Fusion Rule #0 - How to effectively learn Fusion

[Drewpan]

[Post modified by moderator to remove "360"]

Fusion Rule #0 - How to effectively learn Fusion

The Fusion Documentation has a full explanation of commands and a number of excellent
Tutorials embedded within. They can be found here:

https://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/?guid=GUID-1C665B4D-7BF7-4FDF-98B0-AA7EE12B5AC2

The Fusion Self Paced Learning has a series of step by step videos to get you started on
your learning journey. They can be found here:

https://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/courses/

The AutoDesk YouTube Channel has excellent general purpose learning tutorial videos and explanations.
They can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@adskFusion

Some of the Gurus lurking in the Forum also have great YouTube Channels, like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheCADWhisperer

Warning: There are Cowboys on YouTube, not everyone knows what

                 they are doing. These links all DO know what they are doing.

General Tips for learning Fusion

1. Sketches should be simple and fully Constrained to prevent problems later.
2. If you can't find where the Sketch is unConstrained (no Lock icon) use the Text Command
    Sketch.ShowUnderconstrained

3. Dimension critical stuff and constrain the rest.

4. Work logically. The Browser tree is your friend not a beast to be wrestled to the ground and tamed.

5. There is more than one way to kill a cat than drowning it in butter. There are also many ways to do the

    same thing in Fusion.

6. Learn to use the Timeline early and fix issues with it WHEN THEY HAPPEN. If the timeline is yellow
    or red and you didn't fix it then that is probably causing you grief now.
7. Sketch simple and use the Tools to sculpt your models. Fancy Sketches are easily broken and sometimes
    hard to fix.

8. Refer to Rule #1 and Rule #2 OFTEN.
9. Practice a lot. Draw what interests you for fun, it makes learning much easier.
10. Challenge yourself. Give it a shot. Ask for help when needed. Follow through to the end. Look back and
      see what you have achieved. Reward yourself for the improvements.

Requirements for asking for help in the Forum.

1. If you have a problem then ask a question.
2. Attach your File and a picture or screenshot of the behaviour or what you want to achieve.
3. If your File is proprietary, create an example of the behaviour to share and upload that. Re-creating
    the behaviour may either solve your own problem or prove it may be a genuine Bug.
4. Gurus and Developers lurk in the Forum. Be nice to everyone but especially them!
5. Be humble if someone is pointing out things you have not seen or be aware of. They are NOT aiming a
    personal attack at you they are trying to help you learn.
6. Never stop learning.

[Steve_Worley]

I used the wrong wording. Always create components. Assemblies are collections of components. Therefore, any file that has one or more components becomes, by default, an assembly. I would never need a component if I never needed a joint. At least that was my thinking. 

[TrippyLighting]

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@Steve_Worley wrote:

... I would never need a component if I never needed a joint....

---

I would disagree with that statement. The  more complex a design gets, the more objects are collected in the browser and the timeline fills up with features.

How do you know what face of what body, or what construction plane was chosen to create a sketch on?

What feature belongs to which body?

Etc.

Components help organize all that stuff used to create the body , or bodies in that component.

Activating a component filters the timeline to show only those features that were used to create a particular component.

[Ric_52]

L'unica cosa che mi ha disturbato è il punto 5... perchè uccidere un povero gatto? io ne ho due e li adoro... facciamo un altro esempio... (forse è un modo di dire ma non mi piace ugualmente... scusatemi) Diciamo: "ci sono molte strade per raggiungere la cima della montagna... mi piace di più...

[TimelesslyTiredYouth]

One of the Forum Gurus, please answer me, Can I report this this isn't an advertising zone?

*reported

[jhackney1972]

I have reported it as Spam, it has been removed.

[Ric_52]

processi in sospeso che non riesco ad eliminare e che ovviamente rallentano il programma

[aleksei_ovsienko]

As this topic seems to be the place for assemblies philosophy discussion I would like to add my 50 cents. 

