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586 Chapter 20: Managing Scenes and Projects
Inter face
Pie Chart—Graphic display of the proportion of the
file used by all of the W3D fi le data types. Refer
to the color-coded Categories list, which gives a
percentageandanabsolutesizeinkilobytesof
each asset:
•
Geometr y—(in the initial load segment,
if a model has a zero priority in the
sw3d_stream_priority user property, or in the
streamable portion of the file, if a model has a
non-zero streaming priority)
•
Shader s—(only in the initia l load segment)
•
Textures—(in the initia l load segment, if the
model that uses the texture has a zero pr iority
in the sw3d_ texture_stream_priority user
property,orinthestreamableportionof
the file, if a model has a non-zero streaming
priority)
•
Mater ials—(only in the init ial load segment)
•
Lights—(only in the initial load segment)
•
Animations— (only in the initial load segment)
Note: Large animat ions can greatly lengthen the
time it takes to see the start of a Shockwave 3D
animation, because they must ful ly download
before any of the scene c an b e comes visible.
•
Nodes—or scenegraph hierarchy data (only in
the initial load segment)
•
Unknown—includes, for example, streaming
priorities, names, and block sizes.
File Organization—Graphicdisplayofthesizeof
theentirefileanditsinitialloadsegment(ILS)
portion. The ILS, in orange, consists of all the
data that must be loaded before Shockwave w ill
display the scene (scenegraph data, animations,
shaders, and any textures or geometry with a
streaming priority of zero). The rest of the file,
in light blue, represents al l of the streamable data
withanon-zerostreamingpriority.Thisdatawill
continue to load and fill out the detail of t he scene
as the down load proceeds.
Runtime Tex ture Information—Appro ximate
texture memory that will be required at r un time to
display the textur es in the scene. Scenes requiring
more than a few megabytes of texture memory
will require accelerated graphics cards to display
textures at their full resolution.
S tereol it hogr aphy (S T L)
Files
Impor ting STL Files
File menu > Import > StereoLitho (*.STL)
An STL file saves object data in a format used
for stereolithography. STL files have a filename
extension of .stl. There is an ASCII STL format as
well as a binar y STL format. You can choose which
to create when you export a 3ds Max scene.
STL files are generally used for purposes of rapid
prot otyping. A variety of methods use the STL
format to construct prototypes. For example,
many STL machines use a liquid polymer and
harden it in sma ll slices, creating a solid plastic