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The following tutorial is directly from Module 1 of 3 in "3D Game Environment Modeling Foundation" series. I've released this first Module completely free. It is focused on teaching you how to get started with interface overview in Maya LT/Maya specifically for game environment artist.

• First Module is focused on interface overview for game environment modeling (start here).
• Second Module is focused on game environment modeling techniques.
• Third Module is focused on UV mapping, UV unwrapping and UVing.

The full series is designed for game environment artist to learn Maya LT or Maya specifically for modeling and UVing game environment art.

The entire "3D Game Environment Modeling Foundation" tutorial series contains 9 hours, 53 videos and all 3 modules.

Following free 1st module features 13 video tutorials. You can start from the beginning here and watch all videos sequentially.

Starting, Opening and Saving scenes in Maya LT/Maya is a straight-forward process but a very important one to not ignore.

Start a New Scene

Start a blank new scene by going to File > New Scene:

• Ctrl + N = New Scene

Saving Scenes

Before you save a scene you are working on, make sure you have set up your Project following this tutorial. It will ensure that your saved scenes will be placed inside a specific Project folder and into "scenes" subfolder:

To save a scene go to File > Save As:

• Ctrl + Shift + S = Save Scene As

Name the scene and click Save As:

Once you've saved a scene once, any additional saves can be done by using File > Save:

This will save the update of the current scene over the same file.

• Ctrl + S = Save

To save increments of the scene go to File > Increment and Save. This will add an extension of 0001 to your file name. This is a quick and automated way to save your scene as a new version without using Save Scene As:

Note: you must save your scene first then use "Increment and Save":

• Ctrl + Alt + S = Increment and Save

If you want to enable AutoSave go to Window > Setting/Preferences > Preferences:

Select "Settings: Files/Projects" category and and enable AutoSave:

All auto-saved files will be placed inside "autosave" subfolder:

Opening Scenes

Open existing Maya file scene by going to File > Open and select the file you want to open:

• Ctrl + O = Open Scene

With "Open" window:

• 1. Maya LT/Maya will look inside a set project and into "scenes" subfolder
• 2. Select the file you want to open
• 3. Click Open

To set Maya LT/Maya to an existing project see this tutorial.

This was the simplest and easiest video to create for "3D Game Environment Modeling Foundation" the rest of the videos - not so much...

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