Most viewport-handling commands are found on the Views menu and on the viewport label menus.
Undo View Change cancels the last change made to the current viewport. Redo View Change cancels the last Undo in the current viewport.
Save Active View stores the active view to an internal buffer. If you have framed a shot in any view other than a camera, use Save Active View to preserve the viewport’s appearance. The saved active view is saved with the scene file. Once saved, you can retrieve it using Restore Active View.
Restore Active View displays the view previously stored with Save Active View.
The Viewport Background dialog controls display of an image or animation as the background for one or all viewports. You can use this for modeling, for example, by placing front, top or side view sketches in the corresponding viewports. Or use Viewport background to match 3D elements with digitized camera footage, or for rotoscoping.
The Select Background Image dialog allows you to choose a file or sequence of files for a viewport background.
This command updates the background image displayed in the active viewport. If the active viewport is not displaying a background image, this command is unavailable.
Reset Background Transform rescales and recenters the current background to fit an orthographic or user viewport. Use this command when you want to reset the background to the new position of your geometry. See Procedure for detailed requirements.
Show Transform Gizmo toggles the display of the Transform gizmo axis tripod for all viewports when objects are selected and a transform is active.
Ghosting is a method of displaying wireframe "ghost copies" of an animated object at a number of frames before or after the current frame. Use it to analyze and adjust your animation. Ghosts that overlap indicate slower motion; ghosts that are spread further apart show faster motion.
Key Times shows the frame numbers along a displayed animation trajectory. Key times correspond to the settings in Time Configuration for Frames or SMPTE. By default, key times are shown as frame numbers.
Shade Selected shades only the selected objects in the scene when the viewport is set to Wireframe or Other. When Smooth + Highlights is on, all objects are shaded whether they are selected or not.
While you are using the Modify panel, this command toggles viewport highlighting of objects dependent on the currently selected object.
Create Camera From View creates a Target camera whose field of view matches an active Perspective viewport. At the same time, it changes the viewport to a Camera viewport for the new camera object, and makes the new camera the current selection.
This command opens the Add Default Lights To Scene dialog, which provides options that let you convert the default scene lighting into actual light objects.
Redraw All Views refreshes the display in all viewports. When you move, rotate, scale, or otherwise manipulate geometry, the viewports may display the scene with some irregularities, or with objects or parts of objects missing. Use Redraw All Views to redisplay your scene with all lines and shading restored.
These commands manage how viewports display materials.
When Update During Spinner Drag is on, dragging a spinner (such as a Radius spinner for a sphere) updates the effects in real time in the viewports. Default=on.
This command runs a MAXScript script that displays information about your system’s graphic display configuration. This can be useful for telling you whether some interactive viewport features such as shadows are supported.
When Expert mode is on, the title bar, toolbar, command panel, status bar, and all of the viewport navigation buttons are removed from the display, leaving only the menu bar, time slider, and viewports. Use Expert mode when you need to view your composition alone without the rest of the interface.
