Before starting our primitive modeling of the table, let's think what all we would need to create a table. We need a cube to form the planar surface of the table and four cylinders to form the legs. It's that easy to model a table. Let's do it.

Create a new scene by clicking File > New Scene from the main menu bar in Maya and save it as 'chap-02-save-table-vase-scene'

Click on Create > Polygon Primitives > Cube from the menu.

Note: Alternatively you can click on the 'Polygons' tab from the Maya Shelves and click on the 'Cube' icon from there (move the mouse pointer over each item and you can see the help pop-up appearing).

Now click and drag inside the persp view to define the base of the cube. Once you are happy with the size of that, release the mouse button. Now click and drag the mouse in the vertical direction in Maya to define the height of the cube.

Enable shading for the persp view in Maya by clicking on Shading > Smooth Shade All from the menu within the persp panel.

Don't bother about the size of the cube. We will change that easily in the next step.