Chapter 2 ✦ Seeing It All — Working with the Viewports 79

Figure 2-16: The Layout panel offers many layout options.

After selecting a layout from the options at the top of the panel, you can assign each individ-
ual viewport a different view by clicking the viewport and choosing a view from the pop-up
menu. The view options include Perspective, User, Front, Back, Top, Bottom, Left, Right,
ActiveShade, Schematic, Grid (Front, Back, Top, Bottom, Left, Right, Display Planes),
Extended (Asset Browser, MAXScript Listener), and Shape.
Views can also be set to Camera and Spotlight if they exist in the scene. Each camera and
light that exists is listed by name at the top of the pop-up menu.

Using Safe Frames

Completing an animation and converting it to some broadcast medium, only to see that the
whole left side of the animation is being cut off in the final screening, can be discouraging. If
you rely on the size of the active viewport to show the edges of the final output, you could be
way off. Using the Safe Frames feature, you can display some guides within the viewport that
show where these clipping edges are.
The Safe Frames panel of the Viewport Configuration dialog box lets you define several safe
frame options, as shown in Figure 2-17, including the following:
✦ Live Area: Marks the area that will be rendered, shown as yellow lines. If a background
image is added to the viewport and the Match Rendering Output option is selected,
then the background image will fit within the Live Area.
✦ Action Safe: The area ensured to be visible in the final rendered file, marked with light
blue lines; objects outside this area will be at the edge of the television screen and
could be distorted.
✦ Title Safe: The area where the title can safely appear without distortion or bleeding,
marked with orange lines.
✦ User Safe: The output area defined by the user, marked with magenta lines.
✦ 12-Field Grid: Displays a grid in the viewport, marked with a pink grid.
80 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface

Figure 2-17: The Safe Frames panel lets you specify

areas to render.

For each type of safe frame, you can set the percent reduction by entering values in the
Horizontal, Vertical, or Both fields. The 12-Field Grid option offers 4 × 3 and 12 × 9 aspect
ratios.
The Show Safe Frames in Active View option displays the Safe Frame borders in the active
viewport. You can quickly enable or disable Safe Frames by right-clicking the viewport name
and choosing Show Safe Frame in the pop-up menu (or you can use the Shift+F keyboard
shortcut).
Figure 2-18 shows an elongated Perspective viewport with all the safe frame guides enabled.
The Safe Frames show that the top and bottom of my covered wagon will be cut off whe
rendered.

Understanding Adaptive Degradation

When you are previewing a complex animation sequence in a viewport, slow updates can
affect the timing of the animation. This can make proofing your work difficult and would
require many additional, fully rendered tasks. The feature in Max that addresses this issue
is called Adaptive Degradation, and although it sounds like a weapon that some alien would
use to disarm you, it enables you to force a viewport to display at a prespecified number of
frames per second. If the display update takes too long to maintain this rate, then it automati-
cally degrades the rendering level in order to maintain the frame rate. This option is very
helpful because when you’re testing an animation, you are not as concerned about the model
details or textures.
The Adaptive Degradation panel is available in the Viewport Configuration dialog box, as
shown in Figure 2-19.
 Chapter 2 ✦ Seeing It All — Working with the Viewports 81

Action Safe lines Title Safe lines

Live Area lines User Safe lines

Figure 2-18: Safe frames provide guides that help you see when the scene objects are
out of bounds.

Figure 2-19: The Adaptive Degradation panel maintains

a defined frame rate by degrading the rendering level.
82 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface

You can enable Adaptive Degradation by using the Views ➪ Adaptive Degradation menu
command (or by pressing the O key). Adaptive Degradation, when enabled, is used only for
animation sequences where the objects are updated within the viewport quickly. If the anima-
tion isn’t progressing, then enabling and disabling Adaptive Degradation has no effect.

Cross- You learn to animate objects in Chapter 30, “Animation Basics.”

Reference

You enter the frame rate that you want to maintain into the Maintain FPS box in the Degrade
Parameters section. The General Degradation selection specifies the render level used by all
inactive viewports; the Active Degradation selection is used by the active viewport. You can
select several rendering levels in each section.

Tip Another way to speed the frame rate in the active viewport is to disable (D) the inactive
viewports.

The Reset on Mouse Up option forces Max to render at the specified rendering levels when
the mouse is released. The Show Rebuild Cursor option makes the cursor visible as the view-
ports are rendered. The Update Time is the amount of time between rendering updates.
At a setting of 0, each frame must be completely rendered before the next frame is attempted.
The Interrupt Time value is how long Max waits before checking to see whether the mouse
has moved.

