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728 Chapter 21: User Interface
For example, if the time slider is at frame 35, and
the Frame Rate is set to 30 fps, the time slider
would display the following numbers for the
different Time Display settings:
•Frames:35
•SMPTE:0:1:5
• FRAME: TICKS: 35:0
• MM:SS: TICKS: 0:1:800
SMPTE is the Society of Motion Picture Technical
Engineers standard used to measure time for video
and television production.
Playback group
Real Time—Real Time (page 3–1001) causes
viewport playback to skip frames to keep up w ith
thecurrentFrameRatesetting. Achoiceoffive
playbackspeedsisavailable:1xisnormalspeed,
1/2x is half speed, and so on. The speed settings
affect only the playback in the viewpor ts.
These speed sett ings can also b e used with the
Motion Capture utility (page 2–655).
When Real Time is off, viewport playback occurs
as rapidly as possible and displays all frames.
Active V i ewpor t Only —Causes playback to occur
only in the active viewport. When off, all
viewports display animation.
Loop—Controls whether the animation playback
occurs only once, or repeatedly. When on,
playback repeats until you stop it by clicking
an animation control button or the time slider
channel. When off, the animation plays once and
then s tops. Clicking Play rewinds to the first frame
and plays again.
Direction—Set the animation to play for ward,
reverse, or ping-pong (forward and then reverse,
repeating). This affects only the playback in
the interact ive renderer. It does not apply when
rendering to any image output file. These options
are available only when Real Time is off.
These settings can b e recalled by saving to a
maxstar t.m a x file.
Animation group
Star t T ime/End T ime—Sets the active time segme nt
(page 3–904) displayed in the time slider. Choose
any time segment b efore or after frame 0. For
example, you c an set an active t ime seg ment from
-50 to 250.
Lengt h—Displays the number of frames in the
active time se gment. If you make this greater than
thetotalframesintheactivesegment,theEnd
Time field increases accordingly.
Fr ame Cou n t —The number of f rames that will
render. Always the length plus one.
Curr ent T ime—Specifies t he cur rent frame for the
time slider. As you adjust this, the time slider
moves according ly and the viewport updates.
Re-scale Time—Stretches or shrinks the animation
for the active time segment to fit into the new time
segment you specify. Relocates the position of all
keys (page 3–960) in all tracks. As a result, the
animation plays over a greater or lesser number of
frames, making it faster or slower.
Key Steps group
Controls in this group let you configure the
method used when you turn on Key Mode (page
3–724).
Use Tra ck Ba r —Allows key mode to honor all keys
in the track bar. This includes any p arameter
animation in addition to transform keys.
To m a ke the following controls available, turn off
Use T rackBar.
S ele cted Objects Onl y—Considers only the
transforms (page 3–1026) of selected objects when