MAYA 8 Selection

[CoreyArt]

Im a 3d max user and recently I've gotten maya becuase thats what they use at this school. I am disgusted by this program. There are secret menu's everywhere and I dont understand how to do things like select. I've been tampering with it but is there some way you select a polygon face and actually see the selection without being in wireframe mode? And is ther a way to select a face without selecting the little dot in the middle of the polygon? Thats really annoying. Please help. Thanks all.

[Old_Nick]

hi CoreyArt. I know how you feel, I felt the same when I switch form max to maya.

Yes you can select objects/components in wire and shaded mode.
to switch between them use the numbers on your keyboard

4 wire mode
5 shaded mode
6 shaded + textures (if any)
7 lights mode (if there are lights in the scene you will see how the light
affects the object, if there are no lights and you enter this mode, you will see all the objects black)

Well, about the dot in the face follow these steps:

window > settings/preferences > preferences
a window opens
categories > selection
now in polygon selection click > whore face
Save
now you can select the faces where you want, just like max.

PS: I have maya 6 so it could be quite different in version 8.

[CoreyArt]

Strang, I did that but I dont get a highlighted selection for a fax. I even downloaded maya 7 learning edition and I get the same problem. Also the program runs alittle alggy at times with alot of screen trash when i change thiongs. Is ther also a way to change graphics driver. maybe Direct x or my graphics card for example?