1. There are several things I do not entirely understand in Fusion. 
   First thing is the so called "top-down" design where all components are created as internal and are built in place. I understand the concept, but I see no way to apply it. And the chief reason for it being data management. I want the rest of my team to be able to access CAD for any part that was designed for any of the projects by simply searching by part number/name. 
   Internal components make that impossible. You have to know exactly which project consumes a particular component in order to find that component in Fusion. Internal components do not appear in the search. That alone pretty much negates the possibility of my using internal components unless I actively try to hide them from the team. 
   Any engineering team larger than one man will have a whole library of components that are re-used in different projects and have to be external for consistency and revision control. And also I need CAD visibility for other team members.
   Besides, there is nothing internal components allow me to do that I can't do with external components just as well by using assembly contexts. Where the opposite is not true.
   So why even have them? In my opion they should just fall to Occam's razor.
   
   The very naming "top down design" for this approach is erroneous in my opinion.
   What I used to learn under the name "top down design" in other systems was something different and much larger than simply modelling parts in one place. 
   In my understanding Top Down Design should refer to a design process where multiple engineering teams design components of a complex system referencing their designs off of a single centrally produced and updated Master Geometry defined by surfaces, skteches, axises and planes. Something one would expect to see when designing ships, rockets or airplanes when dozens of design teams need to collaborate on a single project.
   
   
2. Second thing I do not entirely understand is why do I need timeline for assemblies? As far as I can see almost all the information ends up in the browser anyways. Sketches, relationships, components, everything is there and I find it much more accessible and better arranged than the same information in the timeline. Even though annoyingly the browser doesn't seem to have any way of grouping components. Even in an assembly of about a thousand components I find it easier to scroll up and down the browser rather than use the timeline.
   The only reason to have the timeline is if you're doing things like holes or extrudes in the assembly, which happens often, but by no means a majority of the time. 
   You'd say that I could simply switch the design history off. And I certainly would have but then I'd loose "Insert Fastener". Why can I not use Fasteners outside of design history I can not fathom. The other reason to have the timeline would ofcourse be to animate the whole building process but that is a very exotic use case.
   In short I find timeline in assemblies very much redundant. It is entirely possible to just move what little unique functionality it has to the browser and not loose much at all.

[TimelesslyTiredYouth]

Fair enough points... 

Internal components in Fusion seem mainly for tightly linked, single-project designs, but for bigger teams with shared libraries, they’re not practical since they’re hidden from search and hard to reuse—external components with assembly contexts do the same job while keeping version control and visibility. Your view on “top-down design” matches what I see as traditional engineering: a real top-down workflow should use master geometry for coordinated multi-team work, not just “model parts in one file.” The timeline is mostly old functionality for parametric edits and features; in big assemblies, most people I know just use the browser because the timeline adds little unless you’re editing features in-context or animating assemblies (which I rarely do**)—so seeing it as mostly redundant makes sense. Overall, Fusion feels simpler for small projects but isn’t great for large, multi-user workflows. Still, these small things give it an easier learning curve than programs like Blender...

just my opinion...

Ricky

** Which I never have done, and will never put myself through the torture of doing so

[Fully_Defined]

Aleksei,

1. The supposedly contrasting terms "top-down" and "bottom-up" are both overused and misunderstood by the people who utter them the most freely, and I applaud you for bringing up the inconsistencies. I have made similar arguments.
   
   Internal components make little sense for complex assemblies, especially when collaborating, but I think there is a much bigger reason they are a problem: they have taught a generation of CAD enthusiasts on the internet that assemblies are just a fun collection of interdependent bodies that don't require mating or jointing. The proof is built into the folklore of Rule #1, which presupposes that 100% of all designs are assemblies, while mentioning exactly nothing about mating or joints. Autodesk obviously know better, but it took them until last month to implement real mates in Fusion 360. Hallelujah!
   
   
2. I disagree with you about the timeline, but only because I wish the feature tree would resemble Solidworks'. It doesn't, but that's fine because the timeline is pretty good. The alternative is direct modeling, and that just isn't something I ever do, or would ever want to do. I don't personally understand why anyone would want to eliminate design data, although I'm sure there are use cases I haven't yet considered.

