9

946 Glossary
Funct ion curves appear in the Tr ack View, and
provide the best method of viewing and editing
animation tracks. With the function curve display,
you can actua lly see the characteristics of t he
animationastheychangeovertime.Thesteepness
of the curve indicates the velocity of an object
inthescene. Ifthecurvesteepens,theobjectis
accelerating. If the curve flattens out, the object
is slowing.
You can display key dots in function curves, as well
as in the key editing displays. In function curves,
the key dots appear as small, black squares. The
two ways to turn on their display are to click t he
green icon beside the track label, or to click the
function curve itself.
There are two basic ways to edit function curves.
You can either change the position of the key dots,
thereby altering the curve, or you can edit the
tangents and the values of the keys themselves.
Fu sing
In NURBS c urves and surfaces, fusing connects a
point to a point or a CV to a CV. ( You can’t f use a
CV to a point, or vice versa.) This is one way to
connect two curves or surfaces. It is also a way to
change the shape of curves and surfaces.
Fused points behave as a single point or CV until
you unfuse them. Fusing points does not combine
the two point objects or CV sub-objects. They are
connected but remain distinct sub-objects that
you can unfuse later.
Fused CVs behave much like a single point, but the
property of multiplicity for coincident CVs also
applies.ThefusedCVshaveproportionallymore
influence on the curve, which can become more
sharplycurvedinthefusedCVs’vicinity,oreven
angular if more than two CVs are fused together.
FX File
An FX file defines a DirectX 9 (DX9) shader. It is
a text file created using the Higher-Level Shading
Language (HLSL) standard. T he DirectX 9 Shader
material (page 2–1613) can apply DX9 shaders to
objects, and display them with DX9 shading in
view por ts.
By default, DX9 shaders are sa ved in \maps\fx\ in
the 3ds Max program director y.
Impor tant: For a DX9 shader’s parameter to be visible in
the DirectX 9 Shader material’s interface, the FX file must
contain code to label the parameter, define its type,
and (optionally) limit its range. (A few other UI settings
are also provided.) You can find examples of files that
containthiscodeintheabovedirectory.
Note:
ThefollowingWebpageprovides
a specification for the DirectX 9 Shader
material 3ds Max: h
ttp://sparks.discreet.com/
knowledgebase/techdocs/searchable/techdoc_
DXMaterialFormat/DxMaterial_Effect_
format.htm.
G-Buf fer
G-Buffer (graphics buffer) is a type of rendering
channel. Two file formats output by 3ds Max,
RLA (page 3–630) and RPF (page 3–631),can
incorporate masks that are based on graphics
buffer (G-Buffer) channels instead of the more
widely used RGB and alpha channels. In addition,
some kinds of Filter and Layer events as well
as certain rendering effects (page 3–218) can
post-process objects or materials desig nated by
the G-Buffer.