Workflow for Using State Sets

A state is an object that records changes to your scene allowing you to quickly display and render them. The typical workflow is as follows:

To create states:

1. Choose State Sets from the Rendering menu, or right-click in the viewport and choose Manage State Sets from the quad menu.

   The State Sets dialog opens showing a State Sets item at the top of the Tree View, with State01 underneath it. This default state is also known as the base state.

2. Click to add a state.
3. Click to enable the new state.
4. Click to record.
5. Make changes to the scene using standard 3ds Max tools. For example, change output resolution with the Render Setup dialog or hide an object in a viewport.
   Note: State Sets does not record transforms of objects in the scene. Transforms will affect all states.
6. To finish recording, click .

   The state now lists all recorded changes. You can adjust these changes by expanding any entry and modifying its values.

   To toggle between the base state and a recorded state, click the state's arrow button. You can also switch between different states by clicking the corresponding arrow button. Only one state can be active at a time. If no arrows are highlighted, no state is active and the original scene is shown.

7. Continue adding states and recording changes as necessary.

To perform render passes:

1. From the States menu, choose Render Outputs to open the Render Outputs panel.
2. Change the path and output file name as necessary, and click Set Path.
3. From the States menu, choose Render All States.

   State sets renders the states to files using the file pattern specified on the Render Outputs panel.

To create and export composites:

1. From the Compositor menu, choose Compositor View.

   State Sets opens the Compositor view containing a fully-wired schematic. Each state is represented by a node that is wired to an Output Bitmap node containing a thumbnail of the state's rendered image. All the Output Bitmap nodes are wired to the Compositor Output node, which contains a thumbnail that shows the default composition.

   In Compositor view, edit the schematic and nodes to modify the composite.

2. From the Compositor menu, choose an option to output the composite to either an Adobe Photoshop PSD file, or to Adobe After Effects using the Compositor Link command.