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394 Chapter 20: Managing Scenes and Projects
material (page 2–1616) respectively. By default,
when referencing an object, its material
and transform controller is also referenced.
Alternatively, you can create an XRef controller
or an XRef material that allows for referencing
atransformcontrolleroramaterialfroman
external .max file. These external references can
be assigned to any object in the scene, whether
or not the object is externally referenced.
Note: Any atmospherics applied in an X Ref
object’s source file will be carried into the
scene. Render Effects assigned to XRef objects
are not externally referenced.
The use of referenced objects and scenes allows
several people to work collaboratively on the same
objects a s the work progresses, without having to
wait for the object s to be fina l ized. You ca n cho ose
to have the objects update automatically, as soon as
changes are saved to the original file, or to update
manually, on demand.
There are also tools for easy conversion of scene
objects into referenced objects, and a button to
merge referenced objects into the scene as normal
objects.
Objec ts in a scene can be externally referenced, crea ted a nd
maintained by other users.
XR ef Objects
File me nu > XRef O b jects
Externally referenced objects, XRef objects,
appear in your master (cur rent) scene, but are
actually referenced from external 3ds Max files.
As a result, the source objects are protected from
modifications you make to the XRef objects.
Updates or changes made to the source objects are
also updated in the master file when the source
scene is reloaded. However, if an XRef object’s
entities are merged, the controls are local and can
be modified. Therefore, they no longer reference
the original attributes.
For example, if you selected XRef or Ignore in the
Modifiers group of the XRef Objects dialog (page
3–397), the only entry in the modifier stack will be
“XRef Object.” You can add additional modifiers
to the object, but you cannot access the original
ones un less you merge the XRef object into the
scene. If you merge the modifiers into the master