9

General Panel (Object Properties Dialog) 121
Note:
This option is also available in the Display
panel (page 3–775) and by choosing Tools >
Display Floater (page 3 –775).
Ver tex Channel Di splay —For editable mesh (page
1–996), editable poly (page 1–1022),andeditable
patch (page 1–968) objects, displays the assigned
vertex colors in viewports. The drop-down list
l e t s y ou c h o o s e t o d i s p l ay Ve r t e x C ol o r, Ve r t e x
Illumination, Vertex Alpha, Map Channel Color,
or Soft Selection Color. Default=off.
You can assign vertex colors at all sub-object levels
except Edge.
Note: This option is also available on the Display
panel (page 3–775).
Ma p Channel —Sets the m ap channel for the vertex
color. Available only when the Map Channel Color
option is active.
Shaded—When on, shaded viewports add shading
to the vertex coloring. When off, colors are
unshaded. Default=off.
Note: This option is also available on the Display
panel and by choosing Tools > Display Floater
(page 3–775).
Rendering Control group
Yo u c a n s e t r e n d e r i n g c o n t r o l f o r l i g h t s t o B y
ObjectorByLayer(thelatteristhedefaultsetting),
and you can a lso change their Renderable sett ing.
This allows you to tur n individual lights on and off
in your renderings, but more importantly, you can
quickly turn large groups of lights on or off using
the Layer Manager (page 3–656).
By Object/By Layer—To g g l es b e t w e e n obj e c t
settings or object layer settings. Object settings
affect only the object or objects selected. Object
layer sett ings affect the rendering controls of a ll
objectsonthesamelayerastheselectedobject.
Note: If multiple objects are selected and have
different By L ayer settings, this button will read
‘Mixed’.
V isibility—Controls the rendered visibility of the
object. At 1.0, the object is f ully visible. At 0.0,
the object is completely invisible when rendered.
Default=1.0.
You can animate this parameter. Animating
Visibilit y assigns a visibility controller to the
object. By default this is a Bezier float controller
(page 2–310).
Renderable—Makes an object or selected objects
appear or disappear from rendered output.
Nonrenderable objects don’t cast shadows or
affect the visual component of the rendered scene.
Like dummy objects, nonrenderable objects can
manipulate other objects in the scene.
Shape (page 1–262) objects have the Renderable
option turned on by default. In addition, each
shape has an Enable In Renderer parameter.
When both check boxes are on, the shape appears
in rendered output. If Renderable in the Object
Properties dia log is off, the shape is not renderable,
regardless of the state of its local Enable In
Renderer check box.
If you apply a modifier that converts the shape
into a mesh object, such as a Lathe modifier (page
1–707) or Extr ude modifier (page 1–680),theshape
automatically becomes renderable regardless of
the st ate of its loc al Enable In Renderer setting.
For shapes, the Renderable check box in the
Object Proper t ies dialog affects the main object,