This is one of the scripts I use the most.  It lets you zero out channels with a hotkey. It was written by one of my former work buddies Will Hoag, and you can get it at https://www.highend3d.com/maya/script/wh-set-zero-for-maya.   You will need to register an account with High End 3d to download the script, but it’s free.

Once you’ve gotten and installed the script, open your Hotkey Editor and make a new custom script with the Runtime Command Editor.  Make it the mel command ‘whSetZero’ and assign it a hotkey.

Now select an item in your viewport and hit your key.  Translation and rotation channels for the selected object will be set to 0 and scale and visibility channels will be set to 1.  If you select channels in the channel box, only the selected channels will be affected, so it’s an easy way to zero out only rotations or translations while leaving the other attributes as they were.  One quirk of this script is that if you select only one channel and try to zero it out, all channels will be reset, but if you select two or more, the script will reset the selected attributes.

Where this script really shines is in the graph editor.  If you select a key on a curve and hit your hotkey, that key will be reset.  If you select multiple keys, it will zero all of those keys.  If you select a whole curve, it will zero all the keys on that curve.  This can let you make certain adjustment very very quickly.  This one is a little hard to show in pictures, so if this doesn’t make sense, or you don’t want to try it out yourself, I recommend watching the demo.

This script also works on multiple objects, so it’s handy if you need to set a rig back to its initial position.  You can just select all the controls, hit your hotkey, and you are set.

Thanks again, Will Hoag.  I couldn’t live without this one.

Now that the basics have been covered, I’m going to start showing some things I do to speed up my personal workflow, starting with some hotkeys that are very useful when using the graph editor.

I really dislike going up to the to toolbar at the top of the graph editor every time I want to change a tangent type.  Fortunately, the buttons I use most can be assigned to hotkeys for very quick changes.

Open the hotkey editor, and from the drop down boxes next to “Edit Hotkeys For:” select “Editors” and “Graph Editor.”

If you scroll to the bottom you can find tangent types.  I set mine up so Alt+1 is Tangent Spline, Alt+2 is Tangent Linear, Alt+3 is Tangent Flat, and Alt+4 is Tangent Auto.  I rarely use other tangent types, so these four hotkeys work for me 99% of the time.

One other thing I do all the time is break and unify my tangents.  To do this with a hotkey, I use a script from Aaron Koressel.  Specifically, at the bottom of his Workflow Scripts page, you can find a script named ackToggleTangentType.

Download this script to your maya scripts folder, rehash so you don’t have to close and re-open.

Back in your hotkey editor, go to the Runtime Command Editor and make a new runtime command.  Give it a name, set the language to Mel, and give it the command “ackToggleTangentType()”

Save Runtime Command and assign it a hotkey under Edit Hotkeys For: Custom Scripts.  I use Alt+`, which is the ~ key just to the left of the 1 key.  Now this hotkey will toggle your tangents between broken and unified.  If you use weighted tangents like I do, this will also free your tangent weights.  I used to have a separate hotkey to free tangent weights, but a double-tap of this one will free and re-unify the tangents, so now I just use this.

Hopefully that’s helpful.  With a little practice, this will help you alter your keys with much more speed and much less distraction than going to the toolbar every time you want to make a change.

This is the last of my basic tutorials, so if in the future you get lost wondering how to make a hotkey or a button or where to put a script so Maya picks it up, you can just refer back to these first three and get a reminder.  I won’t be getting into anything much crazier than you see in these first three videos, I’ll just be using these few techniques for a lot of different things.

You will find the Hotkey Editor under Windows > Settings/Preferences > Hotkey editor.

On the right side you will see a map showing keys that are in use as hotkeys.   They show up in teal.

This map will update itself as you press Ctrl, Shift, Alt or when you go into hotkeys for specific editors, like it can be seen doing here while showing the hotkeys for the graph editor.

Looking to the right, we have some options to go through.  The first is the menu category.

This is where you can assign or edit hotkeys for the menus at the very top of the program.  Maybe you want to change the key for Save as, or Undo.  For this example I chose to add a key to a menu item that doesn’t already have one.  I made it so ‘m’ will open my Graph Editor.  

You can see that I’m given a warning because another command is using ‘m’ as a hotkey.  It’s not a tool I ever use, though, so I’m fine to continue.  If ‘m’ has an on-release command, you may also see a warning for that.  You can click through them both.

Now I’ve chose, our next category: Editors (1.).  It shows up blank, so I’ve selected the Graph Editor (2.)This is where I can edit all the hotkeys for tools and commands that are specific to the graph editor.  It’s also a good place to look for tools that could be useful but that I might not otherwise have known existed.

The third category is “Other Items” which is just a catchall for things that aren’t on menus or aren’t specific to an editor.  It’s also a great place to trawl for unknown, but helpful, tools.   

Time for category four, Custom Scripts (1.)  I use this more than the other three combined.  It lets you enter in some code, either MEL or Python that can then be assigned to a hotkey.  It can be a call to one of your scripts in your scripts folder or it can be the whole script itself, depending on how the script was written and your personal preference.  To set up a script for use, click on the “Runtime Command Editor,” tab (2.), and then click “New” (3.)  This will then allow you to type in the rest of the boxes below.  Enter a name (4.).  The name is a mandatory field and has to be unique in your scene.  It can also only contain letters, numbers and underscores.  The description (5.) is optional, but a good idea.  When you accumulate a bunch of these, you’ll be glad you kept notes.    (6.) Select the appropriate language, (7.) paste or write the code and then (8.) save.

Now that that’s done, your runtime command will show up on the left, and you can finally assign a hotkey to it. I chose “8,” since it was otherwise unoccupied.  Now every time I hit “8,” my test script runs.

If you’re looking for the NURBS-toggle MEL script from my other example in the video, here it is:

string $panel = `getPanel -wf`; modelEditor -e -nurbsCurves ( !`modelEditor -q -nurbsCurves $panel` ) $panel;

Finally, these menus can be tricky to navigate and a little daunting, so if you don’t see what you’re looking for, there’s a search in the bottom left corner.

Now you should be able to make hotkeys like a pro.