Maya Beginner Basics: Custom Shelf The following is a 10-Part series on Maya Beginner Basics. The tutorials are set up  in-specific to game environment modeling. Maya Custom Shelf tutorial covers the basics of how to set up a custom tool shelf in  Maya for game environment modeling. Tutorial covers: Tool Shelf Editor Setting Up a Custom Tool Shelf Adding Modeling Functions to Your Tool Shelf Deleting and Moving Items on Your Tool Shelf Access Options from Your Tool Maya Beginner Basics: Custom Shelf TOOL SHELF Tool shelf allows you to access most commonly used functions within Maya. By default, Maya comes with pre-set tool shelf. SHELF EDITOR Shelf editor includes various options of creating new shelves and editing current shelves. Click and hold on the upside down triangle and choose Shelf Editor. Shelf Editor allows to rename, add/delete, change icons, backgrounds etc. What we  want right now is to simply set up our own custom tool shelf. CUSTOM TOOL SHELF Setting up a custom tool shelf gives us more control of what to include. You can set up a custom tool shelf using the Shelf Editor. Click and hold on the upside down triangle and choose New Shelf. ADDING FUNCTIONS TO CUSTOM TOOL SHELF Lets add some commonly used functions for modeling game environments. Make sure  you have Polygons selected. To add functions first hold down Ctrl+Shift. As you keeping these two keys down,  go up to any drop down menus and begin selecting functions. They will begin to appear  on your custom tool shelf. Add the following: Create Polygon Tool Sculpt Geometry Tool Extrude Append to Polygon Tool Cut Faces Tool Split Polygon Tool Insert Edge Loop Tool Merge Vertex/Edge Tool Basic Shapes such as Sphere, Cube, Plane and Cylinder There will be more functions added later as we begin to model game environments. MIDDLE MOUSE CLICK TO MOVE Moving icons on your tool shelf is simple. You can either go to Shelf Editor or simply  MMB Click and Hold on the icon and drag it to new location on the shelf. DELETE FROM THE TOOL SHELF Deleting icons from your tool shelf is simple as well. You can delete it by going to  Shelf Editor or simply MMB Click, Hold and Drag the unwanted icon over the trash  can on the right hand side of your tool shelf. ACCESS OPTIONS FROM THE TOOL SHELF Many functions in Maya have options, allowing to modify how that function behaves.  You will notice that many drop down functions on your Menu List have a square box off  to the side. This means that this function has options for you to set, if you need it. If you already placed the function on your toolshelf, you can access the option box by  simply double clicking on the icon from your tool shelf.