8

Using Assemblies 99
You can tr ansform and animate individual objects
within an assembly independently from the
assembly itself. However, when you transform the
assembly itself, the tr ansform affects all assembled
objects e qual ly. The assembly transform is
uniformly added to objects that have independent
motions. An analogy is a cage of birds, each flying
around on its own, whi le the cage itself is being
moved. In t he case of a ssemblies, the "cage" (the
dummy object) expands to sur round al l objects i n
the a ssembly, wherever the objects’ independent
transforms take them.
Accessing Objects in an Assembly
Yo u c a n open and close assemblies to access the
individual objects contained in them without
dissolving t he assembly. These commands
maintain the integr ity of the assembly.
•
Open (page 1–106) :Temporarilyopensthe
assembly so that you can access its member
objects. While an assembly is open, you can
treat the objects (or nested assemblies/groups)
as individuals. You can transform them, apply
modifiers, and access their modifier stacks.
•
Close (page 1–107) : Restores the assembly
when you’re finished working with the
individual objects.
Using M ak e Unique with Assemblies
When you clone assemblies using instancing,
and then make the clones unique, it’s important
to consider how this affects parameter wiring.
Consider the following typical usage case:
1. Drag an assembly, such as a light fixture, into
the scene.
2. Clone t he assembly several times using the
Instance option and posit ion t he instances in
the scene.
3. To make the scene look more realistic, giving
theappearanceofrandomnesstotheobjectsin
thescene,makesomeoftheassemblyinstances
unique and adjust their param eters to differ
from the rest of the instances.
When you clone-instance an assembly, all objects
in the assembly, along with all the parameter wires,
are instanced. So if you change a wired luminaire
parameter, all instanced assemblies are affected.
When the modifier stack displays an assembly
head that is an instance or refe rence, the
Make
Unique (page 3–812)
button is active. By clicking
it, the assembly head object is made unique
w ith respect to its instances and all t he assembly
members are also made unique.
The p arameter w ir ing be tween the unique
assembly head and its members is de-coupled from
the other instances of the assembly. Changing the
parameters of the unique assembly head object
affectsonlytheparametersofitsownmembers,
not the memb ers of t he other instances of the
assembly.
When multiple assembly instances are selected, the
Make Unique command works the same as when
multiple instances of an object are selected. You’re
asked whether you want to make the selected
assemblies unique one with respect to each other.
• If you answer Yes, 3ds Max makes the
assemblies unique one with respect to another
and p arameter wires are reconnected inside
each unique assembly. That is, the p arameters
of each unique assembly head drives only the
parameters of its own members, not that of the
members in any other assembly instances.
• If you answer No, then the selected assemblies
aremadeuniqueonlywithrespecttotheother
assembly instances. The parameters of unique
assembly heads drive only the parameters of
their members, not the members of the other
assembly instances.
Note: If you chose to instance the controllers
when you instanced the assembly, the Modify