Scene Explorer Menus

The principal Scene Explorer menus are available on the dialog menu bar. In addition, several context menus are available by right-clicking different user-interface elements on the dialog.

Select menu

Select All

Highlights all objects in the list. Highlighted items in the list are automatically selected in the scene.

Select None

Removes highlighting from all objects in the list.

Select Invert

Highlights objects that weren’t highlighted and vice-versa.

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Select Children

When on, highlighting a parent object also highlights its children.

Select Influences

When on and you highlight an object with influences, the influencing objects also highlight.

Choosing this command turns off Select Dependents, if on.

Select Dependents

When on and you highlight an object that influences another, the object’s dependents also highlight.

Choosing this command turns off Select Influences, if on.

Note: When Select Dependents is on, highlighting an object whose dependent has dependents of its own highlights those additional dependents as well. For example, consider three spheres that are instances of each other, one of which is constrained to a spline path. Highlighting the spline with Select Dependents on also highlights the constrained sphere and its dependents. The other two spheres are not dependents of the spline, but because they are dependents of the constrained sphere, all four objects highlight as a result.

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Find Case Sensitive

When on, searching with the Find field results in only exact matches with the case in the search phrase.

Find Using Wildcards

When on, searching with the Find field lets you use standard wildcards: ? stands in for a single character, while * stands in for multiple characters. For example, if you have objects named Set11, Set21, Set31, and Set34, using the search phrase “Set?1” with Find Using Wildcards on will highlight the first three but not the fourth. Searching for “Set*” will highlight all four.

Find Using Regular Expressions

When on, you can use regular expressions in the Find field.

For example, to highlight all items that do not start with upper-case “A”, turn on Find Case Sensitive and Find Using Regular Expressions, and use this search term: [^A]. Or to highlight all items that start with “sph” and end with “1”, turn on Find Using Regular Expressions, and use this search term: sph.*1. Similarly, to find all light targets, use .*Target.

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Search

Opens the Advanced Search dialog, which lets you set up and use complex Boolean search terms.

Display menu

Object Types

Choose which object types appear in the Scene Explorer list. Choices on this submenu correspond to the object-type buttons on the Display toolbar.

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Display Children

When chosen, displays linked objects as parent-child hierarchies, with the children as expandable branches below their parent objects. When not chosen (the default), lists all objects in the specified sort order with no regard to hierarchies.

Display Influences

When chosen and you highlight an object with influences, contents of any text-based fields of the influential objects appear in blue. Default = Not chosen.

Note: Select Influences, when on, overrides this feature.
Display Dependents
When on, if an object that has dependent objects is highlighted in the list, the object's name and those of its dependents appear boldfaced in the list. Applies to Sort By Hierarchy mode only.

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Configure Advanced Filter

Opens the Advanced Filter dialog, which lets you set up and use complex Boolean filter terms.

Enable Advanced Filter

Activates the filter specified with the Advanced Filter dialog.

Filter Selection Set

When chosen, the table shows only the currently selected selection set. Default=off.

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Display non-Dynamics Objects
By default, this option is on in Scene Explorer and off in MassFX Explorer. When on, Scene Explorer lists all objects in the scene. When off, it lists only the following types of objects:

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These choices control the hierarchy display in Sort By Hierarchy mode and the layer display in Sort By Layer mode.

Collapse All
Closes all hierarchies or layers so only the top-level parents or layers appear in the list.
Collapse Selected
Closes the hierarchy of selected list entries.
Note: You can collapse a parent or layer node's hierarchy and those of all of its child nodes by +clicking the arrow to the left of the name of the node to collapse.
Expand All
Opens all hierarchies or layers to display all list entries.
Expand Selected
Opens the hierarchy of selected list entries.
Note: You can expand a parent or layer node's hierarchy and those of all of its child nodes by +clicking the arrow to the left of the name of the node to expand.

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Display in Track View

Choose this to open a Track View window. If an object in the selection has an animated track, Track View displays the object in the Controller window; otherwise the window is empty.

Edit menu

These commands let you cut, copy, and paste objects in Sort By Hierarchy mode only.

Cut Nodes

Cuts highlighted objects and places their data on a clipboard.

Note: Cut objects still appear in the Scene Explorer list, but when pasted to a different location (say, as children of another object), they are removed from their original location.
Copy Nodes

Copies highlighted objects and places their data on a clipboard.

Paste Nodes

Pastes cut or copied objects from the clipboard into the scene as children of the highlighted object. If multiple objects are highlighted, only the first one is used.

Note: Before pasting copied objects, the Clone Options dialog opens. Change settings or accept the defaults and then click OK.

Customize menu

Toolbars submenu

The choices on this submenu let you toggle the display of individual toolbars. See Scene Explorer Toolbars.

  • Find Toggles display of the Find toolbar. Default=on.
  • View Toggles display of the View toolbar. Default=on.
  • Selection Toggles display of the Selection controls. Default=on.
  • Tools Toggles display of the Lock Cell Editing button. Default=off.
  • Display Toggles display of the object-type filter buttons. Default=off.
  • Container Toggles display of the Container toolbar. Default=off.
  • Dynamics Toggles display of the MassFX Explorer toolbar. Default=off.
Customize Columns

Opens the Customize Columns dialog, which lets you add columns to the Scene Explorer layout. You do this either by dragging new column headings to the existing column headings or by double-clicking an item in the list.

Layout

Lets you choose how the Scene Explorer toolbars are arranged.

  • Vertical (The default.) Uses a vertical layout, as described in Scene Explorer Toolbars.
  • Horizontal Uses a horizontal layout, with all toolbars above the scene listing.
Topics in this section
Parent topic: Scene Explorer