Tools / Outliner

Outliner

A fresh take on the Outliner. It keeps Maya's icons, keys and habits, draws them in your own theme, and adds the things you keep writing a script to do.

Scene Add-on Needs the base package

$2 Buy Outliner With base package — $4

What it does

Select Hierarchy by Type

Right-click and take every joint under the selection. Or every mesh, curve, locator, constraint, IK handle or deformer. The job Maya leaves to a script. The same menu has Maya's Constrain menu, Group and Ungroup, and Copy Names.

Behaves like Maya's

Maya's own node icons, including the ones third-party plug-ins ship. P and Shift+P parent and unparent, F reveals the selection, the arrow keys walk the hierarchy, and any other hotkey passes straight through to Maya. Hovering is enough, as it is between Maya's panels.

Middle-drag to move

Drag onto a node to reparent, between siblings to reorder, onto empty space to unparent. Each move is one undo step. Drag into the Node Editor to add nodes to its graph.

Sets and references

Selection sets are listed with their members, and you add to one by dragging onto it. The Reference menu has what Maya's offers, plus something it does not: remove reference edits by kind, on only the nodes you selected, with a count of each before you touch anything.

Find things

Filter by name with wildcards and several terms at once, or by type. Matches are shown with their parents. Large scenes stay quick, because the tree only reads what you open.

More than one

Open as many outliners as you like, each with its own name, filters and display options. A layout remembers them, so a rigging layout can list shapes while an animation one hides them. Every line and color follows the theme.

Next to Maya's Outliner

Maya's Outliner is a good tool, and we copied how it behaves on purpose: the icons, the keys, the middle-drag. If you know one you know the other. The differences are in the places where Maya's leaves you reaching for a script.

Selecting by type	Maya selects a whole hierarchy. Ours can also take only the joints under it, or the meshes, curves, constraints or deformers.
Deep hierarchies	The branch lines from the node under your cursor up to the root are lit, so its parents read at a glance.
Searching	Several terms at once, separated by commas, with a type filter beside the name filter.
Right-click	Adds Constrain, an Ungroup that keeps things where they are in the world, and Copy Names as a list ready for the Script Editor.
Reference edits	Removed by kind, on only the nodes you selected, with a count of each shown first.
Several outliners	Each has a name, keeps its own filters and display options, and comes back with your layout.
Looks	Follows your theme, down to the branch lines.

One thing to know

It is an add-on, so it needs the base package: two dollars for the tool box, two for this. The tool box is where it docks, where it takes its theme from, and what remembers its options and its place in your layouts.

Details

Category	Scene
Price	$2, one payment
Requires	The base package
Maya	2024 to 2027, Windows
Install	Unzip into your Maya modules folder, restart Maya — how to install
Scene files	Stores nothing of its own in your scene

Two dollars.

Bought once, yours to keep, updates included.

Buy Outliner — $2 With base package — $4