Defining regions
Regions, the final panel in the Viewport Configuration dialog box, enables you to define regions
and focus your rendering energies on a smaller area. Complex scenes can take considerable
time and machine power to render. Sometimes, you want to test render only a portion of a
viewport to check material assignment, texture map placement, or lighting.
You can define the size of the various Regions in the Regions panel of the Viewport
Configuration dialog box, shown in Figure 2-20.
After you’ve specified a Blowup Region or a Sub Region, you can select to render using these
regions by selecting Region or Blowup from the Render Type drop-down list on the far-right
end of the main toolbar and clicking the Quick Render button. After clicking the Quick Render
button, the specified region is displayed as an outline in the viewport and an OK button
appears in the lower-right corner of the viewport. You can move this outline to reposition
it or drag its edge or corner handles to resize the region. The new position and dimension
values are updated in the Regions panel for next time. Click the OK button to begin the
rendering process.
The difference between these two regions is that the Sub Region displays the Rendered Frame
Window in black except for the specified sub-region. The Blowup Region fills the entire
Rendered Frame Window, as shown in Figure 2-21.

Cross- You can learn more about Render Types and the Rendered Frame Window in Chapter 41,
Reference “Rendering Basics.”
 Chapter 2 ✦ Seeing It All — Working with the Viewports 83

Figure 2-20: The Regions panel enables you to work

with smaller regions within your scene.

Figure 2-21: The image on the left was rendered using the
Sub Region option; the right image used the Blowup Region.

The Virtual Viewport is a feature that lets you zoom in and pan within the viewport image
using the numeric keypad. This feature is available only if you are using the OpenGL display
driver. You can check to see which display driver you are using by selecting Help ➪ About 3ds
max. This command opens a credits screen that lists the current driver. You can change the
current display driver in the Viewport panel of the Preference Settings dialog box.
If you have OpenGL set up as the current display driver, then you can select Use Virtual
Viewport to display the viewport in the area to the right. Using the Zoom, X, and Y Offset val-
ues, you can specify where the Virtual Viewport looks or you can drag the rectangular outline
in the visible screen to the right.
84 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface

Once enabled, you can use the divide key (/) on the numeric keypad to turn the virtual view-
port on and off. Use the plus (+) and minus (-) numeric keypad keys to zoom in and out, and
use the 2, 4, 6, and 8 keys on the numeric keypad to pan within the virtual viewport.

Caution The Virtual Viewport feature is available only if you are using the OpenGL driver. If you’ve
specified either the Software Z-Buffer or the Direct X driver, then this option isn’t available.

Working with Viewport Backgrounds

Remember in grade school when you realized that you could immediately draw really well
using tracing paper (where all you needed to do was follow the lines)? Well, it’s not quite trac-
ing paper, but you can load background images into a viewport that can help as you create
and position your objects.

Loading viewport background images

The Views ➪ Viewport Background menu command (Alt+B) opens a dialog box, shown in
Figure 2-22, where you can select an image or animation to appear behind a viewport. The
displayed background image is helpful for aligning objects in a scene, but it is for display pur-
poses only and will not be rendered. To create a background image to be rendered, you need
to specify the background in the Environment dialog box, opened using the Rendering ➪
Environment (keyboard shortcut, 8) menu command.

Figure 2-22: The Viewport Background

dialog box lets you select a background
source image or animation.
 Chapter 2 ✦ Seeing It All — Working with the Viewports 85

If the background image changes, you can update the viewport using the Views ➪ Update
Background Image menu command (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+B). This is helpful if you have the back-
ground image opened in Photoshop at the same time. You can update the background image,
save it, and then immediately update the image in Max. The Views ➪ Reset Background
Transform menu command automatically rescales and recenters the background image to
fit the viewport. You should use this if you’ve changed the viewport size or changed the
background’s size.
Each viewport can have a different background image. To load and configure a viewport back-
ground image, choose Views ➪ Viewport Background (or press the Alt+B keyboard shortcut).
This opens the Viewport Background dialog box, shown previously.
The Files button opens the Select Background Image dialog box, where you can select the
image to load. The Devices button lets you obtain a background from a device such as a
Video Recorder. If an environment map is already loaded into the Environment dialog box,
you can simply click the Use Environment Background option. Keep in mind that the back-
ground image will not be rendered unless it is made into an Environment map.

Cross- I cover environment maps in Chapter 41, “Rendering Basics.”

Reference

Loading viewport background animations

The Animation Synchronization section of the Viewport Background dialog box lets you set
which frames of a background animation sequence are displayed. The Use Frame and To val-
ues determine which frames of the loaded animation are used. The Step value trims the num-
ber of frames that are to be used by selecting every Nth frame. For example, a Step value of 4
would use every fourth frame.

Tip Loading an animation sequence as a viewport background can really help as you begin to
animate complex motions, like a running horse. By stepping through the frames of the ani-
mation, you can line up your model with the background image for realistic animations.

