Soft selection lets you select vertices, edges, faces, UVs, or even multiple meshes organically. It’s useful for making smooth slopes or contours on your model without having to transform each vertex manually. Alternatively, you could also use sculpting to accomplish the same effect. To use the soft select tool, press B, then go to face select.
Soft select in Maya:
When you double-click the selection tool and go to soft select, you can change the falloff radius and the falloff curve. Here is a shape with a big falloff radius:
And here is a shape with a small falloff radius:
To apply a texture to a model, go to UV, UV editor, select the model to get the layout of the shape, create the texture in photoshop as shown here:
Once you’ve saved it as a PNG, go to Maya, select the model, go to hypershade, select lambert, select the checkered square next to colour, select file, select the folder and apply the UV texture, select the model, and press 6 and the model will now have the texture.
I also applied a floor and added a texture to it.
Final Render:
