Ever wondered why you can’t easily change the visibility of multiple layers in Maya? Simple tasks like this are relegated to right clicking, mostly for a purpose, however it would be nice to have modern layer management features in the Maya Display Layers.
CG Artist Paul Winex shares his small QT plugin for Maya which adds some great features to using layers in Maya, while also implementing a hierarchal list as a more functional replacement to the Maya Display Layers and also adds those user friendly features missed.
Any layer can be the root layer of the other layers, giving them the visibility property and display mode
The functionality of the Display Layers Tree Plugin is absolutely fantastic, replacing but working seamlessly with the Maya Display Layers. Display Layers Tree allows you some simple extended features that you might miss in the original display layers panel, such as the ability to name layers directly in the panel contextually and setting properties to multiple layers at once.
Simply by setting the visibility to multiple selected layers at once as an example and along that same line, interestingly, you are also able to rename multiple layers at once to any group selection contextually, and the Display Layers Tree plugin will name the layers in numeric succession.
You are also able to organize your display layers more effectively by parenting layers together. Display Layers Tree will show this as a hierarchal list where the child layers will be affected by their parent layers. Adding an objects list to the Display Layers Tree panel you are able to quickly select and drag around associated objects.
Check out the Display Layers Tree plugin for Maya, and add the features to the Maya Display Layers that you always wished were there.