The Start At value is the frame in the current scene where this background animation would
first appear. The Sync Start to Frame value is the frame of the background animation that
should appear first. The Start and End Processing options let you determine what appears
before the Start and End frames. Options include displaying a blank, holding the current
frame, and looping.
If you select an animation as the background, make sure that the Animate Background option
is selected. Also note that the viewport background is not visible if the Display Background
option is not selected.
86 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface

The Aspect Ratio section offers options for setting the size of the background image. You can
select to Match Viewport, Match Bitmap, or Match Rendering Output.
The Lock Zoom/Pan option is available if either the Match Bitmap option or the Match
Rendering Output option is selected. This option locks the background image to the geome-
try so that when the objects in the scene are zoomed or panned, the background image fol-
lows. If the background gets out of line, you can reset its position with the Views ➪ Reset
Background Transform command.

Caution When the Lock Zoom/Pan option is selected, the background image is resized when you
zoom in on an object. Resizing the background image fills the virtual memory, and if you
zoom in too far, the background image could exceed your virtual memory. If this happens, a
dialog box appears that informs you of the problem and gives you the option of not display-
ing the background image.

You can set the Apply Source and Display to option to display the background in All Views or
in the Active Only.

Tutorial: Loading reference images for modeling

When modeling a physical object, you can get a jump on the project by taking pictures with a
digital camera of the front, top, and left views of the object and then load them as background
images in the respective viewports. The background images can then be a reference for your
work. This is especially helpful with models that need to be precise. You can even work from
CAD drawings.
To load the background images of a brass swan, follow these steps:
1. Choose File ➪ New (or press Ctrl+N) to open a blank scene file.
2. Right-click on the Front viewport to make it the active viewport, and choose Views ➪
Viewport Background (or press Alt+B).
The Viewport Background dialog box opens.
3. Click on the Files button, and in the File dialog box that opens, select the Brass swan-
front view.jpg image from the Chap 02 directory on the CD-ROM.
4. Select the Match Bitmap, Display Background, Lock Zoom/Pan, and Active Only
options, and click OK to close the dialog box.
The image now appears in the background of the Front viewport.
5. Repeat Steps 2 through 4 for the Top and Left viewports.
Figure 2-23 shows the Max interface with background images loaded in the Front, Top, and
Left viewports.
 Chapter 2 ✦ Seeing It All — Working with the Viewports 87

Figure 2-23: Adding a background image to a viewport can help as you begin to model
objects.

Summary
Viewports are the window into the Max world. Remember that if you can’t see it, you can’t
work with it, so you need to learn to use the viewports. You can also configure viewports to
display just the way you desire.
In this chapter, you
✦ Learned about 3D space and the various viewport types
✦ Covered the various Viewport Navigation Control buttons
✦ Set the Rendering Level and Display options in the Viewport Configuration dialog box
✦ Used the other panels of the Viewport Configuration dialog box to change the layout,
safe frames, and regions
88 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface

✦ Learned how you can use Adaptive Degradation to maintain a constant frame rate for
viewport animation sequences
✦ Loaded a viewport background image
In the next chapter, you find out all the details about working with files, including loading,
saving, and merging scene files. You also learn about External References (XRefs) and how to
use them to manage scene creation in a workgroup. The next chapter also covers import and
export options for interfacing with other software packages.
✦ ✦ ✦
Working with Files
and XRefs
3
C H A P T E R

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

In This Chapter

C omplex scenes can end up being a collection of hundreds of files,

and misplacing any of them will affect the final output, so learn-
ing to work with files is critical. This chapter focuses on working with
Saving, opening,
merging, and
archiving files
files whether they be object files, texture images, or background
images. Files enable you to move scene pieces into and out of Max. Importing and exporting
You can also export and import files to and from other packages. objects and scenes
Max scenes can also be composed from several different objects that
Importing objects from
have been created by a team. Using external references (XRefs), you
external packages like
can pull all the different pieces together into a single scene.
Illustrator and Poser

Working with Max Scene Files Externally referencing

objects and scenes
Of all the different file types and formats, there is one file type that Working with file
you will probably work with more than any other — the max format. utilities such as the
Max has its own proprietary format for its scene files. These files Asset Browser
have the .max extension and allow you to save your work as a file and
return to it at a later time. Max also supports files saved with the .chr Accessing scene files
extension used for character files. information
When Max starts, a new scene opens. You can start a new scene at
any time with the File ➪ New (Ctrl+N) command. Although each
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
instance of Max can have only one scene open at a time, under
Windows XP, you can open multiple copies of Max, each with its own
scene instance.
Starting a new scene deletes the current scene, but Max asks you
whether you want to keep the objects and hierarchy, keep the
objects, or make everything new, as shown in Figure 3-1. Starting a
new scene with the File ➪ New menu command maintains all the cur-
rent interface settings, including the viewport configurations, any
interface changes, viewport backgrounds, and any changes to the
Command Panel. To reset the interface, choose File ➪ Reset. When
reset, all interface settings return to their default states, but interface
changes aren’t affected.