Camera Display Property Editor

Options | High Quality | Modes | Performance | Ghosting

The Display Options property controls the method used to display objects in a 3D view, in addition to other options like XRay mode, headlights, and depth cue.

There is one Display Options property for each scene camera and object view. In addition, there is one for each viewpoint and spotlight per viewport.

To display: See Choosing How Things Are Displayed in 3D Views [Basics].

Options

Wireframe Mode

Show Simplified Subdivision Wireframe	Toggles visibility of a simplified version of an object's subdivision wireframe in any wireframe view in a viewport.
Wireframe Color	Sets the color of the wireframe of unselected objects. Specify either the default wireframe color (set in the Scene Colors Property Editor [Preference Reference]), or the object's diffuse color.

Shaded Mode

XRay Mode

Toggles the x-ray drawing style for wireframe objects (such as bones and nulls) that are inside or behind geometric objects. You can then choose an XRay Display Type. X-ray drawing is very useful when working with envelopes because you can see and select the underlying deformers while still seeing the shaded surface of the envelope. This option works in constant, shaded, and textured display modes. You can also set this option directly from the Display Mode menu.

XRay Display Type

Sets the drawing style for the XRay Mode:

Overlay draws the wireframe objects (such as bones and nulls) on top of geometric objects (such as envelopes).
Screen draws geometric objects using a "screen door" style to reveal wireframe objects inside and behind them.
Transparent draws geometric objects partially transparent to reveal wireframe and even shaded objects, including geometry as well as bones that have been set to Use Display Mode.

Enable Transparency

Toggles OGL transparency on and off in the Constant, Shaded, Textured, Textured Decal, and Realtime Shaders viewing modes.

The transparency of individual objects can be controlled by either of the following:

The Transparency settings in objects' surface shader properties. This works only when you are using non-alpha channels to control transparency (RGB in RGBA mode, HLS in HLSA mode, and so on).

The Opacity setting in objects' Display properties.

Sort Transparent By

Determines how transparent objects are sorted before they are drawn in shaded views:

None: No sorting is performed.

Min Depth: Objects are sorted according to the front of their bounding boxes.

Max Depth: Objects are sorted according to the back of their bounding boxes.

Average Depth: Objects are sorted according to the middle of their bounding boxes.

Objects are always drawn from back to front, as determined by the sort order.

Hidden Line Surface Color

Sets the color used to display objects in hidden line mode.

Transparent allows you to see rotoscopy images, as well as non-geometric objects like nulls and bones, that are behind hidden-line objects, but geometric objects will still occlude each other properly.
Background Color uses the color of the background as set on the Geometry Views tab of the Scene Colors property editor. See Scene Colors Property Editor [Preference Reference].
Viewport Color uses the color of the viewport as set on the Geometry Views tab of the Scene Colors property editor.
Object Diffuse Color uses the diffuse component of each object's material.

Vertex Color

Toggles the display of painted vertices in shaded view. For more information about painting colors at vertices, see Vertex Colors [Scene Elements].

Blend Using Alpha in Texture Decal

When a 3D view's display mode is set to Textured Decal, activating this option blends a material's currently displayed texture with the surface of the object to which the material is applied according to the texture's alpha channel. For more information about displaying textures in shaded viewing modes, see Managing Image Sources & Clips [Data Exchange].

Shaded Mode Wireframe Highlight

Show Wireframe on Selected Objects	Toggles a selected object's wireframe visibility in any shaded or textured view in a viewport.
Show Wireframe on Unselected Objects	Toggles unselected objects' wireframe visibility in any shaded or textured view in a viewport.You can also set this option directly using Wireframe on Shaded available from the Display Mode menu.
Show Transparent Selected Wireframe	In any shaded or textured view mode, this option makes a selected object's display transparent, letting you "see through" the object.
Show Simplified Subdivision Wireframe	Toggles visibility of a simplified version of an object's subdivision wireframe in any shaded or textured view in a viewport. When on, only the edges corresponding to the hull polygons are displayed (left). When off, all edges are displayed and the edges corresponding to the hull polygons are darker (right).
Show Subdivision Surface when Hull Visible	Toggles the visibility of the wireframe on a subdivision surface when the hull is also visible in any shaded or textured view in a viewport.
Wireframe Highlight Line Width	Controls the width of the highlighted lines of selected objects in any shaded or textured viewing mode.
Wireframe Highlight Opacity	Controls the opacity of the wireframe lines in any shaded or textured viewing mode.

