Accessing Features in the Shelf Area

The Shelf Area is located directly below the menu bar. It is made up of the Main Toolbar Tab and other Tabs. Both areas contain valuable components that assist you in the creation process. The Main Toolbar Tab holds the general or commonly used tools, whereas the tools in the other Tabs are more specialized. The Tabs are divided into areas that hold common tools for a specific task or tasks. All Tabs offer similar customizable options.

We will discuss some of the commands that the Tabs hold. Once we have talked about the different parts of the Shelf Area, we’ll discuss some of its customization features.

Main Toolbar

The Main Toolbar, shown in Figure 3.6, holds all of the most commonly used commands. The Main Toolbar is actually a Tab, but it’s different from the other Tabs in that you do not have the option of deleting or renaming the Main Toolbar Tab. Another difference is that when you select a Tab other than the Main Toolbar and then choose a command in the Tab, the Command Panel changes to correspond to that command. So if you click the Shapes Tab and then select the first choice on that Tab (the Line), the Command Panel will jump to the features and settings of the Line option. (On the other hand, if you select something on the Command Panel, nothing highlights in the Shelf Area. This correspondence goes in one direction only, from the Tabs to the Command Panel.)

Table 3.10 describes some of the key commands in the default Main Toolbar Tab.

FIGURE 3.6  The Shelf Area, with the Main Toolbar Tab selected

	NOTE All the buttons on the Tabs, as well as in other areas of the UI, can be represented by either images or text.

Table 3.10: KEY COMMANDS ON THE MAIN TOOLBAR TAB
	Command	Use
	Undo/Redo	Undo reverses the effect of the last action done; Redo cancels the last Undo action. Both commands are also found in the Edit menu. Right-clicking the Undo/Redo button brings up a list of past actions.
	Select Object	One of the most commonly used tools to select an object in your scene. Holding the Ctrl key while clicking will add to your selection; holding the Alt key will subtract from your selection.
	Select by Name	Another tool used for selecting objects in your scene. Can be accessed by the shortcut key H. Other selection tools can be accessed through the Edit menu.
	Move, Rotate, and Scale	Most commonly referred to as the Transforms. Notice that the Scale Transform has a flyout on it.
	Restrict Axis	Dictates the axis Transforms will be performed in: X, Y, Z, or a combination of any two of these. Notice that the XY icon has a flyout where you’ll find the other two-axis combinations.
	Named Selection Sets	Area where you can select two or more objects and access them through one name by creating a Named Selection Set. You can edit the selection set in the Edit pull-down menu.
	Track View, Schematic View, and Material Editor	Buttons that open their respective dialog boxes. You can access the Track and Schematic Views by using their respective menus. The Material Editor is the area where you can apply materials and colors to your scene. You can also open this under the Tools menu or with the shortcut key M.
	Render Scene, Quick Render	Render Scene opens the dialog box that you use to set up your output images and animations. This also can be accessed under Rendering Ø Render. Shift+R is the shortcut key. Quick Render allows you to render your current viewport without bringing up the Render Scene dialog area.

	NOTE The Quick Render command has a flyout for two different types of Quick Renders: Production and Draft. This allows you the flexibility to set up, for example, in the Render Scene dialog box, a large image with shadows and reflections for the final output (Production), and also a smaller image with no shadows that you can use as a test image (Draft).

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