Viewport Right-Click Menu

Right-click any viewport label. > Viewport right-click menu

The viewport right-click menu, also referred to as the Viewport Properties menu, contains commands that let you change what is shown in the active viewport. This is a shortcut menu. Some of the options are also available on the Configuration dialog.

You can do the following from this menu:

Change the view to any available viewport type (for example, Perspective, Top, Bottom, User, Light, Camera, Grid, or Shape).

When your scene contains cameras or lights with targets, the viewport right-click menu gives you selection options for the components. For example, when you right-click the label of a target camera viewport, you see two new commands, Select Camera and Select Camera Target, that let you select the camera or target used by that view.
Set the type of shading displayed in the viewport (for example, Wireframe, Smooth, or Edged Faces).
Set how transparency is displayed in the viewport.
Undo or redo a view change.
Turn on texture correction if your display is not configured for OpenGL or Direct3D.
Disable a viewport so it doesn’t update when you work in other viewports.
Toggle the display of the grids, safe frame, and viewport background.

Note: A grid object must be active before you can select it from its viewport.
Display the Asset Browser, Schematic View or MAXScript Listener in a viewport.
Turn on Viewport Clipping. This interactively sets a near and far range for the viewport. Geometry within the viewport clipping range is displayed. Faces outside the range are not displayed.

Tip: If the viewport right-click menu becomes disabled, you can restore it by refreshing the UI scheme. Use Customize menu > Load Custom UI Scheme to load a different CUI file, then reload the original CUI file again. The right-click viewport menu will become available after either the new or original UI scheme is loaded.

Procedures

To toggle display of the home grid in the active viewport, do one of the following:

Choose Views menu > Grids, and click Show Home Grid.
Right-click a viewport label (this activates the viewport and opens a menu), and then click Show Grid.
Press G.

To change a viewport to Camera view:

This procedure requires at least one camera object in your scene. As an alternative, to create a camera and set it to a viewport at the same time, activate a Perspective viewport and then press Ctrl+C.

Right-click a viewport label.
Click Views.
Choose one of the cameras in the Views list.

This assigns the camera to the viewport and changes the label to the camera name.

A camera viewport tracks the view through the perspective of that camera. As you move the camera (or target) in another viewport, you see the scene swing accordingly. If you alter the camera's field of view, you see the changes as they are applied.

Tip: You can also press C as a shortcut to change any active viewport to an existing camera view.

To change a viewport to a shape view:

This procedure requires at least one shape object in your scene.

Right-click a viewport label.
Choose Views > Shape from the menu.

To use viewport clipping:

Right-click a viewport label.
Choose Viewport Clipping.

The viewport displays the viewport clipping controls.
Move the lower slider up until the geometry is clipped in the viewport by the near clipping plane.
Adjust the upper slider to clip the geometry with the far clipping plane.

To display Schematic View in a viewport:

Right-click a viewport label to access the Viewport Properties menu.
Click Views > Schematic > New, or choose the name of the Schematic View to display.

To display Track View in a viewport:

Right-click a viewport label to access the Viewport Properties menu.
Click Views > Track > New, or choose the name of the Schematic View to display.

To display the Asset Browser or MAXScript Listener in a viewport:

Right-click any viewport label to access the Viewport Properties Views flyout menu.
Click Extended > Asset Browser or MAXScript Listener.

The tool is displayed in a dedicated viewport.

To access the Layout panel, do one of the following:

Choose Customize menu > Viewport Configuration, then click the Layout tab.
Right-click a viewport label, and choose Configure, then click the Layout tab.

To turn on safe frame display, do one of the following:

Right-click a viewport label, and then choose Show Safe Frame.
Press Shift+F.
Choose Customize menu > Viewport Configuration > Safe Frames panel, and turn on Show Safe Frames In Active View.

See Safe Frames.

To fix texture display problems in a viewport:

Right-click a viewport label, and then choose Texture Correction. This applies only to the software display driver; OpenGL and Direct3D displays automatically correct texture display.

Tip: If you have materials with texture maps that are not displaying in the viewport, you need to turn on Show Map In Viewport in the Material Editor for each material that has this problem.

To change quickly between snap options:

With nothing selected, hold Shift and right-click anywhere in the viewport.

The Snaps shortcut menu is displayed.
Choose any of the Standard or NURBS snap options. You can also toggle whether snaps use transform constraints.

Interface

Views—Displays a secondary menu that allows you to choose another view to display in the viewport (Front, Top, Back, etc.).

