Object Properties Dialog

Displays information about the selected object, including the following:

Name—Shows the name of the object. When a single object is selected, you can edit this field to give the object a new name. When multiple objects are selected, this field shows "Multiple Selected," and cannot be edited.

Color—The color swatch shows the object's color. You can click it to display the Color Selector and select a different color.

Dimensions—Displays the X, Y, and Z dimensions of the object's extents.

Vertices and Faces—Display the number of vertices and faces in the object. For shapes, these values are the values used if you have made the shape renderable. Faces for renderable shapes are generated only at rendering time.

Shape Vertices and Shape Curves—Appear only for shape objects. Shape Vertices is the number of vertices in the shape, and Shape Curves is the number of polygons. (Shape Curves is the value that appeared as "Polygons" in previous releases.)

These values can change over time: they are valid only for the current frame and the current view.

Parent—Displays the name of the object's parent in a hierarchy. Shows "Scene Root" if the object has no hierarchical parent.

Material Name—Displays the name of the material assigned to the object. Displays "None" if no material is assigned.

Num. Children—Displays the number of children hierarchically linked to the object.

In Group/Assembly—Displays the name of the group or assembly to which the object belongs. Displays "None" if the object is not part of a group.

By Object/By Layer—Toggles between object settings or object layer settings. Object settings affect only the object or objects selected. Object layer settings affect the rendering controls of all objects on the same layer as the selected object.

Note: If multiple objects are selected and have different By Layer settings, this button will read ‘Mixed’.

Renderable—Makes an object or selected objects appear or disappear from the rendered scene. Nonrenderable objects don't cast shadows or affect the visual component of the rendered scene. Like dummy objects, nonrenderable objects can manipulate other objects in the scene.

Shape objects have the Renderable option turned on by default. In addition, they have a Renderable check box in their creation parameters. When both check boxes are on, the shape is renderable. If Renderable in the Object Properties dialog is off, the shape is not renderable regardless of the state of its local Renderable check box.

If you apply a modifier that converts the shape into a mesh object, such as a Lathe or Extrude modifier, the shape automatically becomes renderable regardless of the state of its local Renderable check box.

For shapes, the Renderable check box in the Object Properties dialog affects the main object, so the check box also affects all instances of and references to the shape.

Visibility—Controls the rendered visibility of the object. At 1.0, the object is fully visible. At 0.0, the object is completely invisible when rendered. Default=1.0.

You can animate this parameter. Animating Visibility assigns a visibility controller to the object. By default this is a Bezier float controller.

Inherit Visibility—Causes the object to inherit a percentage of the visibility of its parent (as determined by the parent's Visibility track in Track View). When a group parent is assigned a visibility track, Inherit Visibility is automatically turned on for all children in the group. The children will have the maximum visibility of the parent. Transparent materials and hidden objects have no effect on this function.

Visible to Camera—When on, the object is visible to cameras in the scene. When off, cameras do not view this object, however its shadows and reflections are rendered. Default=on.

Visible to Reflection/Refraction—When on, the object is included in reflection and refraction calculations. When off, the object does not appear in reflections or refractions, even though it appears in the rendering. Default=on.

Receive Shadows—When on, the object can receive shadows. Default=on.

Cast Shadows—When on, the object can cast shadows. Default=on.

Apply Atmospherics—When on, atmospheric effects are applied to the object. When off atmospheric effects do not change the rendered appearance of this object. Default=on.

Render Occluded Objects—Allows special effects to affect objects in the scene that are occluded by this object. The special effects, typically applied by plug-ins such as Glow, use G-buffer layers to access occluded objects. Turning on this control makes the object transparent for the purposes of special effects. This makes no difference when you render to most image files. When you render to either the RLA or RPF file format, however, occluded objects appear with the effect applied on their designated G-buffer layer. Default=off.

Allows you to tag an object as a target for a render effect based on the G-buffer channel. Assigning the object a nonzero ID creates a G-buffer channel that can be associated with a render effect.

Object Channel—Setting this spinner to a nonzero number means that the object will receive the rendering effects associated with that channel in Render Effects and the post-processing effects associated with that channel in Video Post.

To save the channel data with the rendering, render to either the RLA or RPF file format file format.

By Object/By Layer—Toggles between object settings or object layer settings. Object settings affect only the object or objects selected. Object layer settings affect all objects on the same layer as the selected object.

Note: If multiple objects are selected and have different By Layer settings, this button will read ‘Mixed’.

Multiplier—Affects the length of the motion-blur streak.

If you choose either form of motion blur here in the Object Properties dialog, you must also choose to apply that type of blur in the Render Scene dialog.

The rendering speed of object motion blur depends on the complexity of the geometry to which it's assigned. The rendering speed of image motion blur depends on the amount of rendered screen space taken up by the blurring object. In most cases image motion blur renders more quickly. Object motion blur renders more quickly when applied to very simple objects, and image motion blur renders more slowly when the object takes up a lot of screen space, and moves all the way across the screen in a single frame.

Changing the Object Blur Multiplier value.

Enabled—When on, enables motion blur for this object. When off, motion blur is disabled regardless of the other blur settings. Default=on.

