Assigning Colors to Objects

3ds Max is a truecolor program. When you pick a color in 3ds Max, you are specifying 24 bits of color data, which provide a range of over 16 million colors.

Object wireframe colors are used primarily as an organizational tool. Object naming strategies, named selection sets, and object wireframe color strategies provide a rich set of tools for organizing even the most complex scenes.

You can use two dialogs to specify colors:

• The Object Color dialog contains two preset palettes of colors that you use to set an object’s wireframe color. This is also the surface color you see in a rendered viewport. The two color palettes are Default palette and AutoCAD ACI palette.
• The Color Selector is a generic dialog that you use to define any color in the 24-bit color range. For the purpose of defining colors to assign to objects, it is available only through the Default palette.

The Layers functionality lets you organize your scene and can also be used for assigning object colors. For more information, see Layer Explorer.