8

Blocks 465
Chair component of Desk1 ,the Chair component
of all
Desk1 s in the scene wi ll be moved. If the
transform is undesirable, you can use the
Reset
Tr ansform button (page 3–448)
on the Modify
panel to put the block or component back to its
original position.
Whenamodifierisappliedtoablockorblock
component, it propagates throughout all instances
of the block or block component in the scene.
Limitations of Block s
Blocks have some limitations when you link a
drawing to 3ds Max.
• Youcannotchangethestructureofactively
linked blocks or their components i n 3ds Max.
In order to delete a block or component, you
w i ll have to bind the file, breaking the link.
• You can only access rendering properties
for block components that appear as Linked
Geometry on the Modifier panel. Blocks or
sub-blocks, that appear as VIZBlocks in the
Modify panel, do not have rendering properties
because they a re not renderable.
Blocks and Materials
When assigning a material in 3ds Max to an
instance of a block or block component, all the
instances of that block or component are assigned
the same material automatically. This is called
automatic material propagation .Thisfeaturehelps
align 3ds Max behavior w ith that of Architectural
Desktop.
If you find that a material you’ve assigned to
a block or block component is not what you
wanted, you can undo the material assignment by
choosing Edit menu > Undo or pressing CTRL +Z .
If you undo a material assignment, the undo w ill
propagatetoallinstancesoftheobjectstowhich
you assigned the material.
Note: When assigning a material to a block or
block component, you are not prompted to accept
or cancel the material propagation. You can only
control propagation of materials by toggling
Propagate Materials To Instances (page 2–1276) .
For more information about working with
materialsandassigningmaterialstoblocksin
3ds Max, see the
Material Editor, Materials, and
Mapping (page 2–1239)
topic.
Multi-V iew B lock s (MVB lock s)
3ds Max accommodates both AutoCAD blocks
and Autodesk Architectural Desktop multi-view
blocks through the file linking functionality, and
for the most part the two block typ es behave
similarly in 3ds Max with some exceptions.
The str uc ture of Architectural Desktop multi-v iew
blocks is expressed differently in 3ds Max, when
compared to AutoCAD blocks. Rather than peer
into the internal struc tures of multi-view blocks
as is done with AutoCAD blocks, 3ds Max relies
on the multi-view block’s own ability to draw its
own 3D view, much as it does in the Architectura l
Desktop Object Viewer. Because of t his, you wi l l
notice that multi-view blocks never exhibit nesting
in their object str ucture when they are file l inked
into 3ds Max.
Behavior of instanced Architectural Desktop
multi-viewobjectsisdifferentfromthatof
AutoCADblocksaswell. Multipleinstances
of multi-view blocks require more memory in
3ds Max than multiple instances of AutoCAD
blocks. But multiple instances of multi-view
blocks are better b ehaved when being cut by live
section objects than their AutoCAD counter p arts.
Dynamic Blocks
The File Lin k Manager handles dynamic blocks
the same way as other blocks found in a DWG
file. When linked to a scene, the naming for the
incoming dynamic block instances are based on