Welcome to Alias and the world of 3D modeling, rendering and animation. The Alias product line offers a complete solution for the creation of digital content in fields such as Animation, Industrial Design, Interactive Computer Games or any other discipline that requires photorealistic 3D visualization.
This book deals with the Designer, PowerAnimator and Studio products. As a group, these products will be referred to as Alias since they all share a common interface as well as many basic features.
Learning Alias is your guide to the program you see before you. With hundreds of tools and functions available, this book lets you focus on what the tools do and in what context they are to be used. This book contains over thirty lessons designed to take you from effectively utilizing the User Interface to creating a walking robot.
The lessons in this book contain many steps that take you deep into a particular tool or function. In general, you'll be asked to use the tool, then an explanation will follow to help you understand why that action was required. This lets you experience the tool first, then understand its application.
This book on its own will not make you an Alias power user. Instead, it will give you a solid foundation on which to build your own skills. Once you complete a lesson, be sure to follow up by experimenting with the tools you have just learned.You can also refer to the Reference manuals (either printed or on-line) to help you learn about aspects of a particular tool that were not used in the tutorial.
This book contains many tutorials that cover a wide range of topics. The tutorials have been broken down into a few main sections to help you understand what the tools are used for. These main sections are each prefaced by a short introduction that ties together many of the concepts that are taught in the associated lessons. Listed below are the main section titles:
This section teaches you about the Alias workspace and how to find and use tools, menus and view windows. You will also learn how to pick objects in a virtual 3D world.
This sections deals with the creation of curves and surfaces. You will learn how to construct several different shapes and forms using the many modeling tools available to you.
This section deals with how you can give your objects color and texture. You will learn how to use the Multi-lister to create and edit shaders. Texture mapping will also be explored so that you can enrich the look of your models when they are rendered.
This section deals with the setup of lights and the execution of the actual renderings.
In this section, you will explore how to set up keyframes, motion paths and hierarchical animations. Important animation tools such as the Action window and the Parameter control window will be covered.
This section covers the use of Inverse Kinematics, Deformation and Shapeshifter. All of these tools are focused on the process of animating the motion and facial characteristics of character models.
In this section, you will learn how to set up particle simulations to create effects such as smoke or liquid goo.
While much of Alias' modeling is accomplished using spline-based surfaces, several tools are available for modeling with polygons. This section deals with polygonal modeling with a focus on how to watch your polygon count to create efficient models.
This sections deals with high degree curves and surfaces and the tools that work with these more sophisticated types of geometry. You will explore how to achieve continuity in your surfaces and what tools should be used.
This book covers features found in several Alias products. Not all features are available in all of these products, so you should consult the chart below to see which lessons you should complete:
PowerAnimator 1-8, 10-21, 26-27
with PowerModeling 8, 28, 32-33
with Advanced Animation 19-25, 29
* In Lesson 4, Animator customers cannot complete "The Curve Editor" section. You can finish the tutorial by skipping to the next section titled "Mirroring a Curve."
Be sure to refer to this chart to make sure that you are completing the lessons that apply to the product that you purchased.
Please note that these lessons are cumulative: each builds on the ideas taught in the previous lesson. If you are a new user, you should try to follow them in their proper sequence in order to take full advantage of their content.
If you were a Version 8.5 user, you will find that most of the tutorials are updated versions of the lessons which were included in the Version 8.5 Learning Alias guide. You will notice images and text have been revised where necessary, but no new lessons have been added, nor have any significant changes been made.
For detailed explanations of the new and improved features of Version 9.0, refer to What's New in Alias.
In general, it is not imperative to redo the Learning Alias lessons unless you want to review various theories, techniques or workflows.