Alias Essential Training

Course details

Autodesk Alias is the premier CAD studio application for concept and surface design, enabling artists and designers to create high-quality, feasible CAD models. Whatever industry you're in, Veejay Gahir will provide a grounded introduction to Alias's tools and techniques. He'll show you how to create, modify, and analyze data, and export this data into formats that are usable in other CAD applications. Start watching and learn how to get up and running with this industry-leading program.

Learning objectives
Manipulating views and entities
Working with layers
Creating curves
Sweeping, extruding, revolving, offsetting, and blending surfaces
Modifying geometry
Moving, scaling, flipping, and rotating objects
Trimming curves and surfaces
Creating copies of objects
Aligning, combining, and splitting objects
Analyzing geometry
Shading models

Concepts

Introduction

Welcome
What you should know before watching this course
Using the exercise files
Installing Alias Design

Interface

Checking out the Alias interface
Working within a project
View and entity manipulation
Snapping entities with the Pivot option
The ViewCube and the Navigation bar
Marking-menu custom shelves
Hotkeys and the Menu Editor
Let's get started
Looking at layer basics
Layer symmetry
Layer management

Curve Creation

Curve primitives - Circles and sweeps
New curves - CV, Edit Point, and Sketch curves
Blend curves
Keypoint curves
Snapping entities
Moving control points
The Hotbox interface (spacebar)
Creating text

Basic Surfaces

Surface primitives
Planar surfaces
Surface sweep extrude
Multi-Surface Draft
Bevel and Skin
Surface Revolve
Mono-rail sweep surfaces
Bi-rail sweep surfaces
Additional notes on sweeps
Tube Flange - Center Radius
Tube Flange - Tangent Offset
Tubular Offset
Fillet Flange
Simple fillet
Freeform Blend
Profile Blend
Ball corners (round)

Construction Aids

Using the History view
The Object Lister
The Information window
Reference vectors
Construction planes

Modifying Geometry

Symmetrical modeling
Extending curves and surfaces
Flatten (planarize) a basic curve
Flatten hulls onto planes

Move, Scale, Flip, or Rotate

Moving geometry
Scale and Non-Proportional Scale
Rotating geometry
Reflecting or flipping objects
3D placement
3D placement with multiple copies

Edit Objects

Increasing the complexity of curves
Increasing the complexity of surfaces
Trimming curves
Trimming surfaces
Reverse the direction of a curve or surface
Making an object closed

Cut, Trim, and Offset

Offset entities
Intersecting planes and surfaces
Create curves on a surface

Create Copies of Objects

Duplicating objects
Rebuilding curves
Rebuilding surfaces
Copy and paste options
Exporting data
Exporting to rapid prototype

Align, Combine, and Split Objects

Aligning curves
Aligning surfaces
Joining two curves
Split or detach entities
Stretch a curve

Evaluate Geometry

Analyze curve problems
Annotations and measurements
Creating cross-sections
Evaluating curve continuity
Evaluating surface continuity
Measuring deviation between two objects

Shading a Model

Multicolor shading
The random-color diagnostic shader
Horizontal and vertical shaders
Visual state analysis
Die-line evaluation

Conclusion

Next steps
Goodbye