Open Tunnel

The Open Tunnel shape (also known as a "pipe tunnel", "flexible tunnel", or just "tunnel") can either be treated as a flexible, "bendable" shape, or as forming a smooth curve with a fixed angle.

If the tunnel is set to being flexible, you can change the tunnel's shape after it has been created, by "bending" it. For more information, see Bending Shapes.

If the tunnel is set to being flexible, you need to use the Shift or Ctrl key to rotate an Open Tunnel by itself. For more information, see Rotating Shapes.

Once you have bent a flexible tunnel into the shape you want it to be in, you can check the "Lock in current shape" check box on the Open Tunnel Properties dialog box to keep the tunnel from being accidentally bent. If the "lock in current shape" check box is checked, the tunnel can be moved or rotated, but not bent.

Tunnel Style Recommendations

Tunnel creation will be fastest and most accurate if you use the following recommendations for choosing the tunnel style:

• Use fixed angle tunnels whenever they meet your needs, since they are the fastest to create, and are drawn the most precisely.
• If a fixed angle tunnel will not meet your needs, initially create a 3-handle flexible tunnel to create a tunnel in approximately the shape you desire.
• If you can't get the 3-handle flexible tunnel to look close enough to what you have in mind, convert it to a 5-handle tunnel, and tweak the tunnel to be more precisely what you want. For more information, see Changing Shape Properties.
• After the tunnel looks exactly like you want it to look, you might want to convert it to the locked style to keep it from being accidentally bent.

If you tend to use the same tunnel shapes over and over in the courses that you create, you may want to consider keeping a course file full of just the tunnel shapes that you use, perhaps called tunnels.agl. Then, when you need to create a tunnel, you can just copy and paste a previously created, locked tunnel from your tunnels.agl file into the new course.

See also: Changing Shape Properties, Bending Shapes, Rotating Shapes