You can animate the Enabled check box. The main use of animating Enable is to apply motion blur over only a limited range of frames. This can save a tremendous amount of time when you are rendering an animation.

None—Turns off the state of motion blur for the object.

Object—Object motion blur provides a time-slice blur effect.

Image—Image motion blur blurs the object's image based on the velocity of each pixel.

Hide—Hides the selected object or objects.

Hidden objects exist in the scene, but do not appear in the viewports or rendered images. To unhide hidden objects, use the Display panelor choose Tools > Display Floater.

Freeze—Freezes the selected object or objects.

Frozen objects appear in the viewports, but cannot be manipulated. To unfreeze frozen objects, use the Display panelor choose Tools > Display Floater.

By Object/By Layer— Toggles between object settings or object layer settings. Object settings affect only the object or objects selected. Object layer settings affect all objects on the same layer as the selected object.

Display as Box—Toggles the display of selected objects, both 3D objects and 2D shapes, as bounding boxes. Produces minimum geometric complexity for rapid display in viewports. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Backface Cull—Toggles the display of faces with normals that point away from the view. When on, you see through the wireframe to the backfaces. Applies only to wireframe viewports. Default=on.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Edges Only—Displays only faces of the object in wireframe viewports. When off, all of the object's mesh geometry is displayed. Applies only to wireframe viewports. Default=on.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Vertex Ticks—Displays the object's vertices as tick marks. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Trajectory—Displays the object's trajectory. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools >Display Floater.

See-Through—Makes the object or selection translucent in viewports. This setting has no effect on rendering: it simply lets you see what is behind an object in a crowded scene, and especially to adjust the position of objects behind the see-through object. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

You can customize the color of see-through objects by using the Colors panel of the Customize > Customize User Interface dialog.

Keyboard shortcut (default): ALT+X

Ignore Extents—When on, this object is ignored when you use the display control Zoom Extents.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Keyboard shortcut: No default, but you can customize it using the Keyboard panel of the Customize > Customize User Interface dialog.

Show Frozen in Gray—When on, the object turns gray in viewports when you freeze it. (This is how all frozen objects appeared in versions prior to v4.) When off, viewports display the object with its usual color or texture even when it is frozen. Default=on.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Vertex Colors—For editable mesh or editable poly objects, displays the assigned vertex colors in viewports. The drop-down list lets you choose to display the vertices' Color, Illumination, Alpha channel or Soft Selection Color. Default=off.

You assign vertex colors at the vertex, face or polygon sub-object levels.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel.

Shaded—When on, if the object is an editable mesh with vertex colors, shaded viewports use vertex colors to shade the mesh. When off, colors are unshaded. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel.

Num. Geometric Objects—The number of geometric objects present in the current selection.

Num. Light Objects—The number of lights present in the current selection.

Exclude from Adv. Lighting Calculations—When on, the current selection is excluded from advanced lighting (radiosity or light tracing). Objects excluded from advanced lighting will not contribute to indirect illumination.

By Object/By Layer—Toggles between object settings or object layer settings. Object settings affect only the object or objects selected. Object layer settings affect all objects on the same layer as the selected object.

Cast Shadows—Determines whether objects will cast shadows in the rendering.

Receive Illumination—Determines whether objects will receive indirect illumination.

Num. Regathering Rays Multiplier— Lets you adjust the number of rays cast by this object, per pixel. If an object looks “blotchy” after rendering, Increasing this value can improve its appearance. Default=1.0.

Tip: Increasing this setting is most useful for objects with large, smooth surfaces. More complex geometry tends not to show advanced lighting artifacts as much as smooth surfaces do.

Diffuse (reflective & translucent)—When on, the radiosity solution will process radiosity solution diffuse reflection and translucency of the selected objects.

Specular (transparent)—When on, radiosity will process transparency of the selected objects.

Exclude from Regathering—When on, objects are excluded from the regathering process when rendering.

Use Global Subdivision Settings—When on, global subdivision settings are used for objects. When off, you can change these settings for each object.

Subdivide—When on, a radiosity mesh is created for the objects regardless of the global meshing state.

Meshing Size—Sets the size of the radiosity mesh in world units.

For more information on the Radiosity Properties group, see Radiosity Control Panel.

Radiosity Refine Iterations—The number of refine iterations in the radiosity process for the current selection.

Iterations Done—The number of refine iterations performed on the current selection.

Exclude from Radiosity Processing—When on, the current selection is excluded from the radiosity solution. When lights are excluded from radiosity, their direct contribution is only used for rendering.

By Object/By Layer—Toggles between object settings or object layer settings. Object settings affect only the object or objects selected. Object layer settings affect all objects on the same layer as the selected object.

Note: If multiple objects are selected and have different By Layer settings, this button will read ‘Mixed’.

Store Direct Illumination in Mesh—When on, the light’s direct illumination is added to the radiosity mesh. When off, the direct contribution is only used for rendering.

These controls are available only if you have installed the 3ds max Connection to mental ray® product. They are described in the online reference for that product.

User Defined Properties—In this text box, you can enter properties for the object, or comments about it, that you define yourself. The software doesn't use these properties, but it saves them with the scene, and they reappear whenever you view the Object Properties dialog for the object.