Getting started with AliasStudio 2008 Part 2

Today we are going to talk about navigation.  The first thing that you have to get comfortable with is that there is always an active command in this program.  Opposite to the systems that I had used before... "Esc, Esc".... in AliasStudio there is no such thing as no command active.  There is an option to "Pick Nothing", but be prepared that it will still leave you in the last command picked.  So if I am selecting a curve and pick on a curve, it will highlight.  If I then Pick Nothing it will unhighlight the curve, but it is still in the select a curve command until I pick another one.  So for those of us that are used to highlighting something and then RC (Right Click) to invoke a command, we will have to adjust to first picking the command.  So now to try this out, go to File-New.  It will bring a box up to "Delete all object....".   Pick Yes and it should start a new file with 4 distinct windows.  We will be working with the one in the top right corner.  If you then go to Surfaces on the Palette and select sphere, you can place as many spheres as you like by clicking in the workspace.  To unhighlight the last one placed, go to the pick tab and pick nothing.  Notice that the sphere goes from white to black.  However, if you once again pick in the workspace, another sphere will appear.  This is an example of how Alias works with commands.  They are all like this so be prepared to change commands not clear them!    Now lets look at the window and discuss some of the built in navigation commands. In the top of the window you will see several icons.  To see what they do, look at the picture to the left.  Make sure you try these and move around the spheres you just placed until comfortable.

Now the last part of the blog today is the menus.  These are what you will find yourself using most of the time.  They appear when you hold down Control-Shift and a button on the mouse or Shift-Alt and a button on the mouse.  You will notice some familiar commands like "pick nothing" on these.  They are the convenient once you get used to them.  Here are capture of each of them.  Happy Designing!