In this section you will create a primitive object, a cylinder, for the base of the desk lamp.
Watch Part 1 of the tutorial.
Primitives are ready-made objects in familiar shapes. The primitives are made from a single surface, or a group of surfaces that form an enclosed volume.
In Alias, you can create the following primitives:
Now create a cylinder for the base of the lamp stand.
Maximize the Top view.
To choose the Cylinder tool, press and hold the mouse button, so the cursor is over the Sphere icon until the entire Primitives drawer appears.
Then, click the Cylinder icon to choose the Cylinder tool.
The Cylinder tool is displayed in the Surfaces palette, and is outlined in red to indicate it is the active tool.
Hold down the (Windows) or (Mac) key to turn on grid snap mode.
Press and hold the (Windows) or (Mac) key near the origin. Keep your finger held down on the (Windows) or (Mac) key and move the mouse until the new cylinder snaps to the correct grid point.
Release the (Windows) or (Mac) key and the mouse button.
The cylinder remains picked, or active. Picked objects are drawn with white lines, and objects that are not picked are drawn with dark blue lines. Most tools and commands work on picked objects. Since the Cylinder is picked, any tools or commands you choose will be applied to it.
Next scale the cylinder to the correct size.
The Scale icon is outlined in red to indicate it is the active tool. At the same time, the cylinder’s manipulators disappear.
Scale the cylinder to roughly fit the width of the bottom cylinder shown on the sketch. This forms the base of the lamp.
The Transform > Non-p Scale tool (non-proportional scale) modifies the x, y or z scale of an object separately. This allows an object to be stretched or squashed.
The mouse buttons are used to control the non-proportional scaling. For this section, use the 2D views (Top, Side, and Back) to control the transforms. In these views, the mouse buttons work as follows:
Next use the to adjust the vertical height of the base.
Later, you will line up the cylinder to the grid line, to make the lamp base sit on the ground.