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Tip

You can increase or decrease the size of the Modifier Stack by dragging the horizontal bar that appears beneath the Modifier Stack buttons. •

Beneath the Modifier Stack are five buttons that affect the selected modifier. They are as described in Table 11.1.

Cross-Reference

For more information on configuring modifier sets, see Chapter 4, “Changing Interface Units and Setting Preferences.” •

If you right-click on a modifier, a pop-up menu appears. This pop-up menu includes commands to rename the selected modifier, which you might want to do if the same modifier is applied to the same object multiple times. This pop-up menu also includes an option to delete the selected modifier among other commands.

Copying and pasting modifiers

The pop-up menu also includes options to cut, copy, paste, and paste instance modifiers. The Cut command deletes the modifier from the current object but makes it available for pasting onto other objects. The Copy command retains the modifier for the current object and makes it available to paste onto another object. After you use the Cut or Copy command, you can use the Paste command to apply the modifier to another object. The Paste Instance command retains a link between the original modifier and the instanced modifier, so that any changes to either modifier affect the other instances.

You can also apply modifiers for the current object onto other objects by dragging the modifier from the Modifier Stack and dropping it on the other object in a viewport. Holding down the Ctrl key while dropping a modifier onto an object in a viewport applies the modifier as an instance (like the Paste Instanced command). Holding down the Shift key while dragging and dropping a modifier on an object in the viewport removes the modifier from the current object and applies it to the object on which it is dropped (like the Cut and Paste commands).

Cross-Reference

You can also cut, copy, and paste modifiers using the Schematic View window. See Chapter 25, “Building Complex Scenes with Containers, XRefs, and the Schematic View,” for more details. •

Using instanced modifiers

When you apply a single modifier to several objects at the same time, the modifier shows up in the Modifier Stack for each object. These are instanced modifiers that maintain a connection to each other. If one of these instanced modifiers is changed, the change is propagated to all other instances. This feature is very helpful for modifying large groups of objects.

When a modifier is copied between different objects, you can select to make the copy an instance.

To see all the objects that are linked to a particular modifier, select an object in the viewport and choose Views⇒Show Dependencies. All objects with instanced modifiers that are connected to the current selection appear in bright pink. At any time, you can break the link between a particular instanced modifier and the rest of the objects using the Make Unique button in the Modifier Stack rollout.

Identifying instances and references in the Modifier Stack

If you look closely at the Modifier Stack, you will notice that it includes some visual clues that help you identify instances and references. Regular object and modifier copies appear in normal text, but instances appear in bold. This applies to both objects and modifiers. If a modifier is applied to two or more objects, then it appears in italic.

Referenced objects and modifiers can be identified by a Reference Object Bar that splits the Modifier Stack into two categories—ones that are unique to the referenced object (above the bar) and ones that are shared with the other references (below the bar).

Figure 11.2 shows each of these cases in the Modifier Stack.

Disabling and removing modifiers

Clicking the light bulb icon to the left of the modifier name toggles the modifier on and off. The right-click pop-up menu also offers options to turn the modifier off in the viewport or off for the renderer.

To remove a modifier from the Modifier Stack, just select the modifier