Depth-Cue/Fog

These options control depth fading in Depth-Cue display mode, as well as the display of non-renderable OpenGL-based fog in other display modes. For example, when you set the range options, they specify the range of the Depth fading effect in Depth-Cue mode, and the density of the fog, if activated, in other display modes.

In Depth-Cue display mode, the range options control depth fading.

In other display modes (hidden line removal in this case), the range options control the density of the fog.

Enable Fog	Toggles the display of fog in the OGL views to give a visual indication of scene objects' distance from the camera/viewpoint. Fog is visible in any display mode except for Depth Cue, which uses the same Falloff settings as fog, but ignores the Color. Fog is for display purposes only, and is not renderable.
Falloff	Defines the way in which depth cue/fog fall off over distance. Choose one of the thee available options: Linear, Exponential, or Exponential2.
Depth-Cue Range	Determines the range of the depth cue. Scene: Sets the range to the depth of the scene. Selection: Sets the range to the depth of the selected object(s). Custom: Lets you specify the depth cue range by defining Start and End values.
Start/End Distance	When Custom depth cue range is enabled, these options specify the start and end of the range respectively.
Density	Controls the density of the of the fog/depth cue effect when the Falloff option is set to Exponential, or Exponential2.
Fog Color	Sets the color for the fog. Use the sliders to define any color.

Head Light (overrides all other lights)

The headlight is a virtual light shining into the scene and linked to the position of the camera. It is visible in any shaded OGL display mode (Shaded, Textured, Textured Decal, and so on). When activated, it temporarily disables all other scene lights. This is useful when you want to preview the shadowed parts of scene objects. The headlight is for display purposes only, and is not renderable.

This object is lit from the bottom, creating a number of shadowed areas that are difficult to see.

Activating the headlight lights the object from the camera's position, making the shadowed areas more visible.

Enable Head Light	Turns the head light on or off. You can also set this option directly from the Display Mode menu. You can change the head light's position relative to the camera using the Azimuth and Elevation controls.
Specular	When enabled, the head light affects the specular components of the objects that it lights.
Intensity	Controls the intensity of the head light. Higher values create brighter lighting.
Azimuth	Specifies the horizontal angle between the head light and the camera, which can range from -90 degrees to 90 degrees.
Elevation	Specifies the vertical angle between the head light and the camera, which can range from -90 degrees to 90 degrees.

High Quality

Controls the options displayed in High Quality mode. Note that quality is automatically lowered during interaction, such as when orbiting the camera.

High Quality Viewport

Enable

Enables High Quality display mode for the corresponding viewport(s). When it is disabled, viewports use a simple OpenGL display mode when High Quality is chosen.

You can disable High Quality mode globally in your Display Preferences.

Clear Shader Cache

Deletes the cache data of shader particles from the memory. For more information on enabling the Shader Cache option, see High Quality Viewport Options.

Anti-aliasing

Multisampling

The number of subsamples per pixel for anti-aliasing in High Quality display mode.

Dithering

Enable Dithering	Jitters color values. This can be useful for reducing banding caused by light attenuation, for example.
Minimum Intensity	The minimum offset for the color value. The default 0.04 is equivalent to 1/255, that is, one level in the range [0, 255].

