Choosing What to Display in 3D Views

 
 
 

You can choose which types of things to display in each view. You can hide or display different types of objects, components, attributes, and other information. Be aware that the more things that are displayed, the slower the scene will update. None of these options affect what is rendered.

In addition to what's described here, you can hide or display specific objects as described in Showing and Hiding Specific Objects.

Displaying Types of Elements and Other Data

You can show and hide elements and components by type in the geometry views. For example, you can display only geometric objects and hide the controllers of your rig, or vice versa.

Besides showing and hiding objects and components, you can also choose to display or hide object attributes such as centers, points, and normals. Object attributes are useful visual cues when performing certain tasks. For example, to verify in Wireframe whether a surface is correctly oriented for rendering purposes, you would display the object's normals.

You can set these options for a specific view, or you can set them for all open views at once. You can set the most common options directly from menus, or access all possible options in the Camera Visibility property editor. The Camera Visibility property editor also lets you display certain information for selected and unselected objects independently.

A

Toggle display on or off for selected objects.

B

Toggle display on or off for unselected objects.

The different kinds of information that you can display are described in the contexts where they are useful throughout this guide. For a quick summary of every one, see Objects [Properties Reference].

To set common options for a single view

  • Toggle an item on the Show menu (eye icon).

NotePress Shift to keep the Show menu (eye icon) open when you want to toggle multiple options.

To set common options for all open views

  • Toggle an item on the Display Objects or Display Attributes menu on the main menu bar.

To set any option for a single view

  • Open the Camera Visibility property editor for that view, either by choosing Visibility Options from the view's Show menu (eye icon) or by pressing Shift+S while the mouse pointer is over that view, and then set any options you want.

To set any option for all open views

  • Open the Camera Visibility property editor for all views, either by choosing Display Visibility Options (All Cameras) from the main menu bar or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+S, and then set any options you want.

Displaying Attribute Values

You can display the values of attributes of objects and their components in the 3D views. This includes intrinsic attributes like area, volume, and point positions, as well as attributes controlled by ICE trees (see ICE Fundamentals for more about ICE trees).

The formats that are available depend on the data type. For example, you can display some data types such as 3D vectors representing [X, Y, Z] data in a variety of ways.

It's important to remember that Softimage does not understand what the data means. It's up to you to determine what format makes the most sense for a particular attribute.

PointPosition displayed as numeric data.

You can create multiple display attributes and display any number of them in the viewport at the same time. You can offset the data labels so that it's easier to see when there are multiple attributes displayed. You can also display attributes for only a percentage or specific range of elements to reduce the clutter in the view.

NotePer-component attributes cannot be displayed on polygon meshes that are subdivided using the geometry approximation method.

To create attribute display properties

  1. Select one or more geometric objects.

    Note that non-geometric objects like nulls are not supported.

  2. Choose Get Property Display Attribute.

  3. Select the Attribute to display.

  4. Set Display As and other parameters as desired. See AttributeDisplay Property Editor [Properties Reference].

Hiding and Unhiding Attribute Values

You can hide attribute values without removing the AttributeDisplay property, allowing you to easily unhide them later.

To hide or unhide a specific attribute in all views

  • Open the AttributeDisplay property editor, and toggle Show Values.

To hide or unhide all attributes in a specific view

Note that this affects both AttributeDisplay properties on objects as well as port value displays in ICE trees.

Removing Display Attributes

Simply select the desired AttributeDisplay property in an explorer and press Delete.

Showing and Hiding the View Grid

You can display a view grid for reference when working in the 3D views. The grid helps you position and orient the objects in your scene, but the grid itself is not rendered.

To toggle the grid in a 3D view

To modify the view grid

  1. Do one of the following:

    • To modify the grid in a single view, press Shift+S while the mouse pointer is over the view or choose Visibility Options from its Show menu (eye icon).

      or

    • To modify the grid in all open views, press Ctrl+Shift+S or choose Display Visibility Options (All Cameras) from the main menu.

    The Camera Visibility property editor opens.

  2. On the Visual Cues tab, set Floor/Grid and Plane in the Show group as well as the options in the Floor/Grid Setup group as desired. For a description of all available options, see Objects [Properties Reference].

Viewport Slates and Custom Display Information

Although not discussed here, you can choose to display custom information in 3D views.

For example, you can specify preset tokens and text strings (called templates) to create a "viewport slate". A viewport slate can be defined for a specific camera view, or for all cameras views at once. The Viewport Slate options are set on the Stats tab of the Objects. When enabled, the template information is shown in any viewport set to a Camera or Render Pass view.

Alternatively, you can create a "heads-up display" (HUD) to show and edit the values of whatever parameters you want — see Displaying Custom and Proxy Parameters in 3D Views [Customization].