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Rendering Method

Sets the rendering method either for the current viewport or all viewports.

Reference

The initial settings for this dialog box reflect the current viewport.

Rendering Level

Determines how 3D Studio MAX displays objects.

Smooth+Highlights: Renders objects with smooth shading and displays specular highlights.

Smooth: Renders objects with smooth shading only.

Facets+Highlights: Renders objects with flat shading and displays specular highlights.

Facets: Renders objects with flat shading only.

Lit Wireframes: Renders objects as wireframes with flat shading.

Wireframe: Draws objects as wireframes with no shading applied.

Bounding Box: Draws objects as a bounding box with no shading applied. The bounding box is defined as the smallest box that completely encloses an object.

Edged Faces: Available only when the current viewport is in a shaded mode, such as Smooth, Smooth + Highlights, Facets + Highlights, or Facets. When Edged Faces is on in these modes, the wireframe edges of objects appear along with the shaded surfaces. This is helpful for editing meshes in a shaded display.

Edges are displayed using the object wireframe color, while surfaces use material colors (if assigned). This lets you create contrasting colors between the shaded surfaces and the wireframe edges. You can switch these around in the Display Color rollout in the Display branch.

Apply To

Applies the current settings to the active viewport only, to all viewports, or to all the viewports except the active one.

Rendering Options

These check boxes modify either the shading modes or the wireframe modes. They refer to the viewport renderer only, not to the scanline renderer.

Disable View: Disables the active viewport. A disabled viewport behaves like any other viewport while it is active. However, when you change the scene in another viewport, the view in the disabled viewport does not change until you next activate it. Use this function to speed up screen redraws when you are working on complex geometry.

Disable Textures: Select to turn off display of texture maps assigned to objects. Clear to show the maps assigned to objects.

Texture Correction: Redraws the viewport using pixel-interpolation (perspective corrected), and it will stay that way until you force the viewport to redraw for any reason. This command is only available when the viewport is shaded and at least one object's map is displayed.

Z-Buffer Wires: Select to generate a Z-buffer channel for the viewport. The Z-buffer can be displayed in the virtual frame buffer when you render to an .rla file.

Force 2-Sided: Set to render both sides of faces. Clear to render only faces with normals toward the viewer. Usually, you'll want to keep this option off to speed redraw time. You may want to turn it on if you need to see the inside as well as the outside of objects, or if you've imported complex geometry in which the face normals are not properly unified.

Default Lighting: Set to use default lighting. Clear to use the lights created in the scene. Sometimes the lighting you create in the scene makes the objects harder to see in the viewport. The default lighting displays the objects under an even illumination.

Fast View

Turns on Fast View display mode, which speeds screen redraw by displaying fewer faces. The Nth Faces spinner sets the number of faces that are displayed when the Fast View mode is active. For example, a setting of 3 displays every third face. This setting also affects any objects that are displayed using Fastdraw mode (set in the Display command panel).

Perspective User View

FOV: Sets the field of view angle for a Perspective viewport. This spinner is not available when any other viewport type is active. You can change the Camera field of view in the Modify panel.

How To

To set the viewport rendering method

  1. Choose Views/Viewport Configuration.
  2. Click the Rendering Method tab.
  3. Click the desired rendering level and any options available for that level.
  4. Determine how to apply the rendering method.

To type an FOV value in a Perspective view

  1. Activate a viewport with a Perspective view.
  2. Right-click Field of View to display the Viewport Configuration dialog.
  3. Click the Rendering Methods tab.
  4. Enter an angle in the FOV field.