The Layer Properties dialog is similar to the Object Properties dialog. Here, you can change the rendering, motion blur, and display settings of one or more selected layers. In addition, you can also change the advanced lighting settings or hide/freeze one or more selected layers.
Interface
Layer Information group
Controls layer-level settings.
- Name
- The selected layer's name, which you can edit (if it's not layer 0). The name can contain up to 255 characters. Permissible characters include letters, digits, blank spaces, and the special characters dollar sign ($), hyphen (-), and underscore (_).
- Active Color
- The color of the selected layer. To change the color, click the color swatch. This opens the Layer Color dialog, which is identical to the Object Color dialog, except that it doesn't have the By Layer/By Object toggle.
- Display
- Controls the display of the objects on the selected layer for which Object Properties
Display Properties is set to By Layer. - Viewport Displays the objects in the highlighted layer using the active settings on the Shading Viewport label menu.
- Bounding Box Displays the objects in the highlighted layer as bounding boxes.
- Wireframe Displays the objects in the highlighted layer in wireframe mode.
- Shaded Displays the objects in the highlighted layer as shaded.
General panel
Interactivity group
- Hide
- Hides the selected layer. This setting is automatically inherited by all objects in the layer.
- Freeze
- Freezes the selected layer. This setting is automatically inherited by all objects in the layer.
Display Properties group
Provides controls that alter the display of objects set to By Layer in the selected layer.
- See-Through
- Makes objects translucent in viewports. This setting has no effect on rendering; it simply lets you see what's behind an object in a crowded scene, and especially to adjust the position of objects behind or inside the See-Through object.
- Display As Box
- Toggles the display of 3D objects and 2D shapes as bounding boxes. Reduces geometric complexity significantly.
- Backface Cull
- Toggles the display of faces with normals pointing away from the viewpoint. When on, you see through the wireframe to the back faces. Applies only to Wireframe viewport display.
- Edges Only
- Toggles the display of face edges. When set, only faces appear. When off, all mesh geometry appears. Applies only to Wireframe viewport display.
- Vertex Ticks
- Displays objects' vertices as tick marks.
If the current selection has no displayed tick marks, the checkbox is clear. If some of the vertices in the current selection display tick marks, the checkbox contains a gray X. If all vertices in the current selection display tick marks, the checkbox contains a black X.
- Trajectory
- Toggles objects' trajectory display. You can display an object's trajectory wherever you are in 3ds Max.
- Ignore Extents
- When on, objects do not figure in the application of the display control Zoom Extents.
- Show Frozen in Gray
- When on, frozen objects turn gray in viewports. When off, viewports display frozen objects with their usual color or texture.
- Never Degrade
- When on, Adaptive Degradation is disabled for objects in the layer.
- Vertex Colors
- Displays assigned vertex coloring in the viewport.
- Shaded
- When on, for objects with vertex coloring, shaded viewports use vertex colors to shade the mesh. When off, colors are unshaded.
Rendering Control group
Provides controls for the rendering of objects set to By Layer in the selected layer.
- Visibility
- Controls objects' rendered visibility. At 1.0, the object is fully visible. At 0.0, an object is completely invisible when rendered. Default=1.0.
- Renderable
- Toggles objects' visibility in rendered output. Note: This has the same effect as the Renderable toggle in the layer list.
- Inherit Visibility
- Causes objects to inherit the visibility of their parents, as determined by the parent's Visibility track in Track View. When a group parent is assigned a visibility track, Inherit Visibility is automatically turned on for all children in the group. Transparent materials and hidden objects have no effect on this function.
- Visible to Camera
- When on, objects are visible to cameras in the scene. When off, cameras do not view these objects.
- Visible to Reflection/Refraction
- When on, objects are used in calculating reflections and refractions. When off, objects do not appear in reflections or refractions.
- Receive Shadows
- When on, objects can receive shadows.
- Cast Shadows
- When on, objects can cast shadows.
- Apply Atmospherics
- When on, atmospheric effects are applied to the objects. When off atmospheric effects do not change the rendered appearance of the objects.
- Render Occluded Objects
- Allows special effects to affect objects in the scene that are occluded by this object. The special effects, typically applied by plug-ins such as Glow, use G-Buffer layers to access occluded objects. Turning on this control makes the object transparent for the purposes of special effects. This makes no difference when you render to most image files. When you render to either the RLA or RPF file format, however, occluded objects appear with the effect applied on their designated G-buffer layer.
Motion Blur group
Controls motion blur for objects set to By Layer in the selected layer.
- Multiplier
- Affects the length of the motion blur streak.
- Enabled
- When on, enables motion blur for this layer's contents. When off, motion blur is disabled regardless of the other settings in this group. Default=on.
- None Turns off motion blur for objects on the selected layer.
- Object Object motion blur provides a time-slice blur effect for objects on the selected layer.
- Image Image motion blur blurs the image of each object on the selected layer, based on the velocity of each pixel.
Advanced Lighting panel
Radiosity Properties group
- Exclude from Radiosity Processing
- When on, objects on a selected layer are included in the radiosity solution. Objects not included in the radiosity solution do not contribute to indirect illumination. If these objects are lights, their direct contribution is used only for rendering.
- Cast Shadows
- Determines whether objects on the selected layer will cast shadows.
- Receive Illumination
- Determines whether objects on the selected layer will receive illumination.
- Diffuse (reflective & translucent)
- When on, objects on the selected layer are treated as diffuse (rough) in the radiosity process.
- Specular (reflective & transparent)
- When on, objects on a selected layer are treated as specular (smooth) in the radiosity process.
- Exclude from Regathering
- When on, objects on a selected layer are excluded from the regathering process of the radiosity solution.
For more information on the Radiosity Properties group, see Radiosity Controls.
Object Subdivision Properties group
- Use Global Subdivision Settings
- When on, the layer's objects' meshing settings correspond to the global subdivision settings on the Radiosity Control Panel. When off, you can change the meshing settings for each object. Default=on.
- Subdivide When on, a radiosity mesh is created for the objects regardless of the global meshing state. The subdivision that is performed is determined by the Use Adaptive Subdivision switch. When off, the settings in the Mesh Settings group are unavailable. Default=on.
- Use Adaptive Subdivision Turns adaptive subdivision on and off. Default=on. Note: The Mesh Settings group parameters Contrast Threshold, Min Mesh Size, and Initial Mesh Size are available only when Use Adaptive Subdivision is turned on.
Mesh Settings group
These settings are available only when Use Global Subdivision Settings (see preceding) is off and Subdivide is on. If Use Adaptive Subdivision is on, only Max Mesh Size is available.
- Max Mesh Size
- The size of the largest faces after adaptive subdivision. Default=36” for imperial units and 100cm for metric units.
When Use Adaptive Subdivision is turned off, Max Mesh Size sets the size of the radiosity mesh in world units.
- Min Mesh Size
- Faces are not divided smaller than the minimum mesh size. Default=3” for imperial units and 10cm for metric units.
- Contrast Threshold
- Faces that have vertex illuminations that differ by more than the Contrast Threshold settings are subdivided. Default=75.0.
- Initial Mesh Size
- When improving the face shape, faces that are smaller than the Initial Mesh Size are not subdivided. The threshold for deciding whether a face is poorly shaped also gets larger as the face size is closer to the Initial Mesh Size. Default=12” for imperial units and 30cm for metric units.