9

406 Chapter 20: Managing Scenes and Projects
The state of List Objects, List Materials, and List
Cont rollers is the same as the state of the toolbar
buttons in the XRef Objects dialog. Changing the
state in the menu changes the button state, and
vice versa.
Merge In Scene—Merges the current selection in
the XRef Entities list into the master scene (the
current scene). Use this option to change XRef
objects or materials into objects that are native to
thecurrentscene. Theconnectionbetweenthe
external entity from the source scene and your
master scene is broken, and the object, controller,
or material that you merged is no longer updated
whenthesourcescenechanges.
3dsMaxpromptsyoutoconfirmthemerge.
Since a merged XRef object becomes part of the
scene and is no longer an XRef object, its name is
removed from the list.
Merging an XRef object loads the full modifier
stack of the original object, w hile maintaining
any additional stack items that were added while
the object was an XRef object. Thus, you can use
Mergetoupdateanoriginalobjectthathasbeen
altered as an external reference. If you do this, use
Convert Selected Object(s) to XRefs to save out the
“improved” orig inal into a file, which then can be
merged back into the original source.
Note: It is also possible to merge into the master
scene nested XRef entities. Once they are merged,
all externally referenced nesting levels are removed
and the scene entity from the lowest level source
scene is merged into the master scene. In case of
XRef object s, modifiers applied in a nested source
fileareallmergedandpresentinthemasterscene.
Apply XRef Material(s) to Object(s)—Applies the
original, externally referenced material(s) to the
highlighted objects. This c an be useful if you have
assigned a local material to the object (for example,
to u se in renderings of the master scene) and now
want to restor e the object’s original material. It
can also restore the externally referenced source
material if the material was originally merged into
the m aster scene.
Apply XR ef Controller(s ) to Object(s)—Applies
the original, externally referenced controller(s) to
the h ig hlighted objects. This can b e usef ul if you
have assigned a local controller to the object (for
example, to use in renderings of the master scene)
and now want to restore the object’s original
controller. It can also restore the externally
referenced source controller if the controller was
originally merged into the master scene.
Reset PRS Offset—Sets the PRS transformation
(page 2–385) of the XRef object to its
transformation defined in the source file.
Note: Yo u c a n u n d o t h i s a c t i o n .
XR ef Merge Dialog
Filemenu>XRefObjects>XRefObjectsdialog>Create
XRef Record From File bu tton > Open File > XRef M erge
dialog
The XRef Merge dialog lets you choose which
objects to add as XRef objec ts to the scene. This
behaves similarly to the Merge command (page
3–463).Controlsinthisdialogaresimilartothose
in the Select O b jects dialog (page 1–78).
The Merge dialog lets you load and save influences
with or without their dependents. In many cases,
objects should be referenced with their influences,
butthedisplayonlymakesyouawareofthe
relationships, it does not force you to externally
reference them.
When you select an item in the list window and
click Influences, the object’s influences are selected
in the list window. When you select an item in
the list window and Display Influences is on,
theobject’sinfluencesareshowninblueinthe
list window. When you select an item in the list