Daryl Obert posts a few small but convenient tips for better working Texture in Maya, specifically in the Hypershade window. Daryl reminds us all that you are able to drag and drop a single file or multiple file textures into the Hypershade window.
Setting and placing textures directly into the file node in Hypershade can be really time consuming. Especially if you have tons of textures to get through. By dragging and dropping the files from the desktop right into the Hypershade window, not only do the files all get loaded up, but Maya will automatically create and associate the files with a file node for each. Much faster.
A couple of tips to help you work quickly in MayaDaryl Obert – Autodesk.com
Daryl’s second and third tips both deal with swatches in Maya, specifically their preview. There are times you may notice, that Maya doesn’t display a thumbnail swatch for the node you are working with in the Hypershade. That is by design. Textures, shaders and image swatches conform the the setting in the Maya preferences. This will prevent Maya from generating thumbnail images for gestures that are of really high resolution.
You are able to change this setting in the Maya preferences, but it does take quite a bit of computer resources to generate the thumbs. Instead, Daryl reminds us that we can override the setting on a local lever, for just one swatch. This can be done by simply by generating the thumbnail for the selected item by right clicking and choosing refresh swatch from the marking menu.
There is one last thing, Daryl mentions that drag and drop works for the maya viewport as well, where you can drag a Maya binary file into the viewport and it will open and display.
