Maya Rendering Guides

The Hypergraph

By contrast, the Hypergraph: Hierarchy (referred to as just the Hypergraph from here on) displays all the objects in your scene in a graphical layout similar to a flowchart (see Figure 2.15). Select Window * Hypergraph: Hierarchy to see more directly the relationships between the objects in your scene. This window will perhaps be somewhat more difficult to decipher for the novice, but it affords the user great control over object interconnectivity, hierarchy, and input and output connections. The Hypergraph Input And Output Connections window is technically called the Hypergraph window, but it shows you the interconnections of attributes among nodes as opposed to the layout of nodes and node hierarchy within the scene. For the most part throughout this book, we will be dealing with the Hypergraph Scene Hierarchy and referring to it as the Hypergraph.

Navigating the Hypergraph is the same as navigating any Modeling window using the familiar Alt key and mouse combinations for tracking and zooming. The following chapters will focus much more on these two windows. Let's have a quick look at the windows and their icons. Later on you can refer back to this section as needed.

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Object nodes Parent node

Children nodes

Figure 2.14 The Outliner

Figure 2.15 The Hypergraph

Object nodes Parent node

Children nodes