Maya 2011 Classic UI
Since Maya now uses the very flexible Qt framework, it means that certain “themes” are now available to Maya simply by adding in a little text to your Maya shortcut.
Personally I prefer the new darker theme as it’s much easier on the eyes after a long day. However at this stage it seems like it is possible to revert Maya back to it’s older “classic” appearance.
Obviously it won’t be exactly the same as it was before since its now using completely different code under the hood – but I reckon it comes pretty close.
Maya 2011's default theme
Maya 2011 "Windows" theme
All you need to do is add a little bit of text to your Maya shortcut. Under Windows 7 it looks like the following:
Add "-style" followed by "windows"
This shortcut will tell Maya to launch using the “Windows” theme, which is the closest match to the old Motif theme. There are other sytles you can list too however this is closest.
I have no idea if this is a good idea to use in production, or if there are any major disadvantages, but it seems to run okay under Windows 7 for what little testing I have done.
If you are a stubborn person and cannot stand the new darker UI, then this little switch might be useful.
I really recommend you use the new darker UI though….save your eyes!
More Styles
There are several other styles of which you can try
- plastique
- cleanlooks
- motif
- cde
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Comments
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its run also in winxp64 .. ths man……….
in the “window” scheme the background of the render window is white wich is completly unpractical, is there a way to fix this with the new QT code?
Hi Roy,
Unfortunately there is no way yet – it seems these themes are hard coded into Qt and not controlled by Autodesk directly.
The best bet is probably to log a sug with Autodesk to ask for a way to control the UI colours. They could probably do this.
Roy, Having said that I can’t seem to replicate your problem.
Was able to get access to Maya and tested on Windows 7 x64 and Maya 2011 x64. With the “window” scheme the background for the render window was normal.
The “Windows” theme makes it almost impossible to see the option boxs for tools, making Maya seem like a horrible program.
You’re right! I never noticed this before. I guess this is why this feature is kind of hidden by Autodesk.
I’ll log a bug anyway and hopefully they’ll be able to fix it in future.
thanks it workss…..
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Are there any scripts out there to make Maya’s UI like XSI. I’m a modeler and I really prefer the modeling in XSI.
Hi Zanman, in what way? Unfortunately I’ve never used XSI before. I totally agree with you on Maya’s weakness in the modelling department though.
From my experience, there are a couple of ways to improve Maya’s modelling capabilities.
Either by looking through here for modelling scripts, editing some and writing your own
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/c/
Or if you’re willing to shell out a bit of money to make things easier then there is also this plugin to which I’ve heard good things about. There is a trial available