6. Grouping, Parenting, and Aligning

Grouping, parenting, and aligning provide ways of organizing and controlling an object’s relationship to other objects. Because construction in Maya almost always consists of multiple objects, it’s crucial to have ways to organize, move, and distribute these objects.

Grouping objects is a commonly used organizational and hierarchical tool. Grouping works by gathering individual objects into a set, which you can then move around or duplicate as a whole. In addition, grouped objects provide organization for your scene by creating a common namespace or folder-like structure.

Parenting is similar to grouping, but with a fundamental difference: Parented surfaces (Figure 6.1) have a relationship in which one follows ...

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