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Prompt Line: Displays instructions on the current tool, error messages, and any
input that you key in.

Menu: Contains functions for general purposes, like organization, windows, help,
opening and closing files, editing, and deleting.

Palette: Includes tabs where all tools for creating and manipulating objects are
located. Unlike the Shelf, the tools are fixed in their tabs and cannot be moved,
making it ideal for learning.

Control Panel: Has tools that are useful to have available all the time, such as
modifying visibility and shading. As well as the default panel, there are three
alternative panels, which are customizable for modeling, visualization, and painting.

Work Area: Displays modeling and paint windows.

Layer Bar: Lets you organize and manage objects in your scene using layers.

Marking Menus: Displays customizable, gesture-based menus that can be

activated right at your cursor for very quick access to commonly used tools.

Shelf: Provides a customizable tool shelf. If you are running Alias for the first
time, a default shelf is loaded that contains all the commonly used tools.

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 Always Check the Prompt Line
Very important! The Prompt Line is where Alias can ‘talk’ to you and give you hints
and instructions. If in doubt, read the prompt.

Help Menu
The Help menu has two really useful tools: What’s This? and Tool Locator. Even
experienced Alias users will use them for tools they use infrequently. When you are
learning, use these regularly to increase your knowledge of new tools and
techniques.

Palette Tips
You will be using the Pick and Transform palettes all the time, so keep them open.
Keep the other tabs closed until you need them. This reduces the amount of
scrolling you have to do and keeps the tools in the same location on the screen,
helping you to learn.

Control Panel
You only need to use two parts of the Control Panel when you are first learning
Alias. The Diagnostic Shading area lets you quickly apply color to your geometry.
The Display section lets you turn the display of control vertices (CVs) on and off
quickly.

Marking Menus and Shelves

Don’t use these until you become confident with the system. They are designed to
increase speed and can be confusing when you first start learning.

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 Navigating Windows
Building your muscle memory using keyboard keys combined with mouse button
clicks lets you interact with Alias with incredible finesse. The Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys
are important elements of the interface and can dramatically speed up your ability to
switch between common functionality without ever losing focus.

The Orthographic Windows

Only Track (Pan) and Zoom
work in the orthographic
windows.

The Perspective Window

You have complete viewing
freedom in the perspective
window, plus essential control
with the View Panel, which
automatically appears when the
Shift+Alt modifier keys are
pressed.

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 Other Title Bar Icons

Each window title bar has a Show icon for turning on and off different types of
objects in the view.

Each window title bar has a Magnifier icon, which will open a sub-window and a
focus point indicator to give you a close-up view of a section of your model.

There are also icons for tumbling and zooming the view. These are old icons and
most users prefer to use the Shift+Alt+Mouse buttons technique for navigating.

On the Perspective Window title bar, there are icons for the perspective camera.
These are used later when doing rendering and animation.

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 User_data
The user_data directory is created by Alias and will be re-created if you delete it. If
you store all your data in the user_data directory, then it will be easy to locate and
organize using the Alias file tools.

However, you may want to store your data on a network server or a memory stick.
This is no problem, but it is advised that you create your own user_data directory
and keep the project structure the same underneath.

Project
The idea of a project is important because an Alias model file may contain many
different types of information, which reference each other, in particular images (pix)
and geometry (wire).

Wire Directory
This is the directory you will use most of the time, and it is where you store your
geometry files. However, a geometry file that is used for rendering or concept
sketching will reference image files, which will be stored separately in the pix
directory.

Pix Directory
The pix directory is where you will store images that you reference (texture files,
sketches) and images that you create (renderings).

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 The Concept of a Current Project
As you do more work in Alias, you will have more and more projects. To make life
easier for yourself, you can tell Alias which one is your current project. This will
then become the default for all your saving and filing. Most importantly though, it is
where any crash files will be saved, so it is useful to know where to go and look for
the saved data.

Current Project and Image File References

Another good reason for setting the current project is the pix directory of the
current project will be the default location where Alias looks for any referenced
image files.

New Project
The New Project button simply creates a directory with all the subdirectories. You
will need to rename the project as it will be given the default name of ‘new_project’.

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 Tools for Working with Canvas Planes
Each window has a Show menu which can be used to turn on or off the visibility of
different types of objects, including canvas planes.

On the Control panel, there is a

Transparency section with a slider for
canvas planes to make them less
visible in the windows.

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 Pick Nothing
Use this to deselect all selected objects. It is also useful to use if you aren’t sure if
anything is selected. Many users do Pick>Nothing before Pick>Object just to make
sure.