[aleksei_ovsienko]

Oh I don't suggest eliminating design data. I suggest moving it to the browser instead because most of it is there anyways. But it may be because I am biased coming from Creo. Creo has the feature tree in the exact same place Fusion has browser and it works in a very similar way except it serves for both browser and timeline. 
Or lets put it this way - put the timeline vertically on my left where the browser currently is. I feel like it's just more natural and ergonomic than having it horizontally below. There's probably a reason why everyone else does it this way.

I think Fusion is slowly coming to the realisation that some of their innovative ideas just never caught on. They brought traditional mates in for example as you mentioned. Something people have been ripping their hair off for years. I still use joints and I think it is a great idea and very good workflow. But you just can't not have mates when you need them. 
Similarly I think timeline+browser set up while not awful could be improved by going back to a more traditional approach.

My biggest problem with Fusion so far is the drawing module. It feels like a botched third party extension rather than part of the ecosystem. It lacks functionality and it is slow. Which is puzzling coming from Autodesk. Fusion wasn't purchased by Autodesk, it was natively developed by the same people who gave the world AutoCAD.
And this comes from someone who used to think Creo drawings were difficult. Creo drawings now seem on an entirely different level. Only now that I had to switch away from Creo I apprecieate how forward thinking Creo approach to drawings really is.
The biggest problem with Fusion drawings is that because they are not parametric and don't use model parameters for dimensions it slows the workflow terribly. It makes you dimension something on the drawing that's already been dimensioned in the model. Think about it - you already have all the geometry in the model constrained and parametrically defined. Why do you need to go over it again and dimension it from scratch praying you don't forget something? This is a workflow from the days of drawing boards and AutoCAD. And to help with that they have this hideous auto-dimensioning I wouldn't trust to dimension an m10 bolt.
What really needs doing is bringing the whole design history into the drawing module and letting me use model parameters for dimensioning the drawing. Show these dimension feature by feature and shuffle them between views and there you have a fully defined drawing and not a single dimension forgotten in a rush. Just input tolerances and surfaces roughness and release.

[TrippyLighting]

@Fully_Defined @aleksei_ovsienko 

The browser is an object browser, not a feature tree. Sketches, construction geometry, joints, joint origins, solid bodies, etc.

The timeline is a collection of features in the order they are created. A sketch, for example,  is a feature as well as an object. 

The timeline and the browser suffer from not having received any appreciable updates in many, many years. That can make both of them very unwieldy to work with in larger assemblies.

SolidWorks, for example, has very nice functionalities to expose relationships between features in the feature tree.

Fusion was initially developed as a direct modeling software with strong similarities to SpaceClaim. Initially, it only worked with internal components. XREFs (external components), were added years later. Internal components and direct modeling can be very useful when concept modeling. They are rarely used in mechanical and machine design. 

Fusion's R.U.L.E #1 was conceived 9 years ago when Fusion did not have external components, and YouTube tutorials basically did not exist. It addressed complete beginners and attempted to help them through the first steps. I was asked to write it as a sticky post by members of the Autodesk Fusion team after I had already posted the content over 100 times here on the forum in direct response to a forum post by users.  I think it is mostly obsolete today, as there is documentation, official tutorials, and many YouTube tutorials covering almost every aspect of Fusion.

@aleksei_ovsienko I don't know what exactly you are designing in Fusion ( We may have had that conversation, but I don't remember), but based on your many other posts, I believe you, or the organization/company you work for, have not adequately evaluated the product before making a purchase decision. You'd be much better served with Autodesk Inventor or another mainstream CAD software.  

[davidpbest]

"

     "Internal components and direct modeling can be very useful when concept modeling. They are rarely used in mechanical and machine design."

These facilities, and often the ONLY these facilities that are used in the fields of woodworking (cabinetry, furniture, etc.), and welding/metal fabrication project.  While these industries often pull in other parts and assemblies and create joints into a design, this type of user does NOT create every stinking part as a separate component and bring them all into an "assembly."  This type of user typically creates a base design (say a cabinet) as a starting point, with multiple components and joints, then imports other standard parts (fasteners, drawer slides, hinges, drawer boxes, whatever) into the base design as they flush out the complete project.  The ability to approach a design top down, bottom up, or a combination of the two has been a key advantage of Fusion over NX, Solidworks, etc.   The whole world is not designing aircraft and V8 engines.  

