from: http://3d.about.com/od/Creating-3D-The-CG-Pipeline/ss/Maya-Training-Series-Chapter-1-Learing-The-User-Interface.htm
- Toolbox: This array of icons lets you switch
between the various object manipulation tools. Move, scale, and rotate
are the most important for now, but they've got hotkeys that we'll
introduce shortly.
- Menus and shelves: Atop
the screen, you'll find all of Maya's menus (there are dozens). There's a
lot of material to cover here, so menus will get an in depth treatment
later on.
- Channel Box/Attribute Editor/Tool Settings:
This space is primarily occupied by the channel box where geometry
parameters an be altered. You can dock other input windows here, most
commonly the attribute editor and tool settings.
- Viewport panel:
The main window is known as the viewport, or panel. The viewport
displays all of your scene assets, and will be where the majority of
your interaction occurs.
- Layers Editor: The
layers editor lets you manage complex scenes by assigning sets of
objects to scene layers. Layers allow you to selectively view and hide
model sets.
