2011

Table Of Contents
To add an axis from the Tools tab:
1 In the Schematic view, double-click the Reaction node to display the
Group Schematic.
2 From the Tools tab, drag the Axis tool from the Reaction folder to the
Group Schematic.
3 In the Schematic view, parent the axis to a layer, camera, or light.
To set the visibility of an axis:
1 In the Schematic view, select the Reaction node.
2 Select the Axes tab.
3 From the Axes list, click the white square beside an axis.
Working with Materials
When you create a layer, a separate material node is automatically generated
and linked to the layer. Every layer must be associated with a material, but
many layers can share a single material. Because the material node is separate
from the layer and surface, you can easily propagate material properties to
several layers from a single source, instead of duplicating effort by having to
assign the same material attributes to several surfaces. You can quickly connect
materials to layers from the Reaction Group Schematic and see which layers
share materials.
About Materials, Shaders, and Textures
A material defines how the layer and its associated surface object appears. It
defines how it interacts with lights, how it reflects light back to the view, and
how it blends in with the rest of the scene. You can choose one of four shader
types to set the basic material properties for a given layer and choose from a
wide selection of blending modes to define how the current layer is blended
with the scene element lying behind it (with respect to the view).
In addition, each material node has five input tabs, or channels, that you can
use to assign one or more sources to apply textures to an object. The main
material channel defines a layer's base material and texture mapping, and is
always used. You can optionally connect sources to the other inputs on the
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