Work with variants - Variant Lister

Add variants for the current view using the Variant Lister

1. Set up the view you want to save.
2. Choose Windows > Variant Lister .
3. Click New Group to create a group for the variants.

   In the Variant Lister, the new variant is added to the current group. The Viewing Panel does not have group separation, so all new variants are added sequentially to a single list.

4. Click the Capture button or the plus sign (+) on the group title bar.

   The new variant is added to the group.

View your variants from the Variant Lister

• To display a variant, click the appropriate variant thumbnail in the Variant Lister.
• To view the variants in sequence, starting at the current variant (indicated by a light blue outline around the variant thumbnail), click the Previous or Next button in the Variant Lister or use the arrow keys on the keyboard.

  You can also use the Page Up and Page Down keys as a quick way to show the previous or next variant without the need to open the Variant Lister.

  Select Preferences > Interface > Hotkeys/Menu Editor and in the Variant Lister section set hotkeys for specific variants, and the following variant operations: Display Next in Group, Display Prev in Group, Delete Current Variant, Cycle Variants in Group, and Capture New Variant in Group.

• To see the variants in a slide show, click the Play button. The slide show starts at the currently selected variant (light blue outline) and displays the following variants in order, all the way to the end of the group. It then loops around to the first variant and continues cycling indefinitely.

  To stop the slide show, click anywhere in the window.

• To change the number of seconds to wait between displaying variants in playback, drag the first slider on the menu bar.

Set variant view transition time

When switching from one variant (or view) to the next, the camera is animated to take you smoothly from one view to another without getting disoriented.

The time (in seconds) taken to transition from one view to the next is controlled by the View transition time option in Preferences > General Preferences (Viewing section).

The default is 0.5 seconds. When this value is set to 0.0, the smooth animation is turned off.

Use masks to control which attributes are applied to variant groups

• Click a mask icon.
  • Applies camera information (view, up, position, etc)
  • Applies shading information (hardware shading, diagnostic shading, switch shader assignments, grid display)
  • Applies geometry information (object visibility, locator visibility, layer symmetry, reference file and file set visibility, reference symmetry)
  • Applies layer visibility information (layer visibility, category visibility, reference layer visibility)

Edit a variant using the Variant Lister

1. In the Variant Lister, click the thumbnail of the variant you want to change to select it.
2. Modify the view.
3. Right-click on the variant thumbnail and select Recapture.

Delete a variant using the Variant Lister

• In the Variant Lister, right click the thumbnail of the variant you want delete and select Delete.

Save one or more variants as image files

1. Ctrl-click the thumbnails to select them in the Variant Lister.
2. Right-click on a thumbnail and select Publish .
3. In the option box, set the image file type, size, and quality, then click Go. A file browser window displays.
4. Choose a folder and type a name for your image or group of images.

5. The saved images are called <file name>_<variant name>.<file type>.

   Note:

   If variant names are not unique, “_<#>” is added to the image names to make them unique, for example: issue_variant#1.jpg, issue_variant#2.jpg, and so on.

Group variants

• To create a group, click New Group.
• To collapse or expand the group, click the group title bar.
• To delete a group, click the x on the group title bar.
• To change the order of variants in a group or move them to another group, drag variants thumbnails with the middle mouse button.