Inside Hues
Product Marketing Manager Lisa Crounse takes you on a behind the scenes tour of what goes into developing a new technology for Autodesk Labs. Lisa introduces you to members of the Impression development team and shares their unique ideas and insights.
Latest Post
- posted 07/26/07 by Lisa Crounse Area Fill - tips to remember
- As I mentioned last week, I am just now really digging into the depth of information available in the Impression Help system. Today, I took a look at the section called "Work with Area Fill" and then checked out the section "Procedures: Work with Area Fill."
Reading that section reminded me of a bunch of useful tips to keep in mind when using the Area Fill tool.
1. In the Layers palette, make current the layer that will contain the fill shape by clicking the layer. (The current layer is identified by the green check mark.)
Note: This step is optional. However, you can more easily modify the styles for existing area fill insertions if you set up layers to contain each type of area fill. (My opinion - Really they aren't kidding here - it will make your life much easier later if you make current the layer that will contain the fill shape.)
2. In the Toolbox, click the Area Fill tool.
3. In the Styles palette, move the cursor over the palette. It changes to an eyedropper. Click any fill style.
Note: You can skip this step if the current layer has a fill style.
4. Move the cursor over the canvas. The cursor changes to a paint bucket, and temporary gray fill identifies the areas that can be filled.
5. Click within the areas that you want to fill.
- To create a single object out of different, sometimes physically separated area fills, hold SHIFT as you click successive areas. This method results in the appearance of a continuous pattern for texture, gradient, and compound fills. (This is handy) To remove a fill that has been applied to an area, press ALT and click the area. (Wow, I had no idea...)
6. To switch to another fill Style, click a style in the Styles palette. The areas you subsequently fill use the new style.
7. Press ESC to dismiss the Area Fill tool.
We have some new style content coming for the Community site coming, so get ready to use that area fill tool a bit more intensely.0 comments In Inside Hues >
Previous Posts
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Webcasts
Posted 07/26/07 by Lisa Crounse
In the past few months, we've held webcasts on a variety of topics. For a long time, we just did basic overviews but last month we started doing some topic specifc webcasts. (BTW you can find recordings of these webcasts on the Tutorials page). Now we are planning our next series of webcasts. What would you like to see? More on working with blocks and appearance styles? Something on preparing your DWG for Impression? Any other suggestions?
If you have opinions or thoughts, please post them here, or feel free to contact me directly. -
More noise
Posted 07/23/07 by Lisa Crounse
Okay, I have a confession to make. I have never looked in the Glossary in the Help system of, well, any Autodesk product. On the reccommendation of Linda Saldana, our User Assistance writer, I took a look. I am happy to report that I learned a few things that people have been asking us about.
First, somoene asked for a definition of "noise" duing the Styles webcast a few weeks ago. We came up with a pretty good answer but here is the "official" answer.
"Noise - A mottling or blotching property that can be set for fill elements."
Then I scrolled down a bit and found this -
"Roughen Effect - An effect that applies "wiggle," or irregular jagged lines or edges to a vector path or a fill."
which gives you a good idea of what adjustments to "roughen" in the style editor can do.
Take a look at the Glossary - you may just find the answer to your burning Impression questions.
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New Content
Posted 07/17/07 by Lisa Crounse
Check it out ! Lots of new blocks posted to the Content Exchange!
Community member Robert Rusoff has shared his beautiful Desert blocks (in Plan and Elevation)which were created from scratch in Impression.
And Franklin Van Zandvoort from iSymbol has shared all sorts of bitmap blocks with us!
Go forth and insert blocks! -
Roll the dice!
Posted 07/13/07 by Lisa Crounse
This past Tuesday, Todd presented a webcast on creating custom styles with the Style Editor. (A recording of the webcast was posted if you want to watch it.) When Todd showed the “dice” feature in one of the style editor dialogs one of the attendees was so excited that he actually typed in “cool!” via chat. (Usually people just type in technical questions…)
Indeed, the dice (aka Variance Percentage) setting in many of the style edit dialogs is very cool. One of the reasons why Impression compelling is the ability to create strokes and fills that have a hand drawn look. The randomness that the dice offer makes this possible.
Since I hadn’t given this nifty feature much thought, I decided to read up on it in the Help system. I typed “variance percentage” into the Help system and six very comprehensive pages of content came up. Now, that was pretty cool. So if you want to learn a bit more about styles, try typing “variance percentage” into the Help system and check out the pages that come up. -
Keep the donuts coming!
Posted 07/09/07 by Lisa Crounse
As many of you know, we do regular usability tests with "real live customers" on features that are in development for Impression. What is sometimes harder for us to test is the "beginning to end" process of creating a drawing. So, a couple of weeks ago we gathered together a random assortment of folks from around our headquarters here (many of them from the AutoCAD team and an assortment of recovering architects) to take the product as it now stands for a run. After letting them gorge themselves on pizza, we gave them some tasks to do. All the while, members of our team walked around the room, watched what people did, and interviewed them about their experience with the product. It was really amazing to compare this to a similar test event that we held last year at this time. This year, everyone had a great looking image by the end of the day!
One of the goals that the team always keeps in the back of their mind is "Impression needs to be fun." Here is how one of the testers interpreted this credo -
Feed your team pizza and the creative juices really do flow. Imagine what would happen if we gave them more donuts...
Its only fair to follow that with a Homer donut quote
Homer: Lisa, would you like a donut?
Lisa: No thanks. Do you have any fruit?
Homer: This has purple in it. Purple is a fruit.