The buttons on the Make Preview, Play Preview, Save Preview flyout let you preview the effect of an animated map on the object in a sample slot. You can use an AVI file, or IFL file as a source for the animation. The finished preview is saved as a new AVI file and automatically played back. You can also view the preview in a sample slot by dragging the time slider.
This flyout has three options:
When the preview is complete, it is saved as _medit.avi in the \previews subdirectory. The file is then opened in the Windows Media Player and played back.
Without this option, the only other way to preview a complex animated material in real time is to use the renderer to render an animated sequence and save it to an AVI file, a digital disk recorder, or a video tape recorder.