With the latest version of Autodesk Smoke for Mac OS X the Essentials project and media is automatically installed with the software.

If you are using a different version of Smoke or have accidently deleted the media, you won't see the Essentials project at start up.
Separate instructions are provided in the tutorial so that you may download and install the media manually. Please start the lesson and look for the section titled “ Exercise: Create a Project & User” in the first section.

The Smoke application can be found in /Applications/Autodesk.




1. Locate the Smoke startup icon and start Smoke.

2. Stop at the start-up screen.


The Smoke Welcome screen that opens at start up contains interface overviews that are excerpts of the current tutorials; therefore you can close it at this time.

3. Click on the Project popup and select the project “Smoke_Essentials_(software version)”

4. Click on the User popup and select the user “Training_FCprofile_(software version)”


Important:
If you don't see the Smoke Essentials project and the Training user at this time, go to this exercise instead to install the project manually: Create a Project & User.


5. Press Start.
6. Click anywhere on the Smoke splash screen to display the EditDesk.

If you see a message concerning the video reference timing you can press ESC to continue.

The EditDesk is the primary working space for performing edits and applying effects.
At this stage you should notice that images were pre-loaded on the EditDesk Library located on the left side of the interface.

To choose which clip folder you want to display on the desktop, you have to activate its view tab:
1. Look at the EditDesk Library where you can find the Essentials material organized under various source folders (green folders).
2. To display a clip folder on the Source Area, click on the view tab located on the right side of each folder.
3. To play a clip, click on it to select it and press the Esc key to access the player.
4. Press Esc again to exit the player.

The green folders are source reels and the red folders, record reels.

Note that there are 10 levels of undo on the EditDesk by default. When you want to undo the last operation, press the Undo button.

A copy of this footage was also saved inside a Library called “Smoke_Essentials”.
To make sure that we start the tutorial exercises with the footage adequately loaded on the EditDesk, we will clear the desktop and reload the tutorial clips.

1. Still on the Smoke EditDesk.
2. Select the EditDesk Library option in the Editing bar.
3. Press Clear.
4. Click Confirm and all the clips on the EditDesk are deleted.

Note: Remember that the EditDesk is your temporary working space and that that you should always save your important work to a Library before clearing the EditDesk.

5. Click on the Library Box to display the list of available Libraries.
The Library box is a blue button located in the middle of the EditDesk.
6. Choose the “Smoke_essentials” and then click on it to access the Library.
7. Inside the Library menu, select the “Smoke_Essentials” item at the root of the Library.
8. This selects the entire Library content.
Note that you can also load a selected record or source reel, or only selected clips.

Make sure to set these Load options (on the left side of the Library menu):
The Destination box is set to EditDesk Library.
The Clip Arrangement box is set to Tile.

9. Press Load.
10. This loads the selected content to the EditDesk.

You are now ready to start the first editing exercise!

To Exit Smoke, click on the Preferences button located on the right side of the inferface.

If you want to know more about the interface and the functionalities covered in this exercise, watch the following interface overview:


To continue with the exercises, click on the following link: