Adding Edges and Faces to Shapes With the Multi-Cut Tool

This post will teach you how to add edges to your shapes in Maya, so you can edit them better or reshape them. This skill is important for detailed modeling,and is fairly simple so anyone could learn it.

First, start with a simple shape. (Whichever one you want to edit, I chose a rectangular prism.
Select the shape in object mode (green outline on the shape's edges), and click on the "Multi-Cut Tool"
in the polygons tab. The shape will no have a blue outline and if you move your mouse over an edge or vertex, they will be highlighted in red. Click the edge or vertex you want to add an edge from (Tip: you can hold the mouse button on an edge to precisely place the new point and see the percentage of where it is on the line, with 50% being in the middle), and click again where you want the end of the new line to be. If you click again on the shape, a 2nd line and 3rd endpoint will appear, and you can continue creating these or connect them to the original to cut a face out of the shape. These new faces and edges can be moved, rotated, extruded, and provide more opportunities for detailed editing.