8

Viewport Preferences 875
Inter face
Viewport Parameters group
Use Dua l Pla nes—Uses the front/back plane system
when redrawing the viewport. The selected object
is manipulated in the f ront plane and is redrawn,
whileotherobjectsremainonthebackplaneand
are not redrawn. This default setting provides the
fastest redraws under normal circumstances. If
your assi gned display dr iver doesn’t supp ort dual
planes, this option is not available.
Tu rn off this setting to improve redraw speed if you
are rotating the whole scene or moving a camera
through the scene (usually situations in which the
whole v iewport needs to b e redraw n anyway).
Show Vertices As Dots—When on, the software
displays vertices in mesh and patch objects as
small, solid-color squares, whose size you can set
w ith the Size parameter. When off, the vertex
display is a tick m ark.
Size—Lets you specify the vertex size displayed in
the viewports. Range=2 to 7. Default=2.
Handle Size—Lets you specify the display size
for handles attached to patch vertices and spline
vertices. Range=2 to 7. Default=3.
DrawLinksasLines—Displays t he hierarchical links
(page 3–1045)
between p arent and child objects as
plain lines, r ather than shapes when Display panel
> Link Display rollout > Display Link is turned
on.Show Links is enabled in the Object Properties
dialog.
Backface Cull on Object Creation—Determines
whether to display faces w ith
normals (page
3–1074)
pointing away from view . When turned
on, you see through the wireframe to the backfaces.
This opt ion applies to wireframe viewport displays
only. In most cases, y ou’ll want this item turned
on. H o wever, if you’re modeling with NURBS
surfaces, which consist of single-sided planes, it’s
easier to view them from al l ang les when backface
culling is turne d off.
• T his control affects only the created objects,
and you can reverse the effect on each object by
changing the Backface Cull setting in the Object
Properties dia log for that object.You might turn
off Backface Cull On Object Creation before
creating your NURBS, and then turn it on again
when your finished.
• You can globally change the display of backface
cullingintheviewportsbyturningon
Force
2-Sided (page 3–896)
on the Rendering Method
panel of the Viewport Configuration dialog.
Attenuate Li ghts—Turns the dis pl ay of attenuation
effects (page 3–1006)
on or off from start to end in
the interactive viewport renderer. When turned
off, attenuated lights behave as though there was
no attenuation. Default=off.
Mask V iewport to Safe Region—By default, the
viewport area outside t he outermost safe frame
displays the contents of the viewport. When this
box is turned on, that area is left blank.
Update B ack ground While Playing—Turns on the
updating of bitmaps in the viewport background
when you play an animation. You need this
capabilitytocheckyouractionagainsta2D