Step 1. Open the Designer and create a project¶
Time: 3 minutes.
Launch the app¶
Open Elysium Designer from your Applications folder (macOS), Start menu (Windows), or your application launcher (Linux). The first launch shows a splash screen briefly while the GPU pipeline warms up, then drops you into an empty canvas.
If the Designer was already open, choose File > New from the menu bar to
start a fresh project. The keyboard shortcut is Cmd+N on macOS or
Ctrl+N on Windows and Linux.
Name the project¶
The New Project dialog asks for a name and a parent folder. Name the
project Butterfly and pick any parent folder you can write to. The
Designer creates a folder called Butterfly.esk/ on disk; this is the
.esk skin bundle you will export at the end of the tutorial.
For the rest of this tutorial, "your project folder" means the
Butterfly.esk/ folder you just created.
Verify the layout¶
After clicking Create you should see:
- An empty canvas in the center of the window.
- The toolbox running down the left edge with seventeen tools.
- The right column showing the Project Explorer at the top, the Channel Box in the middle, and a Properties pane at the bottom.
- The menu bar across the top with eighteen menus from File to Help.
- The time slider at the bottom.
If any of these are missing you can restore the default layout from
Window > Reset to Default Layout. The
Interface tour covers what each panel does in
detail; you can skim it now or come back later.
Open the Project Explorer¶
The Project Explorer is the right column's top panel. It has three tabs: Objects, Assets, and Code. Click the Objects tab if it is not already active. This panel will track every placement you add to the scene; the Assets tab will track your imported model and reference image once you bring them in; the Code tab will surface the paired Python file that ships event handlers for your skin.
The Project Explorer is empty at this point. That is correct.
Checkpoint¶
You should see an empty canvas, a default layout, and the Objects tab of
the Project Explorer selected with no entries beneath it. Your title bar
shows the project name Butterfly and the path to its .esk folder.