Outliner contextual menus

When you right-click in an empty area of the Outliner or on any node, you can access the same commands as found in the Display and Show menus (see Outliner menus), plus some other commands that are not in those menus.

When you right-click on specific node types (such as Material or Set nodes), you can access commands that apply only to them.

Reveal Selected

Finds the node for the selected object in the view. You can also press F in the Outliner. The Outliner expands the hierarchy to show the currently selected node(s).

Hide in Outliner

Choose Hide to hide the selected nodes in the Outliner.

A hidden node cannot be seen in the Outliner, so you must select Ignore 'Hidden In Outliner' in this menu to temporarily display it, or select it from the view panel or another editor before it can be unhidden. Once it's displayed again, select the node and choose Unhide to change its hidden state.

Reference menu

To access the Reference menu, right-click either an empty area or a reference node in the Outliner.

Create Reference >

See Reference Options and Create file references.

Export Selected As Reference >

Exports selected objects as referenced files. When you export objects as file references, Maya creates a new scene file in the specified location and references that file into the open parent scene. See Export Selection As Reference Options and Export file references.

Unload/Load/Reload

Loads or unloads the selected reference. If the current reference is already loaded, reload updates the loaded reference. This is useful when the reference file is being edited simultaneously. See Unload and reload file references.

Select Reference Members

Selects the objects contained by the selected reference node. The referenced members are selected in the Outliner and scene view allowing you to view the reference organization of your parent scene.

Duplicate

Duplicates the file associated with the selected reference. See Duplicate file references.

Import

Imports the selected reference’s objects directly into the current scene. See Import file references.

Remove

Removes the selected reference and associated reference nodes from the scene file. This is the preferred method for removing a reference and its associated nodes.

Replace

Opens a file browser to replace the current reference with the one you select. The group node and/or locator remains the same.

Recently Replaced Files

Lists recently-replaced reference files.

Save Edits

Saves edits that were made within the parent scene for a selected file reference to the corresponding referenced file on disk. The edits get transferred so they no longer reside within the parent scene. See Reference edits.

Export to Offline File >

Use these options to set what happens when you select File > Export to Offline File. See also Export to an offline file.

See also Export to Offline File Options.

Assign Offline File >
References the edits from the file you select and applies them to the reference node selected in the Outliner or Reference Editor. Maya applies edits by matching each nodename.attribute in the edit file to the file its being applied to.

For example, you can export a reference edit for pSphere1.translateX in the scene sphere.ma. This edit is saved in the reference file as <main>:sphere_pSphere1.translateX. You can then apply this edit to the scene ball.ma so that ball:pSphere1.translateX is edited.

See Assign Offline File Options and Assign an offline file

List Edits

Displays a current list of edits on the selected reference. You can refresh this window manually by clicking the Refresh Edits List button or remove specific edits by selecting them and clicking Remove Selected Edits. See List copy or remove reference edits.

Lock Reference/Unlock Reference

Locks or unlocks all of the nodes and attributes for a selected file reference. A lock icon appears beside the listed file reference within the Reference Editor to indicate the locked status. See Locking a file reference.

Scene Assembly menu

Scene Assembly > Create Assembly Reference

Creates an assemblyReference node.

Scene Assembly > Create Assembly Definition

Creates an assemblyDefinition node.

Scene Assembly > Create Assembly Definition >

Assembly Representations
Add Locator representation

Adds a Locator representation to the new assembly definition. Add Locator representation is on by default.

To access the following Scene Assembly menu items, select an assemblyReference or assemblyDefinition node, then right-click in the Outliner or scene view. Select Scene Assembly from the menu that appears.

Locator

Switches from any other active representation to the Locator representation.

If the assemblyDefinition node contains other representations, such as a Cache representation or Scene representation, options to switch between, these representations appear in the menu.

Unload Active Representation

Removes the current object displayed as a representation from the scene view, and sets the Active Representation to None. See Unload active assembly representations.

List Edits

Displays a list of edits to the representation of a nested assembly reference node. See List Assembly Edits window.

Scene assembly edits are managed by the assembly reference nodes. See Scene assembly edits.

Add Cache representation, Add Locator representation, Add Scene representation

Adds the specified representation type to the selected assemblyDefinition node. See Add assembly representations.

Add Cache representation > / Add Locator representation >

Load Options
Load representation

Makes the new representation active as you load it.

Sets

Right-click an object in the Outliner to access these commands.

Choose the Create options to create a set, partition or quick select set. Sets and quick select sets are loose groupings of objects used for organizing your scene. Partitions are groupings of sets that ensure the sets do not share members. See also Create and edit sets and Create a partition to prevent overlapping set memberships.

Choose the Add Selection to Set and Remove Selection From Set options to edit your set membership within the Outliner.

Asset menu

To access the Asset menu, right-click an asset node in the Outliner.

Select Asset Contents selects all elements that are contained within this asset node. They are highlighted in the Outliner and in the view panel.

See Assets for more information.

Show DAG Objects Only

Shows only transformable nodes. See DAG Hierarchy for a description of DAG nodes.

Display and Show menus

These are the same commands as found in the main Display and Show menus - see Outliner menus.

Render Setup menu

When you're working with render layers, you can use the Outliner to help you find the render layer collection of which objects are members.

In the Outliner, right-click an object's node to access these Render Setup commands:

  • The Find in All Render Layers and Find In Selected Render Layers commands help you locate the render layer collection of which this object is a member.
  • The Find in Render Layer menu expands to show all render layers in the scene.

See Set up your render in Maya for more information on render setup in general, and Identify the collection to which your object belongs for information on using these commands.

Time Editor node commands

Right-click an Animation Source in the timeEditor node in the Outliner to access this command:

  • Remap and Create Clip from Namespace lists all namespaces in the scene, which allows you to remap the selected animation to any of them - see Remap animation by Namespace.

Set node commands

Right-click a set or set member node in the Outliner to access these commands:

  • Select Set Members selects the members of the selected set. They are highlighted in the Outliner and in the view panel.
  • Remove from Current Set removes this set member from its current set. This can also be a set node that is nested within another set.
  • Show Set Members toggles the display of set members in the Outliner. If this is off, only the set nodes are displayed.

See Create and edit sets for more information.

Material node commands

Make sure to select Display > Assigned Materials to see objects' Material nodes in the Outliner. If an object has several material assigned to faces on the object, those nodes appear under a parent Materials node.

Right-click a material node in the Outliner to access these commands:

  • Assign Material to Selection applies this material to the selected objects or polygon faces.

    See Assign materials to surfaces for more information.

  • Select Objects with Material selects all objects that have this material applied to them. They are highlighted in the Outliner and in the view panel.
  • Frame Objects with Material frames objects with this material in the view panel. This includes objects whose polygon faces have this material applied.
  • Open in Hypershade opens the Hypershade window with this material selected and displayed on the shader ball.
  • Paint Assign Shader activates the Paint Selection Tool so that you can paint this material on selected objects or their polygon faces.
  • Rename lets you enter a new name for this material.
    Note: You can't rename the Materials node (folder) in the Outliner.

UFE commands

Right-click a USD prim in the Outliner to access these commands:
  • Variants: Lists the variant sets and variants available for the selected prim, letting you switch variants.
    Tip: Hold Ctrl during variant selection to keep the variant set and variant submenus open.
  • Make Invisible: Toggles the visibility of the selected prim. This option is renamed to Make Visible once a prim is hidden. If a prim is made invisible, its descendants are also made invisible. When invisible, the prim is greyed out in the outliner, but its descendants are not.
    Note: You can also view and toggle the visibility of the prim(s) in the Attribute Editor.

Related Topics

Parent topic: Outliner