Morphorm

Alias Beta Testers Wanted! That means you!

Want to give Autodesk your feedback on future releases of Alias? Yes? Then sign up to be a beta tester and you can be among the first to get your hands on the latest beta release. BTW, Alias 2013 Beta 1 is now available so sign up and give your feedback directly to the Alias development team.

https://beta.autodesk.com/callout/?callid=A1DADF813AEA4FB88CA1732087E93C35

 

While you're at it check out and like our Facebook page.  Connect to a growing design community of fellow Alias users and enthusiasts.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Autodesk-Alias/259908727365991

 

enjoy,

Jamie

Free Alias Webinar

Looking for more Alias training?  Want to better understand the difference between conceptual and technical/Class-A surfaces?  Then register for the free, yes I said "FREE" webinar hosted by cardesignnews.com and check out our very own Veejay Gahir lay it out on Thursday October 13th

Car Design News Alias Webinar

Register Here

Stil Want more?  Then come to Autodesk University in Las Vegas this November and check out the Alias Power Track course.  Taught by some of most talented users from around the world.  Also you can meet other Autodesk users from around the world and see some of the great work do and see some of the cool technology Autodesk is continually working on.  Don't Miss it!

Alias Power Track

 

Enjoy,

Jamie.

Are any of you leveraging the DIY/Makers market for your ID work?

Do you drive inspiration from, collaborate with DIYers, or work on your own projects outside your ID "job" that influences the work you do inside your ID "job"? What about crowd sourcing? I see a lot of small companies doing this for graphic design/brand, what about ID?  Is it practical to crowd source for ID or ID inspiration?

Is it the responsability to of every designer to instill a level of protetcionism to the ID profession - let's face it you went to school, put in the hours, worked (or are working) your way through and up the ranks of you chosen profession, why let some untrained or undertrained hobbyist come and take your work away from you?  Maybe your client is looking to cut costs and this is one area they feel they can reduce costs and still get  aquality product to the market?

One good example I've seen is the Oregon Manifest constructors design challenge.  Where some top notch design firms are working with other top notch independent bike builders to design a better bike for the everyday rider.  Is this a model that is scalable into other product categories:  consumer electronics, household, furniture, commercial equipment. . .?

looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

Alias Technical Know-How?

So I've been posting videos up on the AutodeskDesign Youtube channel as of late and thought I'd share them with you.  Here is a playlist of some in-depth technical what's new for Alias 2012.  Check it out.

The latest ones posted are for all you CV manipulators out there.

Enjoy!

-Jamie.

 

 

 

 

Hey Alias Users, Industrial Designers, Technical Surfacers there's some job opportunities in North Carolina. Check it out:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?trk=eml-anet_dig-b_jb-ttl-cn&gid=1026417&viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=61638020

The question is. . .

. . .Who doesn't want one of these?

 

By the way, that is Alias 35 seconds in.

 

enjoy,

Jamie.

Get Yer Free Webinar

Hungry for some hot "what's new" in Alias 2012?  Come check out Senior Principal User Experience Designer Mr. Paul Deyo take you through the in's and out's of some of the added and enhanced capabilities inside Autodesk Alias 2012 release coming to you live from CarDesign News.

Register Here

also check out some in depth videos on our AutodeskDesign Youtube Channel.

AutodeskDesign and don't forget to subscribe.  And Hey, If you've got some cool tips and tricks you wanna post, let me know and I'll post them.

bye for now.

jamie.

 

Design Week SF 2011

Three weeks ago I had to make a trip down to the Bay Area and it just so happened to sunny and warm while I was there.  A nice break from the dreary June gloom that often casts itself over the Willamette Valley in Northern Oregon.  It also happened to be Design Week SF, an annual event where a number of design related symposiums, lectures and open houses take place to highlight what creative teams all over San Francisco are up to. I had had a lot of fun reconnecting with some old colleagues I haven''t seen in a quite some time and there was a palpable sense of something big going on in the Bay Area.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but there was a lot of interesting energy going on around there.  Another boom on the horizon?

Design week hosted a number of interesting open studios, of which some notables included:  Gensler, Fuse Project, Idea Couture, Frog Design, Astro Studios, Smart Design and Landor Associates.  While I wasn’t able to make it to all of them (I’d forgotten how long SF city blocks are when you’re walking) I did manage to make it to a number of them.  I found it really interesting that the event also seems to be a very big venue for local students to get out and do some prospecting of their own, looking for jobs and internships for the summer and coming school year.

