9

576 Chapter 12: Animation
• When pasting items, you can choose to ma ke
an instance or a copy of the pasted item.
• You cannot copy/paste actively linked objects.
Copying It em s
You copy an item by highlighting it in the
Cont roller w indow Hierarchy list, and t hen
right-clicking and choosing Copy from the quad
menu. If Co py is not available the selected item is
not a va lid copy source. 3ds Max disables Copy
when the selected item is not a valid copy source
or if multiple items are selected.
Pas ti ng It ems
Pasting items involves a few more choices than
copying. You select one or more items from the
Hierarchy list. If Paste is available the selected
items are valid paste ta rgets. The program disables
Paste if the selected targets are not al l the same
type or if they do not match the type of item in
the clipboard.
You can use Paste as follows:
• Paste into a single target item.
• Paste into multiple target items.
• Paste copies or instances.
• Choose to convert other instances in the scene
automatically.
Clicking Paste on the quad menu displays the Paste
dialog, with controls for determining how the
Paste operation will be carried out.
Co py—Pastes the item in the clipboard as an
independent copy. The target item will have no
connection to the copied source item.
Instance—Pastes the item in the clipboard as an
instance of the copied source item.Thetargetitem
w i ll be an instance of the source item. Any change
you make to either item affects the other.
Replace All Instances—Controls w hether existing
instances of the target item are also converted to
the paste source or left as they are.
Mak ing Instances Unique
You can convert instanced items to unique items
by clicking Make Unique (page 2–550) on the
Controller menu. If the selected item is not an
instance, or if a selection of multiple items does
not contain similar instances, Make Unique is
disabled.
Copy ing a nd Pas tin g O bjects
In the Track View controller window you can
use the Hierarchy list to copy and paste objects.
This allows you to replace the geometry of one
animated object with the geometry of another
object.Thisissimilartothefunctionalityprovided
by XRef objects and scenes where you have to
option of defining proxy or stand-in objects.
Copy ing and pasting objects is achieved by
highlighting the Object track for the source object,
copying it, then pasting it to the Objec t track
of the target object. The Object track is found
beneath the Transforms and Modified objects
entries, and appears with parentheses that define
the geometry t ype. For example, Object (Box) or
Object (Editable Mesh) are two label names that
might appear on the correct track for object cut
and p aste.
Using these two container t ypes, you can copy
geometry between objects.
To copy one object to o ther o bj ects :
1.
In the Curve Editor controller window, find the
object that you wan t to copy from.
2. Navigate to the Object track that is beneath
the Transform or Modified Object entries.
ThenamewillbesomethinglikeObject