& Construction

Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
& Manufacturing

Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Organize scene objects, transform hierarchy, and display layers.
Type:
Tutorial
Length:
8 min.
Tutorial resources
These downloadable resources will be used to complete this tutorial:
Transcript
00:03
Layout is the process of blocking out the basics of the scene
00:07
that can include setting up a transform or animation hierarchy.
00:11
It can also involve setting up display layers,
00:14
setting up a background and camera framing.
00:17
Let's begin by creating a simple transform hierarchy.
00:21
I just want to link all the objects in this C AD model to a helper
00:25
so that I can position and rotate all the objects at once.
00:30
We'll begin by rotating and positioning all the objects close to the origin,
00:35
select all the objects in the perspective view,
00:38
then go over to the main toolbar, choose the rotate tool
00:42
and enable angles snaps
00:45
and then rotate in the perspective view around the X axis
00:49
exactly 90 degrees.
00:51
Then we can switch to the move tool,
00:53
we
00:54
want to position the object so that it's really close to the origin
00:58
in the left view, right, click in that view. So you don't lose the selection,
01:02
then move all the objects closer to the origin.
01:05
We can reframe the left view with the middle mouse button
01:09
and also move the objects up.
01:12
And in order to make sure that we are exactly sitting on that ground plane,
01:17
we can get in closer with control alt and middle mouse button
01:21
and then click and drag to move all the objects up or down.
01:24
You may need to drag left to right.
01:26
But as long as the Y axis of the current viewport is active
01:31
and you can adjust all those objects in a very precise fashion.
01:35
OK? So now everything is sitting directly on the ground plane
01:39
and we can reframe every Viewport.
01:42
There's a keyboard shortcut for that which is control shift Z
01:46
that's going to zoom extends all in all view ports.
01:50
Now we're ready to create a helper object. Go over to the crate panel
01:54
to help us
01:56
and click on the point button.
01:59
Click anywhere in the perspective view to create that point helper.
02:03
Then right click to exit point creation,
02:06
we can go to the modify panel,
02:08
change the size, maybe reduce that down to let's say 10 centimeters
02:13
and position it exactly at the origin.
02:16
We've still got the move tool active.
02:18
So down in the transform type in area,
02:21
we can just plug in values for X and Y
02:24
set the X value to zero, press tab, set the Y value to zero and press enter.
02:31
Now that helper is positioned exactly at the origin,
02:35
we can rename it as well.
02:36
Let's call it radio helper.
02:39
Now we want to link all of those objects to that helper.
02:42
So we can use the helper to move and rotate all the objects as a unit.
02:47
And there are many ways to do that.
02:49
I'm going to use the scene explorer.
02:51
So open that up again,
02:53
toggle scene explorer on the main toolbar.
02:56
When the scene explorer opens,
02:58
it's going to show the selected object at the top here.
03:01
So we may need to scroll around in order to find all the other objects.
03:05
So let's select everything except for that helper,
03:08
select the first object,
03:10
scroll down,
03:11
hold down, shift, select the last object
03:14
and we can link them all to the radio helper by
03:17
simply dragging and dropping them on top of that radio helper,
03:21
click and drag all of those onto the radio helper release the mouse.
03:26
And now they've all been parented.
03:28
So we've got a hierarchy here.
03:30
We can test that by selecting the radio helper in any viewport.
03:34
And if we position it with the move Gizmo, we see all those child objects follow.
03:38
OK. I'll undo that with control Z.
03:40
All right. So we've got our simple hierarchy
03:43
and that'll allow us to stage the object.
03:46
So for example, I might want to rotate it.
03:48
So it's not exactly square or orthogonal to the world.
03:52
I can grab the rotate tool.
03:54
And once again, with angle snaps turned on,
03:56
I can rotate
03:58
in the perspective view
03:59
around the Z axis
04:01
and I'll rotate by 15 degrees,
04:05
we can orbit around with halt and middle mouse
04:07
and get an idea of what this will look like when we create a camera,
04:11
we've got our simple transform hierarchy set up.
04:13
Now let's organize the display layers
04:16
and all the naming of the objects.
04:18
So let's go into the layer explorer.
04:21
We can open that up from the main toolbar
04:25
and that's going to appear at the bottom of the command panel. By default,
04:29
I wanna drag this out
04:31
and undock it, make it a little bit larger
04:34
in the layer explorer. I want to start to organize my scene.
04:38
I've got a default layer
04:39
and I've got the Ham radio layer
04:42
and this one was created when I imported the C AD document,
04:47
we can open up the layer hierarchy
04:49
and see that we've got a whole bunch of nested layers.
