I've been searching online, asking questions about the grey screen and most people say that the problem is either a video card problem or far and close plane clipping.

However I discovered that in my case the problem is that the cameras themselves automatically translate themselves by the thousands and zoom out whenever I switch views. Now, in the case of perspective all i have to do is zoom in enough(like 5 seconds of zooming in) to reach the objects and the grid. In the case of the orthographic views I have to fix the translation and then zoom in.

Another fix I have for this is first selecting an object via a different panel that isn't affected by the grey screen and then switching views on the panel with the grey screen. That usually focuses the camera on the object and doesn't let it translate itself.

However, i would prefer not having to go through all that hassle just to keep the camera near the grid and my objects. The cameras I'm talking about are the default cameras. Top, Side, Back, Front and Pers.

Are there any setting that might make the camera act this way. This usually starts happening halfway through a project.

Thanks

*What's the problem? read above
*What happened when the problem occured? read above
*What were you doing when the problem arose? read above
*What are your system specs? I'll get back to you on that.
*What version of Maya are you using? Maya 2009

I'm really not sure what causes that stuff. It's happend to me a few times but it always seemed to be fixed if I started a new file, so I started just importing my scenes into a new file and going from there. Kind of a work-around, but it worked for me.

Otherwise, you could try just creating a new Persp camera and use it instead. Sometimes that works.

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-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

just a tip, you can select something in the hypergraph, or outliner and hit 'f' to focus on that object rather than scrolling for 5 seconds and translating the camera

ok thats not really something that answers any of your questions but just thought you'd like to know....

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Thanks for the advice. I just discovered outliner myself. However f doesn't work with grey screen. In fact, most of my grey screens happen right after I hit F. However, I think that by using the outliner as you suggested I can select the desired object and change the camera view so the camera refocuses on the object.

Still, I'm going to try the new file idea. Sounds like a better stress free temp fix.. Thanks guys.

i feel like this has happened to me too - i usually adjust the camera's far clipping plane and that sometimes helps - if not, then i end up creating a new camera and that usually solves the issue.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

can i ask what card are you using?

ive had problems in the past with gaming cards which are optimised for direct x, whereas the modeling views are open GL, could be a driver issue that you wont find resolved when they update it unless its a work station card

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