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Chapter 19, “Configuring and Aiming Cameras,” and Chapter 20, “Using Lights and Basic Lighting Techniques,” cover these changes in more detail. •

Changing the Viewport Display

Although the Viewport Navigation Controls are focused on controlling what is visible in the viewports, there are also a number of useful commands in the Views menu and in the viewport labels at the top-left corner of each viewport that directly affect the viewports. The three viewport labels include the General viewport label (which is a simple plus sign), the Point-of-View viewport label, and the Shading viewport label. The last two labels show the current setting.

Undoing and saving viewport changes

If you get lost in your view, you can undo and redo viewport changes with Views⇒Undo View Change (Shift+Z) and Views⇒Redo View Change (Shift+Y). These commands are different from the Edit⇒Undo and Edit⇒Redo commands, which can undo or redo geometry changes.

You can save changes made to a viewport by using the Views⇒Save Active Viewport menu command. This command saves the Viewport Navigation settings for recall. To restore these settings, use Views⇒Restore Active Viewport.

Note

The Save and Restore Active Viewport commands do not save any viewport configuration settings, just the navigated view. Saving an active view uses a buffer, so it remembers only one view for each viewport. •

Disabling and refreshing viewports

If your scene gets too complicated, you can experience some slow-down waiting for each viewport to be updated with changes, but fear not, because several options will come to your rescue. The first option to try is to disable a viewport.

You can disable a viewport by right-clicking the general viewport label and selecting the Disable View menu command from the pop-up menu, or you can press the keyboard shortcut, D. When a disabled viewport is active, it is updated as normal; when it is inactive, the viewport is not updated at all until it becomes active again. Disabled viewports are identified by the word “Disabled,” which appears next to the viewport's labels in the upper-left corner.

Another trick to increase the viewport update speed is to disable the Views⇒Update During Spinner Drag menu option. Changing parameter spinners can cause a slowdown by requiring every viewport to update as the spinner changes. If the spinner is changing rapidly, it can really slow even a powerful system. Disabling this option causes the viewport to wait for the spinner to stop changing before updating.

Sometimes when changes are made, the viewports aren't completely refreshed. This typically happens when dialog boxes from other programs are moved in front of the viewports or as objects get moved around, because they often mask one another and lines disappear. If this happens, you can force Max to refresh all the viewports with the Views⇒Redraw All Views (keyboard shortcut, `) menu command. The Redraw All Views command refreshes each viewport and makes everything visible again.

Viewing materials in the viewports

The Views menu also includes several commands for making scene details such as materials, lighting, and shadows visible in the viewports. Each of these options can slow down the refresh rate, but they provide immediate feedback, which is often helpful.

Texture maps can also take up lots of memory. The Views⇒Show Materials in Viewport As⇒Shaded Materials with Maps command shows all applied texture maps in the viewports. If you don't need to see the texture maps, then switching to Views⇒Show Materials in Viewport As⇒Shaded Materials without Maps will speed up the display. There is also an option to use Realistic Materials without Maps and Realistic Materials with Maps that uses the video card's memory to display the applied textures.

The Views⇒Show Materials in Viewport As menu also includes a toggle to Enable Transparency in the viewport.

Tip

The options for enabling materials in the viewports