MAYA: 3D Paint

For quick surface map painting, Right Click > PAINT > 3D PAINT.  Before you start, you have to Assign / Edit Textures.

MAYA: Render Optimization from Autodesk

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=7641552

MAYA: Quick Convert Selection Popup

Holding CTRL while RIGHT CLICKING brings up the Convert Selection Popup for quick change of selection types.

Select an edgeloop, then quickly change over to vertices, etc.

MAYA: Black Preview Textures?

While working on cleaning up someone else's previous file, I've noticed that sometimes applying an imported shader texture causes the viewport preview of a texture to go black.  Easily remedied by heading over to the UV Texture Editor and swapping out the preview texture under:


UV Texture Editor > Textures > (your texture).


BAM.






(EDIT:)


Also if you have multiple texture files applied within the shader network, you can select different textures to preview as well (bump maps, displacementmaps, you name it.)