I was also able to reconnect with my mentor and former faculty adviser from San Francisco State, Ricardo Gomes and a really exciting project he's working on.  His former mentor from his days at UCLA grad school recently passed and while Ricardo was on his recent sabbatical he was granted and acquired Professor Shapira's extensive library and research collection that is now being archived and made available on the Nathan Shapira Design Archive Blog.  It's a really interesting story beginning with Nathan's studying at the Polytechnico di Milano to his tenure at UCLA under the directorship of Henry Dreyfuss.  It's an early work in progress, but I was able to visit the library, and yes it literally is a library

Darlene Tong, Head of Information, Research & Instructional Services, Professor Ricardo Gomes and Dr. Kevin Kelley, Coordinator of Online Teaching & Learning

It's an on going project that will be taking shape in the coming months and years to finish, but I am looking forward to the evolution of this site.

until next time, best.

Jamie.

Enough of the Silence

So Morphorm has been quit quiet as of late.  lots of moving and shaking going on here at Autodesk.  And as the leaves are settling and some of us move into new roles new opportunities are abound to re-stimulate a seemingly dwindling presence.  If any of you are listening. . .hello. . .I know you're out there.  I know many of you are hungry for content,  tell us what you are looking for.  Training, tutorials, feedback from the development team. . .

 

What do I want to know?  Where are you going for information, what are you reading as it pertains to our profession, techniques, technologies (both established and emerging), where is the voice of the industrial designer heard, what are they saying, how are you all coping with this bumpy ride out of recession? 

 

We want to hear your thoughts we want to understand what you are going through and most importantly we want to know how we can deliver technology that helps you do your jobs.

 

We'll be listening here and other outlets as well.

 

hope to hear your voices sooner than later.

 

Best,

 

Jamie.

 

Alias has some new bells and whistles. . .

So the 2011 products have finally hit and with lots of attention being paid to workflow enhancements you’ve been longing for.  So fear not my loyal fans and fellow designers, we’ve got some nicely added functionality that many of you have been aching for.  And for you Alias noobs you will find some of these workflow enhancements a welcoming additions to hasten you in becoming Alias experts.

Now I know that many of you seasoned users shun at the idea of new workflows being addressed at the expense of habited and muscle memorized behaviors, but most of these will still allow you the flexibility to keep working the way that you’ve grown accustomed; While giving new users behaviors that are more in line with current day creative tools.

Picking is one of these tools that I never quite understood why the behavior was the way it was.  There is now a setting that allows you to “add” to your selection while maintaining your previous selection.  Now I know we take it for granted at this point how it works, but I can almost remember back to my early days of using Alias finding the default behaviors. . .well clumsy.  Of course, I eventually got used to the way it worked, but it still seemed odd to me at the time.  So now you have the ability to set the behavior to your liking: pick, unpick, add, or toggle. 

 

On the topic of picking, since this is one of the most common tools we use in our day to day use of Alias, gone are the days of needing to pick surfaces edges to select a surface.  That’s right, I said “gone”.  You can now select surface faces to pick your surface rather than having to always tumble to a desired edge or figure out in a list which surface you are selecting. 

 

Surface offset unification was always tricky.  You’re all set to offset your surfaces and it looks beautiful, but for the one or two patches that went in the wrong direction.  Doh!  So you’d have to go check you surface normals and this would generally fix your problem.  Offset again and voila. . .wait you missed something and there is still a problem.  Well no more, now with the improved offset unification you can select your surfaces and an arrow clearly indicates your offset direction, regardless of initial surface orientation.  Nice! 

 

Another enhancement has been the improvement of the fit curve tool.  This enhancement brings you more control to your fit curves and more options than just section geometry for creating them.  What does this mean?  Pay attention newbies. . .lighter surface data and better mathematical surfaces.  So your fit curves can now be built independent of the parameterization (it always impress me when I use that word) of the referencing geometry. 

 

• A few other enhancements you might like to know about:    
• Anti-Alias Setting
• Surface Continuity Locators
• Improved Ambient Occlusion Workflow
• Improvements to mouse sensitivity (great for direct modeling)
• Improved visibility of CVs
• Project and Trim tools with vector control options
• Curve fit by Projection (no longer relying Curve on Surface)

Stay posted for some videos showing the new features.

peace, jamie.