04:53
You can organize this in many different ways.
04:55
However, I don't recommend nested layers.
04:59
So really, I recommend that you select all the objects and put them into a new layer.
05:05
And that is easy to accomplish. Just go up to the top layer ham radio,
05:10
right click and choose select child nodes.
05:14
And that selects all the objects.
05:17
We don't want to select the layers themselves.
05:20
So we can deselect those,
05:22
hold down control and deselect anything that has a layer icon.
05:28
And now I've just selected all the objects
05:31
and those have got a circle next to them indicating that their geometry
05:35
with all those objects selected,
05:37
I can create a new layer
05:39
from the selection
05:41
click to create new layer button.
05:44
And let's rename this new layer,
05:46
we'll call it radio.
05:49
A newly created layer is made active
05:51
and that means that any new objects we create will be dropped into this active layer.
05:57
We want to make the default layer active. Once again,
06:01
these other layers that are left over can just be deleted. We can select all of those
06:06
right click
06:07
and choose delete.
06:09
And we got one more here. We need to delete.
06:11
Now we've just got two layers,
06:13
the default layer which has nothing in it except the radio helper
06:16
and then the radio which has all of our body objects.
06:20
I do recommend that you rename everything
06:23
and to assist in that process, you can use the renamed tool.
06:27
So for example, I can get in close here on these buttons. I'll select one of those
06:32
and then zoom in with the Z key.
06:35
We can select a bunch of buttons.
06:37
I'll zoom out again with control alt and middle mouse button
06:40
and just control, click on all of these buttons one at a time
06:46
once I've selected all of those and they're highlighted
06:49
here,
06:50
we can rename them all at once.
06:52
Let's go to the tools menu
06:54
and within here we'll see rename objects.
06:58
We need to enter a base name.
07:00
Let's call it button
07:02
and put an underscore after that to separate it from the numbers
07:06
because we want these to be numbered.
07:08
So enable numbered
07:10
and set the base number or the starting number to one
07:14
click rename.
07:16
And now all those buttons have been renamed
07:21
All right. So you'll want to continue that process, renaming all the objects.
07:25
So you'll be able to distinguish them between one another
07:28
when you're assigning materials.
Video transcript
00:03
Layout is the process of blocking out the basics of the scene
00:07
that can include setting up a transform or animation hierarchy.
00:11
It can also involve setting up display layers,
00:14
setting up a background and camera framing.
00:17
Let's begin by creating a simple transform hierarchy.
00:21
I just want to link all the objects in this C AD model to a helper
00:25
so that I can position and rotate all the objects at once.
00:30
We'll begin by rotating and positioning all the objects close to the origin,
00:35
select all the objects in the perspective view,
00:38
then go over to the main toolbar, choose the rotate tool
00:42
and enable angles snaps
00:45
and then rotate in the perspective view around the X axis
00:49
exactly 90 degrees.
00:51
Then we can switch to the move tool,
00:53
we
00:54
want to position the object so that it's really close to the origin
00:58
in the left view, right, click in that view. So you don't lose the selection,
01:02
then move all the objects closer to the origin.
01:05
We can reframe the left view with the middle mouse button
01:09
and also move the objects up.
01:12
And in order to make sure that we are exactly sitting on that ground plane,
01:17
we can get in closer with control alt and middle mouse button
01:21
and then click and drag to move all the objects up or down.
01:24
You may need to drag left to right.
01:26
But as long as the Y axis of the current viewport is active
01:31
and you can adjust all those objects in a very precise fashion.
01:35
OK? So now everything is sitting directly on the ground plane
01:39
and we can reframe every Viewport.
01:42
There's a keyboard shortcut for that which is control shift Z
01:46
that's going to zoom extends all in all view ports.
01:50
Now we're ready to create a helper object. Go over to the crate panel
01:54
to help us
01:56
and click on the point button.
01:59
Click anywhere in the perspective view to create that point helper.
02:03
Then right click to exit point creation,
02:06
we can go to the modify panel,
02:08
change the size, maybe reduce that down to let's say 10 centimeters
02:13
and position it exactly at the origin.
02:16
We've still got the move tool active.
02:18
So down in the transform type in area,
02:21
we can just plug in values for X and Y
02:24
set the X value to zero, press tab, set the Y value to zero and press enter.
02:31
Now that helper is positioned exactly at the origin,
02:35
we can rename it as well.
02:36
Let's call it radio helper.
02:39
Now we want to link all of those objects to that helper.
02:42
So we can use the helper to move and rotate all the objects as a unit.
02:47
And there are many ways to do that.
02:49
I'm going to use the scene explorer.
