The following terms have specific meanings within the context of the geometry pipeline system:

• Base object - A base object is a geometric object that is starting point of a geometry pipeline.
• Derived object - A derived object contains a pointer to an object (or another derived object) and an application of one or more modifiers.
• Instance - This term has two meanings in the 3ds Max SDK. One meaning is the C++ definition of instance: an object is an instance of a class. The other meaning is specific to 3ds Max: an instance of an object, modifier, controller, etc. is a node that points to it.
• Modifier context - This is a piece of data stored by 3ds Max (and not exposed to the SDK) that represents the application of a modifier to an object.
• Validity interval - The time period within which a cached representation of an object is valid.