CompuServe Messages

Mark: further to my reply about Hide Key. We are probably getting a few concepts entangled here. I'll try to make some sense, and address the "dummies under the scene", mentioned earlier. Hide Key is very useful in all sorts of keyframing tricks, but I believe that the renderer still loads the maps of an object, though it is in a Hidden Key State. On the other hand, DISPLAY/HIDE takes an object out of a scene, and it's maps are ignored. So… this is where my Dummy-Hidders and Base Grid come in handy. Before constructing a project I create a series of dummies that correspond to different sectors of my project. By Parenting sector dummies to all objects in corresponding sector I can hide and unhide large portions of a scene very quickly. This is very useful when testing, tweaking and whatnot. Then, when i am at the output render stage, it is very easy to DISPLAY/HIDE entire sections of my scene. The Base Grid is just a cheap trick so I can find where I am very quickly, regardless of orthogonal tendency to GET LOST. Under my entire scene is a wide spaced grid that is actually made up of quadrants, each quadrant gets a different color assignment. So, at a glance, I can see from any orthogonal view, where in Orthogonal Hell I am. The 9 quadrant grid is easily hidden and unhidden, and really comes in handy. It recieves no shadows, casts no shadows, excluded from all lights and is totally transparent… so if it is ever "visible" to a view render, it poses no problem. However, it is usually hidden when I'm at a tweak/render/tweak level. Sheeeeesh, now that I'm typing this it is making me aware of a bunch of little tricks I use to deal with XYZ disorientation… little pointers up down and around etc etc etc. hahahha Jeffrey