Limit Max Playback Rate to Scene Frame Rate

Prevents the All Frames playback option from playing back faster than the scene’s playback rate.

User Rate (%)

Sets the realtime playback speed (percentage) of the animation and audio. You can set any positive value starting at 1. 100% is full speed, while 50% is half speed, 200% is double speed, and so on.

The slider goes only to 200, but you can enter higher values.

You can also select a predefined realtime playback speed (75%, 50%, or 25%) from the Playback menu in the playback panel. This is the same as setting the User Rate here to these values.

Default Scrub Mode

Sets the main method to use when scrubbing audio and animation (dragging the playback cursor back and forth in the timeline). You can select from:

• Direct Seek: Plays exactly where you scrub the playback cursor.

• Play User Rate: Plays at the speed you specify for the Scrubbing > User Rate percentage value (below).

• Play Realtime: Plays at realtime speed.

• Play Vari Speed: Plays according to the speed at which you scrub the playback cursor.

Alternate Scrub Mode

Sets a temporary scrub mode that is activated only when you press the Alt key. The options for this parameter are the same as for Default Scrub Mode above.

User Rate (%)

Sets the playback speed when you select Play User Rage for the Default and/or Alternate Scrub Mode options. You can set any positive value starting at 1. 100% is full speed, while 50% is half speed, 200% is double speed, and so on.

The slider goes only to 200, but you can enter higher values.

Play Audio When Scrubbing

Toggles the audio playback only when scrubbing in the timeline.

If you deselect this option, the audio is muted when you’re scrubbing, but is still active when you click the Play icon in the playback controls.

Play Frame Entered When Scrubbing

Toggles the audio behavior when scrubbing the playback cursor forward in the timeline, which can help you synchronize your audio with the animation.

• When this option is off (default), the audio is played after the cursor has passed over the frame when you’re scrubbing: it is not played at the beginning of the frame.

• When this option is on, instead of playing the audio segment on the frame that the cursor has just passed over, XSI instead plays the audio segment on the frame that the cursor enters. For example, if you are scrubbing from frame 1 to frame 2, XSI plays the audio segment on frames 2 to 3 instead of the segment on frames 1 to 2.

Enable Quick Loop Mode

Toggles a looping mode that plays back the animation and audio repeatedly within the range of frames that you define for the Frames Before/After Cursor parameters (below).

After you have activated this option, move the playback cursor in the main XSI timeline or the animation mixer timeline to where you want to loop the audio and hold down the mouse button.

As long as you hold down the mouse button, the audio and animation loops around the playback cursor according to the frames you have set.

When you release the mouse button, the looping stops. You can then click anywhere else in the timeline to continue to quickly loop other parts of the audio.

Frames Before/After Cursor

The number of frames you want to loop that are before and after the position of the playback cursor in the timeline.

For example, you could set 1 for the Frames Before Cursor and 20 for the Frames After Cursor to loop the 20 frames of audio that occur after the position of the playback cursor in the timeline.

Enable Sticky Tools

Allows you to activate a tool by pressing a key quickly. Pressing the same key quickly again exits the tool.

• If this option is off, then you can activate tools only in supra mode; that is, by pressing and holding a key while using the mouse to interact.

• If it is on, you have the choice of activating tools in sticky mode (by pressing and releasing a key and then using the mouse) or supra mode (by pressing and holding a key while using the mouse).

If you are familiar with SOFTIMAGE|3D and are not used to working with sticky tools, you may find it more comfortable to turn this option off.

Sticky Key Delay

Specifies how long in seconds you must press a key to activate a tool in supra mode rather than sticky mode. If you press and hold a key for longer than this value before releasing, it is assumed that you meant to activate a tool in supra mode and then changed your mind, so the tool is not activated in sticky mode either.

Default 3D Tool

Defines the default mode when no tool has been selected:

• Selection/SRT uses the last-used tool from among Select, Scale, Rotate, or Translate (SOFTIMAGE|XSI behavior).

• Nil Tool uses no tool (SOFTIMAGE|3D behavior). Clicking does nothing.

Select Entire Contents of Text Boxes on First Click

Selects (highlights) the entire contents of text boxes when you click on them. If you turn this option off, you can left-click to place the cursor on the first click or middle-click to select the contents.

Adjust Editor Size Based on Content

Size of the property editor window varies, depending on its content.

Tab-Style Property Editors

Displays multiple property sets in a single editor as tabs rather than a vertically scrolling list.

Pop-up Property Editors on Node Creation

Automatically displays property editors when you create 3D objects, textures, forces, etc. Pressing Ctrl when creating an element temporarily toggles the selected behavior.

Hide windows when switching

Controls whether open windows become minimized when you cycle to the next one using Ctrl+Tab or Ctl+Shift+Tab.