General Panel (Object Properties Dialog)

This group displays information about the selected object, including the following:

Name—Shows the name of the object. When a single object is selected, you can edit this field to give the object a new name. When multiple objects are selected, this field shows "Multiple Selected," and cannot be edited.

Color—The color swatch shows the object's color. You can click it to display the Object Color dialog and select a different color.

Dimensions—Displays the X, Y, and Z dimensions of the object's extents.

Vertices and Faces—Display the number of vertices and faces in the object. For shapes, these values are the values used if you have made the shape renderable. Faces for renderable shapes are generated only at rendering time.

Shape Vertices and Shape Curves—Appear only for shape objects. Shape Vertices is the number of vertices in the shape, and Shape Curves is the number of polygons. (Shape Curves is the value that appeared as "Polygons" in previous releases.)

These values can change over time: they are valid only for the current frame and the current view.

Parent—Displays the name of the object's parent in a hierarchy. Shows "Scene Root" if the object has no hierarchical parent.

Material Name—Displays the name of the material assigned to the object. Displays "None" if no material is assigned.

Num. Children—Displays the number of children hierarchically linked to the object.

In Group/Assembly—Displays the name of the group or assembly to which the object belongs. Displays "None" if the object is not part of a group.

Layer—Displays the name of the layer which the object is assigned to.

Hide— Hides the selected object or objects.

Hidden objects exist in the scene, but do not appear in the viewports or rendered images. To unhide hidden objects, use the Display panel or choose Tools > Display Floater.

Note: Objects residing on a hidden layer are automatically hidden, regardless of this setting.

Tip: The Layer Manager is the easiest way to hide groups of objects or layers.

Freeze—Freezes the selected object or objects.

Frozen objects appear in the viewports, but cannot be manipulated. To unfreeze frozen objects, use the Display panel or choose Tools > Display Floater.

Note: Objects residing on a frozen layer are automatically frozen, regardless of this setting.

Tip: The Layer Manager is the easiest way to freeze groups of objects or layers.

By Object/By Layer—Toggles between object settings or object layer settings. Object settings affect only the object or objects selected. Object layer settings affect all objects on the same layer as the selected object.

Note: If multiple objects are selected and have different By Layer settings, this button will read ‘Mixed’.

See-Through—Makes the object or selection translucent in viewports. This setting has no effect on rendering: it simply lets you see what is behind an object in a crowded scene, and especially to adjust the position of objects behind the see-through object. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

You can customize the color of see-through objects by using the Colors panel of the Customize > Customize User Interface dialog.

Keyboard shortcut (default): Alt+X

Display as Box—Toggles the display of selected objects, both 3D objects and 2D shapes, as bounding boxes. Produces minimum geometric complexity for rapid display in viewports. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Backface Cull—Toggles the display of faces with normals that point away from the view. When on, you see through the wireframe to the backfaces. Applies only to wireframe viewports. Default=on.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Edges Only—Toggles the display of hidden edges and polygon diagonals. When on, only outside edges appear. When off, all mesh geometry appears. Applies to Wireframe viewport display mode, as well as other modes with Edged Faces turned on.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Vertex Ticks—Displays the object's vertices as tick marks. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Trajectory—Displays the object's trajectory. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Ignore Extents—When on, this object is ignored when you use the display control Zoom Extents.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Keyboard shortcut: No default, but you can customize it using the Keyboard panel of the Customize > Customize User Interface dialog.

Show Frozen in Gray—When on, the object turns gray in viewports when you freeze it. (This is how all frozen objects appeared in versions prior to v4.) When off, viewports display the object with its usual color or texture even when it is frozen. Default=on.

Note: This option is also available in the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

Vertex Channel Display—For editable mesh, editable poly, and editable patch objects, displays the assigned vertex colors in viewports. The drop-down list lets you choose to display Vertex Color, Vertex Illumination, Vertex Alpha, Map Channel Color, or Soft Selection Color. Default=off.

You can assign vertex colors at all sub-object levels except Edge.

Note: This option is also available on the Display panel.

Map Channel—Sets the map channel for the vertex color. Available only when the Map Channel Color option is active.

Shaded—When on, shaded viewports add shading to the vertex coloring. When off, colors are unshaded. Default=off.

Note: This option is also available on the Display panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater.

You can set rendering control for lights to By Object or By Layer (the latter is the default setting), and you can also change their Renderable setting. This allows you to turn individual lights on and off in your renderings, but more importantly, you can quickly turn large groups of lights on or off using the Layer Manager.

