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462 Chapter 20: Managing Scenes and Projects
Styles and Materials
Theprimarypurposeoflinkingamodel
from A utoCAD Architecture to 3ds Max
is preparing the scene for presentation to
your clients and rendering. AEC Objects are
made up of components that ha v e default
architectura l materials assigned through their
styles. Components can be selected from t he Select
Objects dialog (page 1–78) or Selection Floater
and new materials can be assigned or the existing
material can b e altered in the Material E ditor.
For example, a door that is assig ned the “ Hinged
– Single – Full Lite” style is made up of five
components in A utoCAD Architecture. The
components are the Frame, Panel, Stop, Glass,
and Muntins. Each component has a materia l
assigned to it. For instance, the default material
assigned to the Panel component of this type of
door is “finish carpentry.wood.mahogany”. If you
want to change the Panel material in 3ds Max, you
can select the Panel component and drag a new
material to it from the Material Editor.
Because the Panel material is part of the door’s
sty le, your new material wil l automatically
propagate to any other door in the scene that is
assigned the “Hinged – Single – Full Lite” style.
Note: If you need to apply a material to individual
objects, or object selections, rather than to all
objects of the same st yle, you c an use the command
Propagate Materials To Instances (page 2–1432).
For more information about working with
materials and assigning materials to objects in
3ds Max, see Materials (page 2–1395).
St y les a nd Int era ctive S el ection an d
Nav iga tion
Architectural drawings range from simple
sketches to highly complex floor plans, so finding
different components of a drawing can be difficult.
Style-based objects f rom AutoCAD Architecture
all have styles asso ciated with them. So if you
link a drawing to 3ds Max, objects with styles
will be associated with them both in AutoCAD
Architecture and in 3ds Max. Further more, in
3ds Max, the name of the object will contain the
AutoCAD Architecture object category name
(Door, for example), style name (D ouble Hinged)
and component name (Panel).
Youmakemostobjectandcomponentselections
in 3ds Max by selecting objects in the v iewports.
However, in complex models where objects and
components may be spread across multiple layers
or lo cated in congested areas, style definitions help
streamline the selection of reusable components
in a drawing.
Once objects and componen ts are selected, you
can also isolate them f rom the remainder of the
model to work on them more efficiently.
To select objects by sty le:
The S elect Similar command has the same function
in 3ds Max as it does in AutoCAD Architecture.
1. In a scene imported or linked f rom AutoCAD
Architecture, select an object that contains the
style of interest.
2. Choose E d it menu > Selec t Similar.
All objects or components that share that
sty le, as defined in AutoCAD Architec ture, are
selected.
To select objects or components by color:
1.
Choose E dit menu > Select By > Color.
2. Select an object in the scene.
All objects or components that share that color
are selected.
To sel ect obj ects or components by name:
1.
Choose Edit menu > Select By > Name, or press
the
H key to open the Select Objects dialog.