Interface

Tool Icons

Click one of these radio buttons to customize the display of your icons. This option is saved when you exit. Choose one of

• Text
• Small
• Medium
• Large

Icon labels

A check mark in the check box turns on icon labels, which show text labels beneath icons. This option is saved when you exit from AliasStudio.

Tooltips

Turn off or on text hints that appear in the interface when the mouse cursor hovers over a tool icon for longer than 1 second.

Title bar info

Turn off or on the units and grid size information on the top of the active modeling window.

Status bar

Use to turn on or off the appearance of the status bar at the bottom of the AliasStudio window.

Input

Default keyboard entry mode

Choose either Absolute or Relative. Specifies whether the numbers that you type for Transform functions are absolute (ABS) or relative (REL) addresses. ABS uses the origin for placement (0, 0, 0), and 0 degrees along the X, Y, and Z axes for rotation. REL uses the object’s current placement and rotation.

Alt/Shift Action

Specifies the behavior of the mouse buttons while navigating in the perspective view, when the Alt and Shift keys are held down.

Azimuth/Twist: The mouse buttons behave as follows:

• Left: Moving the mouse horizontally controls the azimuth. Moving the mouse vertically controls the elevation.
• Middle: Tracks horizontally and vertically.
• Right: Moving the mouse vertically dollies in and out. Moving the mouse horizontally twists.

Tumble/Zoom: The mouse buttons behave as follows:

• Left: Tumbles horizontally or vertically around the cursor position, or the point of interest, if present. (Click and release to position the point of interest.)
• Middle: Tracks horizontally and vertically.
• Right: Dollies in and out.

View Step Angle

Specifies the angle increment when using the arrow keys to change the azimuth (left/right arrows) or elevation (up/down arrows). This only applies when Alt/Shift Action is set to Azimuth/Twist.

Allow Axis Constrained Tumble

Forces tumbling to happen around one axis. Tumbling is constrained about an axis that is perpendicular to the line described by the initial mouse movement, and once the tumble has been started, the mouse needs to deviate substantially off the initial line in order for the camera to no longer tumble about the initially described axis.

Constraint Sensitivity

Larger values make it easier for the tumbling to get constrained to an axis. Smaller values make it more difficult.

Use pick chooser

Check the Pick Chooser on or off. If it is on (the default), a small box appears under the mouse when more than one object is picked by a mouse click. This box contains a list of all pickable items under the mouse and allows you to choose the one you want.

Dolly to Mouse

Check on to set the dolly-in or dolly-out point to be the mouse cursor. If not checked, the dolly-in or dolly-out point will be the origin (0, 0, 0). If Dolly to Point is also checked, Dolly to Point takes precedence — the point of interest will be the dolly focus if it is visible in the active window.

Use point of interest

Check on or off the visibility of the Point of Interest Manipulator. The default is off.

Dolly to Point

Check on to set the dolly-in or dolly-out point to be the point of interest on screen. If checked off, the dolly point will be the mouse cursor if Dolly to Mouse is checked, or the origin if neither Dolly to Point nor Dolly to Mouse is checked.

Arrow key step size

Specifies the number of pixels (from 0 to 256) of cursor movement when you press an arrow key. The default value is 1.

Mouse Mapping for perspective move

On ground plane

Choose one of the following to determine the way the mouse buttons enable you to move objects in the perspective view:

• Left=X Mid=Y Right=Z
• Left=Free Mid=X Right=Y

On construction plane

Choose one of the following to determine the way the mouse buttons enable you to move objects in the perspective view when you have set a construction plane:

• Left=X Mid=Y Right=Z
• Left=Free Mid=X Right=Y

Model Windows

Transform Guides

Check on or off the guidelines and numerical box that appear when you use the Transform > Move tool.

Show axis triad

Check to show the red, green, and blue XYZ axis marker in each modeling window.

Active View Panel

When this option is checked on, pressing + in a modeling window displays the active viewing panel. When it is off, the active viewing panel does not appear.

View transition time

Specifies the time (in seconds) it takes for one view to smoothly rotate into another. Choose a value between 0.0 and 4.0 by typing in the numeric field or dragging the slider.

Titlebar transparency

Specifies the level of transparency of the window title bars. A value of 0.0 is completely opaque, and a value of 1.0 is completely transparent (letting you see the grid and model through the title bars).

NoteAlthough you can see the model through the title bars, you cannot pick it in that location.

Restart required for these values

Coordinate System

Controls which axis is “up and down”, that is, perpendicular to the ground plane. Different computer graphics industries sometimes use different conventions for whether Z or Y is “up”. Generally, Z is used for the “up” axis in industrial design.

Modeling

Maximum number of guidelines

Set to a value between 0 and 10. This option used to be found under Delete > Delete guidelines q.

Curve snap divisions

Choose the number of divisions (between 1 and 100) on a curve that can be snapped to.