02:51
So open that up again,
02:53
toggle scene explorer on the main toolbar.
02:56
When the scene explorer opens,
02:58
it's going to show the selected object at the top here.
03:01
So we may need to scroll around in order to find all the other objects.
03:05
So let's select everything except for that helper,
03:08
select the first object,
03:10
scroll down,
03:11
hold down, shift, select the last object
03:14
and we can link them all to the radio helper by
03:17
simply dragging and dropping them on top of that radio helper,
03:21
click and drag all of those onto the radio helper release the mouse.
03:26
And now they've all been parented.
03:28
So we've got a hierarchy here.
03:30
We can test that by selecting the radio helper in any viewport.
03:34
And if we position it with the move Gizmo, we see all those child objects follow.
03:38
OK. I'll undo that with control Z.
03:40
All right. So we've got our simple hierarchy
03:43
and that'll allow us to stage the object.
03:46
So for example, I might want to rotate it.
03:48
So it's not exactly square or orthogonal to the world.
03:52
I can grab the rotate tool.
03:54
And once again, with angle snaps turned on,
03:56
I can rotate
03:58
in the perspective view
03:59
around the Z axis
04:01
and I'll rotate by 15 degrees,
04:05
we can orbit around with halt and middle mouse
04:07
and get an idea of what this will look like when we create a camera,
04:11
we've got our simple transform hierarchy set up.
04:13
Now let's organize the display layers
04:16
and all the naming of the objects.
04:18
So let's go into the layer explorer.
04:21
We can open that up from the main toolbar
04:25
and that's going to appear at the bottom of the command panel. By default,
04:29
I wanna drag this out
04:31
and undock it, make it a little bit larger
04:34
in the layer explorer. I want to start to organize my scene.
04:38
I've got a default layer
04:39
and I've got the Ham radio layer
04:42
and this one was created when I imported the C AD document,
04:47
we can open up the layer hierarchy
04:49
and see that we've got a whole bunch of nested layers.
04:53
You can organize this in many different ways.
04:55
However, I don't recommend nested layers.
04:59
So really, I recommend that you select all the objects and put them into a new layer.
05:05
And that is easy to accomplish. Just go up to the top layer ham radio,
05:10
right click and choose select child nodes.
05:14
And that selects all the objects.
05:17
We don't want to select the layers themselves.
05:20
So we can deselect those,
05:22
hold down control and deselect anything that has a layer icon.
05:28
And now I've just selected all the objects
05:31
and those have got a circle next to them indicating that their geometry
05:35
with all those objects selected,
05:37
I can create a new layer
05:39
from the selection
05:41
click to create new layer button.
05:44
And let's rename this new layer,
05:46
we'll call it radio.
05:49
A newly created layer is made active
05:51
and that means that any new objects we create will be dropped into this active layer.
05:57
We want to make the default layer active. Once again,
06:01
these other layers that are left over can just be deleted. We can select all of those
06:06
right click
06:07
and choose delete.
06:09
And we got one more here. We need to delete.
06:11
Now we've just got two layers,
06:13
the default layer which has nothing in it except the radio helper
06:16
and then the radio which has all of our body objects.
06:20
I do recommend that you rename everything
06:23
and to assist in that process, you can use the renamed tool.
06:27
So for example, I can get in close here on these buttons. I'll select one of those
06:32
and then zoom in with the Z key.
06:35
We can select a bunch of buttons.
06:37
I'll zoom out again with control alt and middle mouse button
06:40
and just control, click on all of these buttons one at a time
06:46
once I've selected all of those and they're highlighted
06:49
here,
06:50
we can rename them all at once.
06:52
Let's go to the tools menu
06:54
and within here we'll see rename objects.
06:58
We need to enter a base name.
07:00
Let's call it button
07:02
and put an underscore after that to separate it from the numbers
07:06
because we want these to be numbered.
07:08
So enable numbered
07:10
and set the base number or the starting number to one
07:14
click rename.
07:16
And now all those buttons have been renamed
07:21
All right. So you'll want to continue that process, renaming all the objects.
07:25
So you'll be able to distinguish them between one another
07:28
when you're assigning materials.
How to buy
Privacy | Do not sell or share my personal information | Cookie preferences | Report noncompliance | Terms of use | Legal | © 2025 Autodesk Inc. All rights reserved
Sign in for the best experience
Save your progress
Get access to courses
Receive personalized recommendations
May we collect and use your data?
Learn more about the Third Party Services we use and our Privacy Statement.May we collect and use your data to tailor your experience?
Explore the benefits of a customized experience by managing your privacy settings for this site or visit our Privacy Statement to learn more about your options.