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422 Chapter 20: Managing Scenes and Projects
are not set to Automatic). When y ou click Update
Now, the XRef is updated to match the latest saved
version of the source scene.
Display Options group
These options let you specify how the selected
XRefs are displayed in viewpor ts. These options
have no effect on the rendered scene.
Visible—Turn on or off to display or hide the
selected XRefs. This affects the visibility of the
XRef in the viewports only (not in renderings).
Note, also, that this behavior is different from the
“Enabled” che ck box. Turning off Visible does not
remove the XRef from memory.
Box—Turn this on to display the selected XRefs
as bounding boxes. Turn off to display the full
geometry.
Ignore group
This group box lets you specify categories that you
do not want included with the XRef scene. For
example, if you turn on Lights, the lights in the
XRef source scene are not included in the current,
target scene. You can switch these categories on
and off at any time, but if you Merge an XRef scene
while a category is tur n ed off, that category of
objects will not be merged into the scene.
Lights—Tu rn this on to ignore the l ights.
Cam eras—Turn this on to ignore the cameras.
Shapes—Turn this on to ignore the shapes.
Helper s—Turn this on to i gnore the helpers.
Animation—Tur n this on to ignore the animation.
All animation in the scene is disabled and the scene
appears as it would at frame 0 of the source scene.
Wa rn in g: Children of an ignored objec t are also ignored.
For example, if you have mesh objects linked as children
to a dummy object and ignore Helpers, then the mesh
objectsareignoredaswell.
Parent group
These controls let you position and animate XRef
scenes within the current scene by binding the
XRef scene to a pa rent object.
Parent Na me fi el d —Displaysthenameoftheparent
for the currently selected XRef.
Bind—Click this, and then pick an object in
thecurrentscenetobecometheparentofthe
highlighted XRefs. The XRef scene is moved so
that its original origin is placed at the pivot point
of the parent object. Once an XRef is bound to
a parent object, the transforms of the parent are
inherited by the XRef. Thus, you can animate the
XRef by animating the transforms of the parent.
Unbind—Click to unbind the highlighted XRefs
from whichever parent they’d been bound to. T he
XRef immediately moves so that its original origin
is placed at the world origin of the current scene.
BindingXRefstoobjectsissimilarto
linking
objects, as performed with the Link/Unlink
buttons on the toolbar , but it is not quite the same.
When you Bind an XRef scene to an object, the
XRef scene moves so that the orig in of the XRef
scene is placed at the pivot point of the parent
object. If you unbind an XRef scene, it again moves
sothatitsoriginisattheoriginofthecurrent
scene. (The orig in of an XRef scene is ty pically
the 0,0,0 world origin of the
.max file scene from
which it came.)
If you Merge a linked XRef scene, converting it
to objects in the current scene, the objects in
the XRef scene become linked children of the
binding parent. At this point, you could Unlin k
them (u sing the toolbar command), and they’ll
maintain their offset position to the parent.
Clo se —Click to close the dialog.