Curve snap intersections

Check to enable curve snapping to happen at intersections of two curves.

Modeling Layers mode

Choose either Name or Number. Choose Name to assign any name to the modeling layers; choose Number to name layers L1, L2, L3, etc.

Paint

Paint Quality Display

Choose Low, Medium, or High

Show Brush stamp preview

Check on or off to display or hide the brush preview. When the Brush Stamp Preview is turned on, the cursor displays a preview image of how the brush will apply paint to the sketch.

Show Paint cursor

Check to show white crosshairs centered on the brush’s midpoint.

Show Brush cursor outline

Select one of the following options to display or hide the brush outline:

• Off: do not display brush outline
• Off During Stroke: display brush outline except when creating a stroke of paint
• On: always display brush outline

Hide Windows During Stroke

Sets the amount of time (in seconds) that it will take before the windows reappear. Choose a value between 0.00 and 10.00 seconds.

Brush Curve Snap Tolerance

The distance in pixels within which a brush will snap to a curve when curve snapping is on, from 4 to 128. The default is 25.

Default canvas width

Sets the size (in pixels) of any new canvases that are created. The default width is 842 pixels.

Default canvas height

Sets the size (in pixels) of any new canvases that are created. The default height is 595 pixels.

Default canvas on persp

Specifies what type of canvas is created when you start sketching in a Perspective window with no canvases.

• Always prompt me: The New Canvas option window appears so that you can choose the type of canvas and canvas parameters. This is the default.
• Standard canvas: A standard canvas of default width and height is always created.
• Overlay canvas: An overlay canvas of default width and height is always created.

Show thumbnails in Canvas Layer Editor

Check this option to see the image layer thumbnails in the Canvas Layer Editor.

Visualization

Shader Sample Size

Relative size of the shader sample thumbnails in the Visualize Control Panel.

SMALL: Fits three thumbnails across the panel.

LARGE: Fits two thumbnails across the panel.

Library Location

The location of the library of shaders that will appear in the Visualize Control Panel.

This location can also be specified by using the Shader Library > Change Library menu at the top of the Visualize Control Panel.

If this field is blank, a default library is used.

Animation

Draw bone style

Choose one of

• Line
• Round
• Pyramid
• Proportional
• Triangular

Bone tab

Check this option to attach a tab bar to the bone axis. It also helps you to detect if the bone is flipped

System

Type of File Browser

Choose either Windows or AliasStudio, depending whether you want to search for files using the default AliasStudio Browser or the Windows Browser. The Windows file browser lets you store up to eight frequently used paths in the GO menu. This option only appears in the Windows Interface Options window.

CheckPoint File Location

Set the directory for CheckPoint files to be stored. For more information about CheckPoint files, see File > Checkpoint. If this string is left blank, the directory defaults to current_project/wire/Checkpoints.

MSave File Location

Set the directory for files to be stored in the event of AliasStudio terminating abnormally. If this string is left blank, the default is current_project/wire/_M.SAVES.

Restart required for these values

Help Location

The location of the AliasStudio online help. This can be a file system path or a URL. For example:

/CDROM/html

file://c|/Docs/AliasStudio/Help

http://webserver/docs/AliasStudio/Help

You must set this option to open the online help from the Help menu.

Browser Library Location

The location of a library of digital resources, such as shaders or wire files. This path is available as the Library menu item in the file browser.

Browser Dumpster Location

The directory deleted files are moved to. If you do not type an absolute path, the path is relative to your user_data directory.

In Windows, this defaults to the Recycle Bin.

Use Default Temp Directory for Scratch Disk Space

This option specifies the location that AliasStudio will use as scratch disk space. If it is checked (default), the user’s temporary directory is used. If it is unchecked, you can choose another location using the field below. The files that AliasStudio creates in the scratch directory are automatically cleared when you exit the software.

Scratch Disk Space Directory

Type the path to the location that you want to use as scratch disk space, or use the Browse button.

Miscellaneous

General Undo

Limit undos

Check if you want to reduce the amount of memory used to keep track of actions that can be undone. If checked, the Maximum undos slider becomes available.

Limit memory used

Check to limit the operations that can be undone based on RAM. If checked, the Maximum memory slider becomes available.

Maximum undos

If you have chosen to limit the number of undo operations that can be performed, choose a number between 0 (no undo operations) and 100.

Maximum memory (Mbytes)

Allows you to limit the amount of RAM that will be allocated for Undo operations. The available range is 0 megabytes (no memory allocated for Undo operations) to 500 megabytes. The default is 300 megabytes.

Restart required for these values

These next two options contain the search path(s) that are used to locate and load plug-ins into AliasStudio.

Plugin Verbose Output

Print Brief or Full messages to the error log (Utilities > Errlog) while loading/unloading plug-ins.

Plugin Search Path

The path(s) that are searched for plug-ins. Separate paths on the lines with colons (:). Paths are searched in order.