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28 Chapter 2: Viewing and Navigating 3D Space
Tip:
If your scene mysteriously disappears and only
displays as boxes when you rotate your viewport,
youhavepressedthe“o”keyonthekeyboard,and
unintentionally turned on Adaptive Degradation.
See Rendering Method (page 3–853).
Controlling Display Per formance
3ds Max contains controls to help you adjust
display performance: the balance between quality
and time in displaying objects.
Depending on your needs, you might g ive up some
display speed to work at higher levels of rendering
qualit y, or you mig ht choose to maximize display
speed by using Wireframe or Bounding B ox
display. Which method you choose depends on
your preferences and the requirements of your
work.
Display Per formance Controls
You use display performance controls to determine
how objects are rendered a nd displayed.
Viewpo rt Preferences
The Customize > Preferences dialog’s Viewports
panel contains options for fine-tuning the
performance of the viewport display software. See
View port Preferences (page 3–821).
How Objects Are R endered
The Adaptive Degradation panel on the Viewport
Configuration dia log dynamically drop s the
rendering level on display performance. You set
the parameters controlling the trade-off between
display qualit y and display speed.
How Objects Are Displayed
To see and modify an object’s display properties,
right-click the objec t, select Properties, and go
to the Display Properties group box; see Object
Properties (page 1–117).Theseoptionsaffect
display performance much the same way as
viewport rendering opt ions. For example, turning
on Vertex Ticks for an object with a lot of vertices
will slow performance.
Note: Display Proper ties are only available when
the By Object/By Layer toggle is set to By Object.
Toseeandmodifyhowobjectsaredisplayed,you
can u se layers (page 3–655).Youcanthenquickly
control the visibility and editability of similar
objects fro m the quad menu.
Which Objects Are Displayed
One way to i ncrease display speed is not to display
something. You can use the Hide and Freeze
features on the Display panel or quad menu to
changethedisplaystateofobjectsinyourscene.
TheHideandFreezefeaturesalsoaffectfinal
Rendering and Video Post output. See Hide
Rollout (page 1–53) and FreezeRollout(page1–54).
Setting Adaptive Degradatio n
Adaptiv e Degradation dynamically adjusts your
rendering levels to maintain a desired level of
display speed. You have direct control over how
much "degradation" occurs and when it occurs.
Active and General Degradation use the same
choices as the viewport Rendering Levels panel.
Active Degradation controls rendering in the
active viewport while General Degradation
controls rendering in all other viewports.
The selected levels determine which rendering
levels 3ds Max falls back to when it cannot
maintain the desired display speed. You can
choose as many levels as you want but you are
advised to choose only one or two levels for each
type of degradation.
See Adaptive Degradat ion (page 3–905).