Hey all, I am trying out Maya (2010) for the first time, though I am not new to 3D I have been using 3ds max for couple years now. As the title suggests I am looking for an answer. So far I find modeling in Maya to be frustrating since I cannot select polys as smoothly as I could in Max. If you are unfamiliar, when modeling in Max, you can specify on the fly whether or not to include backfacing verts, edges, polys in your selections based on sub-object mode. I have tried to use the “backface culling” option in the display/polygons but its grayed out and I cant find the reason why. If anyone can help I would be grateful. Thanks in advance.

Not sure why the Backface Culling option is greyed out...puzzling.

For my modeling work, I toggle backface culling by holding down Shift+RMB.
At the bottom of that menu ‘Polygon Display’ has the culling options for the object selected...or the whole scene if nothing is selected.
I can’t remember a time that it has been greyed out.
Hoepfully it works out.
~Ben