What is the right scale to use when rigging a character with Maya?

Answer 1

It is always recommended to use real world scale. For example, if a character is 6 feet tall in real life they should measure 6 feet tall in Maya. It does not matter what units you are working in (inches, feet, meters etc).

Answer 2

Maya works in Centimeters by default, but it is recommended to work in real world scale, 1:1.

So let's look at a how this converts:

6ft (1.8288 meters) tall person = 182.88 cm or Maya units

It's important to check your user preferences to make sure it is set to centimeters for this conversion to be correct. Maya can handle different base unit types like ft, meters, and more, but generally it is best to leave that alone and stick with cm as Maya's default unit.