Available views included are:

Camera views (if the scene contains cameras)
Light views (if the scene contains spotlights or directional lights)
Perspective
User
Front
Back
Top
Bottom
Left
Right
ActiveShade
Track: Choose an existing Track view, if any, from the submenu, or choose New to create a new one. To change a viewport when it contains a Track view, right-click the menu bar and choose a different view.
Schematic: Choose an existing Schematic view, if any, from the submenu, or choose New to create a new one. To change a viewport when it contains a Schematic view, right-click the menu bar and choose a different view.
Grid: Choose Front, Back, Top, Bottom, Right, Left, or Display Planes. For details, see Viewing Grid Objects.
Extended
- Asset Browser
- Biped AnimationWorkbench
- Motion Mixer
- MAXScript Listener
- HW Standard Material
Shape: Automatically aligns view to the extents of a selected shape and its local XY axes

The fastest way to change the viewport display is with keyboard shortcuts. Press V to open the Viewports quad menu at the mouse position. You can then choose from this menu with the mouse or use the first letter of the viewport label as the keyboard shortcut (F for Front, for example. The exception is K for back).

Note: This menu appears at the mouse cursor, but it controls the view for the active viewport, even if the mouse cursor is over a different viewport.

Smooth+Highlights—Displays the smoothness and lighting of objects. You can also display maps on the surface of objects. See Show Map in Viewport. This happens on a map-by-map basis, but you can display as many maps as you want simultaneously in the viewport. Maps only display on objects that have mapping coordinates. Also Show Map In Viewport must be turned on for each map individually in the Material Editor.

Note: This and other shaded viewport options support self-illuminated materials and 32 lights (depending on display mode and graphics card).

Wireframe—Displays objects as edges only, as if they were made from wire. Wire color is determined by object color (default).

Other—Displays a cascading menu of other shading modes. These include:

Smooth—Displays smoothing, but doesn’t show highlights.
Facets+Highlights—Displays highlights, but doesn’t show smoothing.
Facets—Shades faces, but doesn’t display smoothing or highlights.
Flat—Renders each polygon in its raw, unshaded diffuse color, disregarding any contribution from ambient lighting or light sources. This rendering method is useful when it's more important to see each polygon than to see its shading. It's also a good way to check the results of bitmaps created with Render to Texture.
Hidden Line—A wireframe mode that hides faces and vertices with normals pointing away from the viewpoint, as well as any parts of objects that are obscured by closer objects. In this display mode only, the wireframe color is determined by the Viewports > Hidden Line Unselected color, not the object or material color. See Colors Panel.
Lit Wireframes—Displays edges as wireframe, but shows lighting.
Bounding Box—Displays objects as a bounding box only.

Edged Faces—Available only when the current viewport is in a shaded mode. Displays the wireframe edges of objects along with the shaded surfaces. This is helpful for when you want to edit meshes in a shaded display.

Edges are displayed using the object wireframe color, while surfaces use material colors (if assigned). This lets you create contrasting colors between the shaded surfaces and the wireframe edges. You can switch these assignments in the Display Color rollout.

Transparency—Sets the quality of transparency display in the selected viewport:

Best—Highest quality transparency display; longer redraw time.
Simple—Less accurate transparency display, however viewport redraw is considerably faster with Simple.
None—Transparency is not displayed in the viewport.

Note: The Transparency setting only affects viewport display, and does not affect renderings.

Show Grid—Turns on and off the display of the home grid. Does not affect other grid display.

Keyboard > G

Show Background—Turns on and off the display of any viewport background image (or animation). To specify an image, choose Views menu > Viewport Background.

Tip: The keyboard shortcut for the Viewport Background dialog is Alt+B.

Show Safe Frame—Turns on and off the display of safe frames. You define the safe frames in the Viewport Configuration dialog (see Configure, below). The safe frame proportions conform to the Width and Height of the output size of your rendering image output.

Show Statistics—Turns on and off the statistics of the entire scene and your current selection.

Viewport Clipping—Interactively sets a near and far range for the viewport. Geometry within the viewport clipping range is displayed. Faces outside the range are not displayed. This is useful in complex scenes where you want to work on details that are obscured from view. Turning on viewport clipping displays two yellow slider arrows on the edge of the viewport. Adjusting the lower arrow sets the near range, and the upper arrow sets the far range. Tick marks indicate the extents of the viewport. Viewport Clipping can also be turned on and off in the Viewport Configuration dialog.

Texture Correction—Redraws the viewport using pixel-interpolation (perspective corrected).

Note: This is for the software display driver only. If you are using the OpenGL or Direct3D display mode, texture correction is automatic.

Disable View—Disables the active viewport. A disabled viewport behaves like any other viewport while it is active. However, when you change the scene in another viewport, the view in the disabled viewport does not change until you activate it. Use this function to speed up screen redraws when you are working on complex geometry.

Keyboard > D

Undo—Undoes the last viewport change.

Redo—Cancels the last viewport undo.

Configure—Displays the Viewport Configuration dialog, which contains many options for further control of the viewports.