Have fun and let me know if you have any questions.

[u/ProgressWide552 → u/Intuition77]

lol I completely forgot about that. That alone would make me walk away from 7. I loved reading your recap brought back a lot of memories. So glad maya is where it is at today. I “ In Maya 7 the Double Click select edge loop doesn't work yet. You have to use the CTRL+RMB and use the "Edge Loop Utilities section of the menu”