Maya basic toolset

Extrude Tool

The extrude tool is one of the most commonly used tools when it comes to modelling weather this is basic or more complicated models, it’s a tool that can be used on faces, edges and vertices and it takes the selected geometry and extrudes it either outward or inward depending on your requirements and even lets you manipulate the extrusion with the move rotate and scale tools to give even more control over the geometry.

Edge loop, Cut face and Multi-cut tool

Firstly the edge loop tool is used to create looped edge around the mesh along the edge you selected and then circles right back to the beginning point giving a complete loop, this is good when I want to smooth or add extra lines for manipulation of geometry but when the mesh becomes more complicated the edge loop sometimes has problems creating a loop around the whole mesh and can create unnecessary or unwanted edges which can mess up geometry and cause over problems so its good tool to use but is more advisable to be used when at the beginning part of the modelling process.

The next tool which can be used for adding edges is the cut faces tool to use this you must have faces selected and then once you select the faces press on the tool and then drag the mouse to draw the edges but these only cut across the selected faces which can be handy for adding extra edges in very particular places without creating messy geometry and messing with the whole mesh, the downside of this tool is the fact that the line is created free hand and so sometimes the lines are not symmetrical or straight due to the angles in the perspective view port.

The third tool for the creation of edges is an addition that only got added to Maya 2015 and wasn't previously available the tool works by snapping and creating edges between vertices and edges it can also be used to add edge loops by holding CTRL while adding in the edges this will loop around the mesh like the edge loop tool. The downside of this tool is that sometimes in the more intricate parts of the geometry the snapping isn't completely accurate and can give you wonky results and such.