3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [43]
You can define the size of the various Regions in the Regions panel of the Viewport Configuration dialog box, shown in Figure 2.27.
FIGURE 2.27
The Regions panel enables you to work with smaller regions within your scene.
After you've specified a Blowup Region or a Sub Region, you can select to render using these regions by selecting Region or Blowup from the Render Frame Window and clicking the Render button. If you click the Edit Region button, the specified region is displayed as an outline in the viewport. You can move this outline to reposition it, or drag its edge or corner handles to resize the region. The new position and dimension values are updated in the Regions panel for next time. Click the Render button to begin the rendering process.
The difference between these two regions is that the Sub Region displays the Rendered Frame Window in black, except for the specified sub-region. The Blowup Region fills the entire Rendered Frame Window, as shown in Figure 2.28.
FIGURE 2.28
The image on the left was rendered using the Sub Region option; the right image used the Blowup Region.
Cross-Reference
You can learn more about Render Types and the Rendered Frame Window in Chapter 23, “Rendering a Scene and Enabling Quicksilver.” •
Viewing statistics
The Statistics panel, shown in Figure 2.29, lets you display valuable statistics in the viewport window. These statistics can include Polygon Count, Triangle Count, Edge Count, Vertex Count, and Frames Per Second. You can also select to view these statistics for all the objects in the scene (Total), for just the selected object, or for both. You can toggle statistics on and off for the active viewport using the Views⇒xView⇒Show Statistics menu command or the 7 key.
FIGURE 2.29
The Statistics panel lets you display polygon count and frames per second in the viewport.
By enabling the Show Statistics in Active View option, the selected statistics are overlaid on the active viewport, as shown in Figure 2.30.
FIGURE 2.30
The active viewport can be set to display the selected statistics.
Working with Viewport Backgrounds
Remember in grade school when you realized that you could immediately draw really well using tracing paper (where all you needed to do was follow the lines)? Well, it's not quite tracing paper, but you can load background images into a viewport that can help as you create and position your objects.
Loading viewport background images
The Views⇒Viewport Background⇒Viewport Background menu command (Alt+B) opens a dialog box, shown in Figure 2.31, in which you can select an image or animation to appear behind a viewport. Each viewport can have a different background image. The displayed background image is helpful for aligning objects in a scene, but it is for display purposes only and will not be rendered. To create a background image to be rendered, you need to specify the background in the Environment dialog box, opened using the Rendering⇒Environment (keyboard shortcut, 8) menu command.
If the background image changes, you can update the viewport using the Views⇒Viewport Background⇒Update Background Image menu command (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+B). This is helpful if you have the background image opened in Photoshop at the same time. You can update the background image, save it, and then immediately update the image in Max. The Views Viewport Background⇒Reset Background Transform menu command automatically rescales and recenters the background image to fit the viewport. You should use this if you've changed the viewport size or changed the background's size.
The Files button in the Viewport Background dialog box opens the Select Background Image dialog box, where you can select the image to load. The Devices button lets you obtain a background from a device such as a Video Recorder. If an environment map is already loaded into the Environment dialog box, you can simply click the Use Environment Background option. Keep in mind that the background image will not be rendered unless it is made into an Environment map.
FIGURE 2.31
The Viewport