[TimelesslyTiredYouth]

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Couldn't help but notice this small detail @TrippyLighting 

@TrippyLighting wrote:

SolidWorks, for example, has very nice functionalities to expose relationships between features in the feature tree.

True, SolidWorks is clearer because it shows every parent/child link right in the tree. But Fusion does maintain those relationships — sketches drive features, parameters update downstream, projected geometry and derived parts pass changes, and joints define motion. The difference is mostly presentation: Fusion buries it in the timeline instead of exposing it neatly. So isn’t this really more of a UI/UX issue than a missing capability? functionality?

Ricky

[TrippyLighting]

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@davidpbest wrote:

... The ability to approach a design top down, bottom up, or a combination of the two has been a key advantage of Fusion over NX, Solidworks, etc.  

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I completely agree!

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@davidpbest wrote:

a key advantage of Fusion over ..., Solidworks, etc.   

---

You can use EXACTLY the same workflow in SolidWorks (or Inventor) with multibody solids within a single file.

EXACTLTY!

[aleksei_ovsienko]

We design battery systems. Fairly traditional CAD work as far as I understand. Machined and sheet metal parts. Assemblies do get pretty large but not complicated, just multiple instances of same subassemblies. Mostly prototypes and short production run. And there are 4 CAD seats. 
I think Fusion is pretty serviceable for us. Not great, not terrible. I mean as a designer I would ofcourse prefer a more mature CAD package. But one can't really argue with the fact that Fusion does the job and costs several times less than traditional CAD packages.
The only thing I really miss badly is something to help with wiring. Doing it manually is a bit of a faff.

[TrippyLighting]

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@TheCADWhisperer wrote:

---

@davidpbest wrote:

a key advantage of Fusion over ..., Solidworks, etc.   

---

You can use EXACTLY the same workflow in SolidWorks (or Inventor) with multibody solids within a single file.

EXACTLTY!

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I'd love to see a demonstration of that. I occasionally try to replicate things in SolidWorks that can be cumbersome and clunky in Fusion.

Often, SolidWorks is more efficient. Occasionally, it isn't. 
I find Fusion's ability to create more than one body from a single sketch very helpful, particularly for furniture design. Can that be done in SW or Inventor?

[TrippyLighting]

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@aleksei_ovsienko wrote:

... I mean as a designer I would ofcourse prefer a more mature CAD package. But one can't really argue with the fact that Fusion does the job and costs several times less than traditional CAD packages...

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Agreed!
I could say more, as this could be a very interesting conversation, but I don't want to completely derail this thread.

[Fully_Defined]

I counter that by saying I would prefer that Fusion allow me to select a sketch instead of a sketch profile.

Another one of Fusion’s legacy practices that I have encountered others using is to have a single super complicated sketch, that resembles a stained glass window. I call them megasketches. It’s not canon in the Fusion user base to simplify sketches, ideally one-sketch-one-extrude, and allowing the user to select an entire sketch rather than closed profiles would go a long way to undo this practice.

[TimelesslyTiredYouth]

I counter your counter
If Fusion let you select whole sketches, surely it would actually make things more complicated, not simpler. Every feature would be tied to the entire sketch, which could cause confusion, errors, and harder edits. By only letting you pick profiles, Fusion keeps the workflow clean, flexible, and easy to manage. It's these things that keep the learning curve so much nicer than a program like Blender.

Also surely the ability to choose closed profiles eliminates the idea of mega sketches. If whole sketches could be selected wouldn't it make people more tempted to just cram everything into on sketch. Also with mega-sketches and closed profiles, unless your design is literally made bottom to top like A brick with 8 holes in it and a cylinder extruding from the top of it, yes it could be done in one sketch but I rarely see any designs that are simple enough to do with one sketch upwards unless your a genius of sort that wants to challenge themselves.

It's much easier to separate into a group of separate sketches and work of a body rather than create 2d or even 3d mega-sketches in one go, at most it may be canon for Fusion beginners to make on mega-sketch but then they'll learn from their mistakes...