Marking Menus
When you are confident with the Alias interface
and you want to start increasing your speed of
interaction, the first marking menu has the pick
tools on it. Use Ctrl+Shift and the left mouse
button (LMB) to access the Marking menu.

Pick Object: Pick by Name

In the Prompt Line, you can type in the name of an object or part of the name with a
wildcard (*) to select objects by name.

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 Use the Show menu on each window title bar to control the display of the model and
view when using Diagnostic Shade.

Beware: If the model is turned off and you remove the diagnostic shading, it looks
like your model has disappeared. Use the Show menu to turn the model on.

NOTE
Diagnostic shading
isn’t used for
rendering your
model in realistic
materials, only for
quickly shading and
evaluating your
surfaces.

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 General Preferences
You can customize your interface using the other sections of the General
Preferences option window.

A common choice is to select the size of icon to suit your screen:

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 Alias 2009 and Alias 2010
With the release of Alias 2010, a new viewing option is available for the perspective
window. This ‘View Cube’ option is the default setting when you first open Alias and is
recommended for new users.

The View Cube tool is a persistent, clickable, and draggable

interface that you use to switch between standard and
isometric views of your model.
By default, it displays in the top right corner of the perspective
window in an inactive state. While the View Cube tool is
inactive, it provides visual feedback about the current
viewpoint as view changes occur.
When you position the cursor over the View Cube tool, the
tool becomes active; you can switch to one of the available
preset views, roll the current view, or change to the Home
view of the model.

The previous method, the ‘View Panel’, is still available as an option in ‘General
Preferences’.

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 Home View
The Home view is a special view stored with a model that makes it easy to return to
a known or familiar view.

To Set the Home To Return to the

View Home View
Click the context Click the Home
menu button button located near
located below the the View Cube tool.
View Cube tool.

Click Set Current

View as Home.

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 Viewing Panel in the Perspective Window
The Viewing Panel appears only when the Shift and Alt keys are used in the
perspective window for zooming or tumbling. It allows the selection of pre-set views,
zooming to look at selected objects, or switching between perspective and isometric
views.

BookMarks and Audodesk Alias Teaching Materials

The teaching materials provided with this curriculum make use of the BookMark
system to embed instructions and information into the exercise and project files.

Pages of instructions, similar to PowerPoint pages, have been created on canvas

planes. (You will study how to create and use canvas planes in a later exercise.)
Views focused on each plane have been saved as BookMarks and named ‘Page 1’,
‘Page 2’, and so on.

In version 2008 (and onwards) of Alias, the Page Up and Page Down keys on the
keyboard can be used to step through these pages. This also works in version 13.5.

In version 13 (and earlier) it is necessary to use the BookMarks tab on the Viewing
Panel to step through the ‘pages’ of instruction.

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 Look At
A model can often contain large and small parts, particularly a vehicle design. The
‘Look At’ tools do three things:
1. Fit the geometry into the window
2. Center the tumbling around the ‘center of gravity’ of the objects
3. Scale the ‘zooming’ appropriately for the size of the objects

Three ‘Look At’ Tools

The Viewing Panel Look At tool is the easiest to find, but it only
works in the perspective window.
On the View palette, there is a Look At tool that will work
in the Active Window (the window most recently clicked in,
shown with a white border). This is most commonly used in
its ‘hotkey’ form of Alt+L, and it is recommended that you
memorize and use this tool to help you view models
effectively.

+L
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 Setting POI in General Preferences

By default, the Point-of-

Interest viewing locator is
active. If you want to
disable/enable this
functionality, use
Preferences>General
Preferences and open the
option window. Choose
the Viewing section and
choose your preference.

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 Why Layers?
Layers help you to organize your geometry on the screen. You may need to do this
for a number of reasons:

The model is complex (for example, a vehicle interior and exterior or a

mobile phone with all buttons and components).

You are exploring different versions of one design and want to keep them all
in one file for comparison.

You are working very quickly and untidily. Layers help you to quickly hide
away work-in-progress and reduce clutter on the screen.

You need to communicate with someone else. Organizing your data into
layers makes it much easier for someone else to understand your file.

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 Default Layer
This is always available and cannot be deleted.

The Active Layer

This is shown in yellow and can be chosen by clicking on the Layer tab. Only one
layer can be active at a time.

Visibility
Choosing the Visibility option on the pull-down menu toggles the visibility of the
objects on the layer on and off.

Layer States:

• Active (gray): Geometry on the layer can be picked and modified

• Reference (brown): Geometry can be seen and snapped to but not picked or
modified

• Inactive (blue): Geometry can be seen but not snapped to, picked, or modified

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