Shadows

Enable Shadows	Enables depth-mapped shadows in High Quality display mode.
Shadow Map Resolution	The resolution for shadow maps in High Quality display mode.
Shadow Transparency	Turn on this option to view shadow casts from objects with transparent materials.
Shadow Transparency Alpha Tolerance	Increases or decreases the depth of shadow cast from the selected transparent object.

Ambient Occlusion

The exact settings for good screen-space ambient occlusion are very scene-dependent, but here's a rough guide for setting up in High Quality display mode:

Adjust Samples to adjust the quality.
Increase the Intensity, and if necessary decrease the Bias, until you start to see an effect.
Adjust the Radius (usually by decreasing it) until the coverage is mostly restricted to the corners and crevices, and then adjust both Radius and Scale until the extent of the coverage is about right.
Adjust the Intensity and Bias to fine-tune the coverage and strength.

NoteThe ambient occlusion seen in High Quality viewports will not be the same as in the rendered output.

Enable Ambient Occlusion	Enables screen space ambient occlusion in High Quality display mode in this window. Turning this off disables ambient occlusion for all objects, whether or not they are affected by an ambient occlusion shader.
Enable Global Ambient Occlusion	Calculates ambient occlusion for all objects in the scene. If both Enable Ambient Occlusion and this option are on, ambient occlusion is calculated for all objects. The bright color is white and the dark color is black. If Enable Ambient Occlusion is on and this option is off, ambient occlusion is calculated only for objects that are affected by ambient occlusion shaders. The bright and dark colors are set by the shaders. All other settings are controlled by the options below, instead of by the shaders.
Radius	The radius used for sampling. If the value is too small, there will be little effect. Like wise if the value is too big, the samples will be spread over too large an area to show much occlusion.
Scale	Controls the size of the nooks and crannies that get filled by the AO effect. The smaller the scale, the larger the gaps that get filled.
Intensity	The amount of dark color applied.
Bias	Controls the falloff from dark to light. Near 0, there's no falloff until close to the end of the affected area while near 1, the falloff happens almost immediately.
Iterations	Controls the number of iterations for the AO calculation. Higher iterations involve more computation time, but gives a smoother result, especially if the AO radius is large.
Blur Result	Turns on or off the blurring of the resulting AO calculation, which is eventually blended with the raw AO result. Turning it on helps to hide the “grainy” look of the raw AO result.
Blur Samples	The number of AO samples per pixel. Higher values give better quality but take longer to draw. This value is clamped by the environment variable XSI_HIGH_QUALITY_VIEWPORT_MAX_AO_SAMPLES.
Blur Edge Tolerance	Adjusts the tolerance for the edge detection in the blurring algorithm. A lower tolerance makes the blur more sensitive to edges, but might also detect false edges.
Blur Blend	Adjusts the blending factor between the raw AO result and the blurred result. A higher value gives more weight to the blurred result, while a lower value gives more weight to the raw AO result.

Depth of Field

Depth of field in High Quality display mode works by blurring pixels based on their distance from the camera. First select the Mode, then adjust the other parameters.

NoteThe depth of field seen in High Quality viewports will not be the same as in the rendered output.

Enable Depth of Field	Enables depth of field in High Quality display mode in this window.
Mode	Selects the algorithm and the options used to control depth of field: Simple or Lens.
Samples	The number of DOF samples per pixel. Higher values give better quality but take longer to draw. This value is clamped by the environment variable XSI_HIGH_QUALITY_VIEWPORT_MAX_DOF_SAMPLES.

Simple Mode Options

Near	Objects closer to the camera than this are considered "near", and blurred by Near Blur Radius.
Focus Start Offset	The offset toward the camera from Focus Distance within which objects are still in focus. Between there and Near, the blur increases from 0 to Near Blur Radius based on distance.
Focus Distance	The distance from the camera at which objects are in focus.
Focus End Offset	The offset away from the camera from Focus Distance within which objects are still in focus. Between there and Far, the blur increases from 0 to Far Blur Radius based on distance.
Far	Objects farther from the camera than this are considered "far", and blurred by Far Blur Radius.
Near Blur Radius	The radius used to blur near objects.
Far Blur Radius	The radius used to blur far objects.

