Turn Off Face Centers?

[pixl]

Is it possible to turn off the display of face centers when in component - face editing mode?
Thanks.

[naughty]

It may depend on which version of Maya you have as to where it is, and what the option will be called but pretty much all versions allow you to do this in a number of ways.

If you look in your preferences (window>Settings>Preferences) and go to the Display > Polygons pane you can see a checkbox for Face centers. This controls the defaults, so if you never want to see them on any new scenes you can set it here. You can also look on the Disply menu where you will find a "Face Centers" menu item in the "Polygons" sub menu and also a "Custom Polygon Display..." option that will allow you to change the face center option on a per-object basis.

You can also open the Attribute editor on an object and you will find a "Display Center" checkbox in the object shape's "Mesh Component Display" section.

Finally, if you mean can you get Maya to automatically toggle them on/off depending what component mode you're in the answer is yes, in theory, but this involves a bit of MEL trickery and possible modifying Maya's default marking menu scripts.
:nathaN

[pixl]

I have Face Center Display turned off in prefs, in the attribute editor, and using the display menu, but I still see the face centers when in polygon mode when I have the face mask on. Is there a way to turn off the centers when editing faces?
Thanks.

[joojaa]

Well you can but then you wouldnt be able to select faces very effectively with the default select tool (maya savves off some horsepower here). Because those dots ARE the face for the selection routine, not the faces area per see except as a secondary measure. Altough you can use paint selections to select faces when their center is not shown.

Why would it matter?

PS: you could also make face selections without the edges highlighted if you REALLY really wished and workjed your ass of. Not worth the hastle tough.

[pixl]

I find them annoying - just more detail on the screen. I thought I had this working at one point, but maybe not, I haven't done that much modeling in Maya yet.
If you look at this video for NEX (3min), selection works just fine w/no centers showing.
http://draster.com/videos/downloadable/NEXv1-part2.mov
Thanks.

[joojaa]

Sure, its just teh way maya wants you to operate on faces. Personally i find them extremely useful when selecting stuff thats coplanar. Or hard to discern group crumpled up neibours.

Anyway its not that you couldn't do this ist jut taht they havent done it like that. They use points for selection contexts. (this makes doing teh selection buffer easeir and lighter)

Likewise while its perfectly possible to occlusion cull marquee selections maya does not do that either because it works on those points.

Nothing actualy states you cant change maya to WORK thisway but ist not something most peopel would have time for.

I suspect the new maya 2008 extension 2 wcould prong in something like this but i haven't tried it.

QUOTE
I find them annoying - just more detail on the screen.

You don't need to sue maya idf you dont like it.

(you just cannot get everything)

[pixl]

Preferences -> Selection -> Polygon Selection -> Whole face
This is what I was looking for. Sometimes a simple problem is hard to describe.