8

1550 Chapter 16: Material Editor, Materials, and Maps
6.
To minimize a channel’s memory footprint,
click the channel and then click the Clear
button.
This removes most all or of the data from
the channel, so first make su re the data is
unnecessary or is available elsewhere. If the
cleared channel is the last one in the list, it
might be deleted from the list.
Inter face
The primar y user interface of the Channel Info
utility is the Map Channel Info dialog, which
you open by clicking the utility’s Channel Info
button on the command pa nel. This modeless
dialog shows information about all map channels
belonging to the current selection, at the object
level. If you change the selection, the dialog
automatically updates to reflect the selection.
Thedialogconsistsoftwoparts:abuttontoolbar
at the top, and a tabular display of map channels
belonging to each object in the current selection.
Channel Info toolbar
Co py—Copies the channel data from the
highlighted channel to t he copy buffer, where it
becomes available for pasting. After you copy a
channel,itsnameappearsonthelinebelowthe
button toolbar .
Pas te—Pastes the contents of the copy buffer to the
high lighted channel.
You can copy and paste only between channels
w ith the same top ology, or you can copy from any
channel to a channel with no vertices.
Source and destination channels need not be o f
thesametype.Forinstance,youcancopyfroma
mesh channel to a map channel, and vice-versa.
Name—Lets you rename the highlighted channel.
Click this button to open a s mall dialog that
displays the current channel name and lets you edit
this name or enter a new one from the keyboard.
Cle ar—Usethisfunctiontoremovechannelsor
delete data from a map channel (including alpha,
illumination, and vertex color channels). Clear has
no effect on geometry or vertex selection channels.
The spe cific result depends on the type of object
and which channel you clear. In terms of reducing
theobject’smemoryfootprint,theutilityismost
effective with Editable Poly objects.
•
Geometr ic pr i mitive or Edita ble/Edit M esh
obj ect—
Deletes the highlighted texture map
channel if it is the last map channel in the
object, and it’s not the default map channel
(1:map). If the highlighted channel is not the
last, Clear deletes all vertices in the channel.
The faces remain, s o the memory-footprint
reduction is partial.
Note: This also applies to objects that collapse
to editable mesh, such as Loft objects.
•
Editable Poly object—Deletes the highlighted
texture m ap channel if it is the last map channel
in the object, and it’s not the default map
channel. If the highli g hted channel is not the
last, Clear deletes all v ertices and faces in the
channel.
•
Pat ch o bj ect —Deletes the highlighted texture
map channel if it is the last m ap channel in the
object, and it’s not the default map channel. If
the highlighted channel is not the last, Clear has
no effect.