Modes

Mixed Viewing Mode

Displays objects according to their individual Display properties. Turning this option on is equivalent to turning Override Object Properties off in the Display Mode menu of a viewport.

Objects without individual Display properties are displayed according to the settings below.

For information about setting Display properties for specific objects, see Choosing How to Display Specific Objects [Basics].

Selected Objects/Unselected Near Objects

These options control how objects are displayed under different viewing conditions. The left column controls selected objects and the right column controls unselected objects.

Static controls how objects are drawn when you are not interacting in the viewports or playing back animation.
Interaction controls how objects are drawn when you are zooming, orbiting, transforming, etc., interactively in the viewports.
Playback controls how objects are displayed when playing back animation.

Example of using different display modes for different viewing conditions:

A	Interactive Selected: A selected static object displays in textured mode for full detail.
B	Static Unselected: Unselected foreground objects display in wireframe to minimize image processing time.

Mode	Sets the display mode (bounding box, wireframe, hidden line, constant, shaded, texture, texture decal, or realtime shaders) for objects.
Step	Sets the level of geometry approximation used to display subdivision surfaces, NURBS surfaces, and curves. Choose Coarse, Medium, or Full.
Copy Static Selected Mode to All	Applies the values set for static selected objects to all objects.

Construction History

Construction Level Viewing Mode

Determines how objects are displayed in the 3D view:

Result (top) always shows the final result of all operators in the construction history, no matter which construction mode is current.
Sync with construction mode shows the result of the operators in the current construction region and below.

You can continue to apply deformation and topology operators no matter which region is displayed. You can even have different displays in different views so, for example, you can see and move points in one view in Modeling mode while you see the results after enveloping and other deformations in another view.

You can also set this option directly using Wireframe on Shaded available from the Display Mode menu.

Stereo

These options set the display mode for a stereoscopic camera view. The display modes let you preview the stereoscopic output without needing to render and composite the images. See Stereoscopic (3D) Camera Rigs [Cameras and Motion Blur] for information.

You can also set these options directly from the Stereo menu in any viewport or Object view in which you have a stereo camera selected in the View menu.

Stereo Display Mode	Determines how objects are displayed for a stereo camera:
	Center: Looks through the center stereo camera.
	Left Eye: Looks through left stereo camera.
	Right Eye: Looks through right stereo camera.
	Anaglyph: Superimposes the images from the left and right cameras. It maps the red channel of the left camera to the red channel of the display, and the blue/green channels of the right camera to the blue/green channels of the display. This Anaglyph mode works on all graphics cards, but it can be uncomfortable due to differences in brightness that the each eye perceives at a given location (retinal rivalry). The other anaglyph modes are aimed at reducing retinal rivalry and may provide more comfortable viewing. The Anaglyph modes are meant to be viewed with red/cyan stereo glasses.
	Half-Color Anaglyph: Similar to the Anaglyph mode except that all color information is stored on the left camera, and the right one is grayscale.
	Luminance Anaglyph: Similar to the Anaglyph mode except that the color output from the left and right cameras are first converted to grayscale before being composited on top of each other.
	Optimized Anaglyph: Similar to the Anaglyph mode except that it is optimized to reduce retinal rivalry. The red channel is computed as 70% green + 30% blue with a gamma correction of 1.5 applied to brighten it up (the red channel in the original image is not used at all).
	Horizontal Interlace: Alternates one row of pixels from the left camera with one row of pixels from the right camera, and so forth. You obtain half the vertical resolution through this mode. Select this option if you have an LCD monitor that polarizes alternate scan lines, or are viewing with passive polarizing glasses.
	Checkerboard Interlace: Alternates between one pixel from the left camera with one pixel from the right camera, forming a checkerboard pattern. You obtain half the vertical resolution and half the horizontal resolution through this mode. Select this option for Samsung DLP 3D displays.
	Freeview (Parallel): Displays the output from the left and right cameras side-by-side. You can use this for viewing with unfocused eyes (like a "magic eye" puzzle where you look at an image without focusing). It's also useful for simply previewing the output from the left and right cameras side-by-side.
	Freeview (Crossed): Similar to Freeview (Parallel), but the left camera output is displayed on the right while the right camera output is displayed on the left. This is used for viewing with crossed eyes.
Swap Interlaced Eyes	Swaps the even-odd/left-right eye convention of the Horizontal Interlace and Checkerboard Interlace modes. This corrects the issue of the viewport not matching up properly with the monitor.

