9

Managing Files 15
discard your current scene and revert to the held
scene at any time.
M ana ging Files
File-management dialogs
3ds Max supports many t ypes of fi les for working
w ith plug-ins, image maps, models from other
programs, rendering images and animations, and
of course saving and opening your scene files.
File dialogs (such as Open, Save, Save As)
uniformly remember the prev ious path you used,
and default to that location.
Configuring File Paths
The locations that 3ds Max searches to locate all
file types are sp ecified on the Customize menu >
Configure Paths dialogs (page 3–808).
You can choose to open and save files in any path
location. The Configure Paths dialog contains four
panels for the general categories of support files.
Setting G eneral File Paths
The File I/O panel (page 3–810) contains paths for
most of the standard support files. You can specify
one path for each of file types 3ds Max uses.
Setting Plug-In File Paths
Many features of 3ds Max are implemented as
plug-ins. T his means you can change and extend
3ds Max functionalit y by adding new plug-ins
from A utodesk Media and Entertainment or from
third-party developers.
You tell 3ds Max where to find additional plug-in
files by adding path entries on the 3rd Party
Plug-Ins panel (page 3–814). If you place all of
your plug-ins in a single directory, plug-in file
management can become messy. T hat’s why the
program supports multiple entries on the 3rd
Party Plug-Ins panel.
Setting Bitmap, FX, and D ownload File Paths
The External Files panel (page 3–811) contains
multiple path entries that the program searches
for image files (page 3–608),downloadedfiles(via
i-drop (page 3–523)), and FX files (page 3–946).
Image files are used for many purposes, such as