Working With the Layer Manager

Set up the scene:

1. From the \tutorials\designviz directory, open library.max.

   If you see the File Load: Mismatch dialog, choose the option Adopt The File's Unit Scale (the default). This will change your system unit, so be sure to reset your system unit after completing this tutorial.

   To reset your system unit, go to the Customize menu and choose Units Setup > System Unit Setup > System Unit Scale > Inches.

2. If necessary, click the Zoom Extents All button to display the geometry correctly in all the viewports.

   

Create a new layer:

1. Press H to open the Select Objects dialog.

2. On the Select Objects dialog > List Types group, turn off Lights and click Invert.

   The list displays all of the lights in the scene.

3. Click the All button at the lower left, under the object list and then click Select.

   All of the lights in the scene are selected.

4. On the Layers toolbar, click Create New Layer.

   If the Layers toolbar is currently turned off, you can right-click to the right of the main toolbar and choose Layers from the menu.

5. In the Create New Layer dialog, set the name to Lights and make sure Move Selection To New Layer is turned on, then click OK.

   All of the lights in the scene are moved to the new layer: Lights.

6. On the Layers toolbar, click Layer Manager.

   The Layer Manager opens.

   Note: The Layer Manager is modeless; you can leave it open while you work in your scene, making it a useful tool for object selection and manipulation.

7. In the Layer Manager, click the Hide column for the Furniture layer row.

   

   The mask icon appears in the Layer Manager and all of the furniture in the scene is hidden.

   The Layer Manager is useful for freezing and hiding large collections of objects; however, one particularly handy use is for turning lights on and off in renderings.

8. Making sure the lights are still selected, right-click in a viewport, and from the Transform quad of the quad menu, choose Properties.

9. In the Object Properties dialog > General panel > Rendering Control group, click the By Object button.

   It changes to read By Layer. Click OK to dismiss the Object Properties dialog.

   When a light's Rendering Control group is set to By Layer, you can use the Renderable layer property to easily control the renderability of a group of lights.

   Tip: By default, lights are created with their Rendering Control set to By Object, but you can reset the default so that all new lights will be created with their Rendering Control set to By Layer. To change the default, choose Customize > Preferences from the Main menu to display the Preference Settings dialog, and in the dialog's General panel > Layer Defaults group turn on New Lights Renderable By Layer.

10. In the Layer Manager, click the Render column next to the Lights row.

    

    The teapot symbol disappears in the Layer Manager and all of the lights on the layer are turned off when you render.

    Using the Layer Manager to control lights like this can be extremely useful for experimenting with different light setups, or for simulating daytime and nighttime lighting.

Reset your system units:

If you had to adopt file unit scaling at the beginning of this lesson, you can use these steps to reset the system units.

1. Choose Customize menu > Units Setup.

2. In the Units Setup dialog, click the System Unit Setup button.

3. On the System Unit Setup dialog, click the unit type list and choose Inches in the System Unit Scale group.