Performance

Culling

Backface Culling	When on, both the front and back faces of objects are rendered. When off, the back faces will be culled (ignored).
View Frustum Culling	When on, only the area within the camera's field of view is drawn.

Lighting

Two Sided Lighting

Does not illuminate surfaces that are back-facing to light sources in shaded display modes. This option might not be supported depending on the shader profile of your graphics card and driver.

Fast Playback

Fast playback speeds up playback of the scene in 3D views by temporarily hiding the grid and drawing simplified objects during playback. The first time you play back the scene, the frames are cached according to the cache settings. Subsequent playbacks are faster because the frames are cached.

Fast playback captures only the visible geometry, so if the camera is zoomed out when you play back a 3D cache, the geometry that was outside the view at the time of capture is not visible.

See Playing Back All Frames or Playing in Real Time [Basics].

Fast Playback	Activates fast playback.
Clear	Clears the fast playback cache.
Wireframe Capture Only	When on, only object wireframes are captured for the cache and displayed during playback.
Use 3D Cache	Available only if you select the Wireframe Capture Only option. The Fast Playback uses the 3D cache. 3D caching stores extra depth information for the captured geometry so that you can orbit, pan, and zoom the camera during playback. When this option is off, 2D caching is done: it stores the data in a more compact form to save memory.
Cache Size (KB/frame)	Sets the amount of RAM allocated per frame when caching images. Caching fast playback files is extremely memory-intensive, with the default being 8MB/frame. As a result, you may get a "cache overflow" message in the viewport when you exceed this cache size. To fix this, you can increase the cache size value. You can lower the cache size value if don't have a lot of memory, but then you might only see some triangles instead of the full mesh. If this is the case, you can change the display settings to 3D or 2D wireframe to reduce the memory usage.
Write on disk	Writes the cache to disk. This increases the amount of memory available for caching but may be slower because of the need to access the disk for reading and writing.

Ghosting

These parameters let you set up the ghosting display in the viewport for animated or simulated objects.

Mixer Ghosting

Mixer ghosting lets you see the contribution of each clip that is being blended (overlapping clips) in the animation mixer. For more information, see Ghosting Clips [Nonlinear Animation in the Animation Mixer].

Contribution from Clip A in blue and from Clip B in red. The results of the two being blended together at the current frame is shown on the model.

Enable Mixer Ghosting

Toggles the display in any 3D view of ghosted shapes of objects animated by clips in the animation mixer.

Toggling this option is the same as toggling the Mixer Ghosting option in the Display Mode menu in the viewport.

Mixer Ghost Enter Compounds

Specifies whether or not the contents of compound clips are displayed for ghosting.

Animation Ghosting

Animation ghosting, also known as onion-skinning, lets you display a series of snapshots of animated objects at frames or keyframes behind and/or ahead of the current frame. Objects can be animated in any way, from keys to clips in the mixer to animated deformations and simulations.

For more information about ghosting, see Ghosting Animated Objects [Animation].