By Object/By Layer—Toggles between object settings or object layer settings. Object settings affect only the object or objects selected. Object layer settings affect the rendering controls of all objects on the same layer as the selected object.

Note: If multiple objects are selected and have different By Layer settings, this button will read ‘Mixed’.

Visibility—Controls the rendered visibility of the object. At 1.0, the object is fully visible. At 0.0, the object is completely invisible when rendered. Default=1.0.

You can animate this parameter. Animating Visibility assigns a visibility controller to the object. By default this is a Bezier float controller.

Renderable—Makes an object or selected objects appear or disappear from the rendered scene. Nonrenderable objects don't cast shadows or affect the visual component of the rendered scene. Like dummy objects, nonrenderable objects can manipulate other objects in the scene.

Shape objects have the Renderable option turned on by default. In addition, they have a Renderable check box in their creation parameters. When both check boxes are on, the shape is renderable. If Renderable in the Object Properties dialog is off, the shape is not renderable regardless of the state of its local Renderable check box.

If you apply a modifier that converts the shape into a mesh object, such as a Lathe modifier or Extrude modifier, the shape automatically becomes renderable regardless of the state of its local Renderable check box.

For shapes, the Renderable check box in the Object Properties dialog affects the main object, so the check box also affects all instances of and references to the shape.

Inherit Visibility—Causes the object to inherit a percentage of the visibility of its parent (as determined by the parent's Visibility track in Track View). When a group parent is assigned a visibility track, Inherit Visibility is automatically turned on for all children in the group. The children will have the maximum visibility of the parent. Transparent materials and hidden objects have no effect on this function.

Visible to Camera—When on, the object is visible to cameras in the scene. When off, cameras do not view this object; however, its shadows and reflections are rendered. Default=on.

Visible to Reflection/Refraction—When on, the object has “secondary” visibility: it appears in rendered reflections and refractions. When off, the object does not appear in rendered reflections or refractions. Default=on.

Note: An object can have Visible To Camera on but Visible To Reflection/Refraction off, in which case the object renders in the scene but does not appear in reflections or refractions.

Receive Shadows—When on, the object can receive shadows. Default=on.

The mental ray renderer supports the Receive Shadows toggle.

Cast Shadows—When on, the object can cast shadows. Default=on.

Apply Atmospherics—When on, atmospheric effects are applied to the object. When off, atmospheric effects do not change the rendered appearance of this object. Default=on.

Render Occluded Objects—Allows special effects to affect objects in the scene that are occluded by this object. The special effects, typically applied by plug-ins such as Glow, use G-buffer layers to access occluded objects. Turning on this control makes the object transparent for the purposes of special effects. This makes no difference when you render to most image files. When you render to either the RLA or RPF file format, however, occluded objects appear with the effect applied on their designated G-buffer layer. Default=off.

Allows you to tag an object as a target for a render effect based on the G-buffer channel. Assigning the object a nonzero ID creates a G-buffer channel that can be associated with a render effect.

Warning: The mental ray renderer does not recognize Z-depth with G-buffers. G-buffer data is saved on a single layer. Also, the mental ray renderer does not support the following effects:

Object Channel—Setting this spinner to a nonzero number means that the object will receive the rendering effects associated with that channel in Render Effects and the post-processing effects associated with that channel in Video Post.

To save the channel data with the rendering, render to either the RLA or RPF file format.

By Object/By Layer—Toggles between object settings or object layer settings. Object settings affect only the object or objects selected. Object layer settings affect all objects on the same layer as the selected object.

Note: If multiple objects are selected and have different By Layer settings, this button will read ‘Mixed’.

Multiplier—Affects the length of the motion-blur streak.

If you choose either form of motion blur here in the Object Properties dialog, you must also choose to apply that type of blur in the Render Scene dialog.

The rendering speed of object motion blur depends on the complexity of the geometry to which it's assigned. The rendering speed of image motion blur depends on the amount of rendered screen space taken up by the blurring object. In most cases image motion blur renders more quickly. Object motion blur renders more quickly when applied to very simple objects, and image motion blur renders more slowly when the object takes up a lot of screen space, and moves all the way across the screen in a single frame.

Enabled—When on, enables motion blur for this object. When off, motion blur is disabled regardless of the other blur settings. Default=on.

You can animate the Enabled check box. The main use of animating Enable is to apply motion blur over only a limited range of frames. This can save a tremendous amount of time when you are rendering an animation.

You can enable motion blur for lights and cameras. With the mental ray renderer, moving lights and cameras can generate motion blur. However, they do not generate motion blur with the default scanline renderer.