Enable Animation Ghosting	Toggles the display in any 3D view of ghosted shapes of animated objects. Toggling this option is the same as toggling the Animation Ghosting option in the Display Mode menu in the viewport.
Enable Skeleton FK/IK Ghosting	Toggles the display in any 3D view of ghosted shapes of skeleton chains animated with inverse kinematics (position of the effector) or forward kinematics (rotation of the bone). You must select Enable Animation Ghosting for skeleton ghosting to appear. Toggling this option is the same as toggling the Skeleton FK/IK Ghosting option in the Display Mode menu in the viewport. For more information, see Blending Between FK and IK Animation [Character Animation].
Draw Ghosts on Top	Ghosts are drawn on top of other objects in the viewport.
Fade	Ghosts become more transparent (fade out) as they get farther from the current frame. Ghosts on Static Frames (see below) cannot be faded.
Trail Subdivisions	This option is active only when Trail is selected as the Ghost Type in the object's Visibility Property Editor. The trail is drawn between the first and last ghost frames using the number of ghost frames and this parameter's value to sample the motion at regular intervals. A smooth curve is then drawn through the sample points. Higher settings make the trail more closely match the underlying motion, but will take longer to compute.
Velocity Scale Factor	Value that controls the length of the vector drawn when you select Velocity as the ghost display type in the object's Visibility property editor. The default value of 1 draws the velocity vector full size (Softimage units per second).

Frame Options

Frames Before	Number of frames on which to display ghosts before the current frame. These are frames that have already played (happened before the current frame). The sliders only go up to 10, but you can enter a higher value in the text box. Set the color of these ghosts using the Before Color sliders.
Frames After	Number of frames on which to display ghosts after the current frame. These are the upcoming frames (they will happen after the current frame). The sliders only go up to 10, but you can enter a higher value in the text box. Set the color of these ghosts using the After Color sliders.
Frame Step	Number of frames to display between ghosts. For example, a value of 2 displays a ghost on every other frame.
Anchor Frames	Keeps the ghosts stationary with respect to the animated object, which makes it easier to evaluate the object's motion. When the Frame Step value is high, the position of the ghosts change from frame to frame because they are relative to the current frame. This option positions the ghosts at absolute frames.
Before Color	Color of ghosts on frames before the current frame. Set the Alpha value of this color and the After Color to make the ghosts semi-transparent.
After Color	Color of ghosts on frames after the current frame.

Keyframe Options

Displays ghosts only on an object's keyframes. These options work only with keys set on an object's local or global transformation parameters.

Ghosts with Keys Before set to 6 and a Key Step of 1. Ghosts in a lighter color are also displayed on frames between the dark green keys.

Keys Before	Number of keyframes on which to display ghosts before the current frame. These are keyframes that have already played (happened before the current frame). The sliders only go up to 10, but you can enter a higher value in the text box. Set the color of these ghosts using the Before / FK Color sliders.
Keys After	Number of keyframes on which to display ghosts after the current frame. These are the upcoming keyframes (will happen after the current frame). The sliders only go up to 10, but you can enter a higher value in the text box. Set the color of these ghosts using the After / IK Color sliders.
Key Step	Number of keyframes to display between ghosts. For example, a value of 2 displays a ghost on every other keyframes.
Before Color / FK Color	Color of ghosts on keyframes before the current frame. When using Skeleton FK/IK Ghosting, this is the color of ghosts for chains animated in FK.
After Color / IK Color	Color of ghosts on keyframes after the current frame. When using Skeleton FK/IK Ghosting, this is the color of ghosts for chains animated in IK. Set the Alpha value of the color to make the ghosts semi-transparent.

Static Frame Options

Lets you specify exactly which frames on which you want to display ghosts. These ghosts are not updated (they are static) as the animation changes.

Static Frames

Enter a list of frame numbers on which you want to display static ghosts. The frame numbers need to be separated by commas, such as 6, 12, 18, etc.

Static Color

Color of ghosts on static frames.

Set the Alpha value of the color to make the ghosts semi-transparent because you cannot use the Fade option for ghosts on static frames.

You can also select the Draw Ghosts on Top option to have the static ghosts on top of the object's geometry.

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