The SBD Window

The SBD window is a hierarchical representation of the objects, lights, textures, and cameras that make up a scene. It is a convenient way to change specific attributes of a complex scene, because you can pick and manipulate any item without disturbing the rest of the scene.

How To Use

The boxes in the SBD window are representative of the tool that you are using. For instance, the Up camera is represented as an up arrow in a blue box. If an object is animated, it is represented as a slanted box. If there are clusters, a cluster of grapes is displayed in the box.

• To access the SBD window, use Windows > SBD.

• To select items in the SBD window, click on them one by one (click again to de-select them).

• You can move the SBD window anywhere within the modeling window. Click and hold with the mouse, and drag the SBD window to wherever it is most convenient.

• To add default lights and textures on page 347

• To pick the camera node: on page 348

• To import image planes: on page 349

To move around in the SBD Window:

You can control the view in the SBD window in a variety of ways.

To track around in the window, either:

• Use the tracking icon

• Select Cameras > World move camera > Track

• Press the Alt and Shift keys while holding the middle mouse button at the same time and drag in the window to get the view you want.

To dolly in and out, either:

• Use the dolly icon

• Select Cameras > World move camera > Dolly

• Press the Alt and Shift keys while holding the right mouse button at the same time and drag in the window to get the view you want.

To open a separate magnified view of a particular part of the SBD window:

1

Click on the magnify icon. A bull's eye (target) symbol and a separate magnified view appear.

2

Move the bull's eye (target) symbol around the SBD window to view the region underneath it in the magnified view.

Here is an example for using the SBD window:

1

Place a few primitives and curves in any window.

A curve and two primitives ungrouped in the Top window.

2

Select Windows > SBD to display the SBD window.

3

A name associated with each item is written in each SBD box. The names can't be seen when the window is first opened, because the items are very small to give you a sense of where they all are.

Dolly in or use the magnify tool (as described above) to view the names better.

4

To select the objects you have placed on the screen, click their SBD entries.

Notice how the SBD boxes that represent the selected items are highlighted as are the items in the modeling windows.

To rearrange the nodes in the window:

Use the Swap icon (located at the top of the SBD window) to rearrange the order of the DAG nodes in the SBD window. This re-arrangement only affects the SBD window and does not alter any geometry or transformations.

1

Pick the DAG node you want to swap with its left or right sibling.

2

To swap the DAG node with its left sibling, click on the SBD swap icon with the left mouse button.

To swap the DAG node with its right sibling, click on the SBD swap icon with the right mouse button.

To compress and expand the SBD window display:

By default, the display in the SBD window is expanded.

To visually compress a portion of an object hierarchy in the SBD window:

1

Select the items you want to compress in the SBD window or the modeling window

2

Select ObjectDisplay > Compress SBD.

All active nodes in the SBD window are compressed.

To expand the display again, select ObjectDisplay > Expand SBD.

Notes:

• Compression means the block for the active entity is drawn in the SBD window without drawing the blocks below it.

• Instanced copies do not compress, as they do not have any geometry associated with them. If the original is picked, the geometry below it is compressed.

• Compressed branches have the top-level node (in the SBD window) drawn as two rectangular outlines.

• Compressing has no effect on the size of the wire file on external store.

To display visible and invisible objects:

When you select Object Display > Invisible, picked objects disappear in all windows and are represented by a dashed line box in the SBD window.

To find hard-to-see objects:

If you have dollied the view in the SBD window and you cannot see the active item, select Cameras > Look at, click in the SBD window, and that item is displayed in the center of the SBD window.

To display templated objects:

The SBD DAG node changes to another color when an object has been templated (by using ObjectDisplay > Template) .

The side example shows two spheres as seen in the SBD window.

To display quick wired objects

To display an object as quick wire, use ObjectDisplay > Quick wire.

If an object is displayed as quick wire, the SBD DAG node appears as two blue rectangular outlines.

To group and ungroup objects:

Grouping adds a level to the hierarchy of objects so that you can perform operations on all of them at the same time.

The group operation will not create an object with more than 100 levels.

We recommend that you use the SBD window for group and ungroup operations, because it gives you the opportunity to verify that all objects that need to be grouped are selected.

For more information on Edit > Group, see Grouping Objects on page 221.

To group objects:

1

Select them in the SBD window.

2

Select Edit > Group.

The following example shows what the SBD windows display when two primitive spheres and a curve are created and then grouped:

When an object is part of a group, it retains its own local transformations (position, rotation and scale), but can be altered by transformations made to the group.

For more information on Edit > Ungroup, see Ungrouping Objects on page 225.

To ungroup the objects again, select their parent DAG node and then select Edit > Ungroup.

The following examples show what is displayed in the SBD window for the various Ungroup options.

To display polygons:

The following shows how a revolved surface is represented when you change the splines to polygons.

To display a curve-on-surface element:

When viewed in the SBD window, a curve-on-surface element appears as a DAG node below the surface node itself, and is marked with a vertical wavy line.

To move it back onto the surface, select Pick > Object types > Curve on surf, click the curve-on-surface box in the SBD window, and then use Xform > Move.

To display trimmed and untrimmed objects:

If a curve-on-surface element is present on a surface, the system automatically assumes that this surface has been set up for a trimming operation. The SBD window displays the surface as a target surface, which can be used in a trim operation.

When a surface has been trimmed, curves-on-surface that define the trim boundaries are absorbed into the surface defintion and are no longer displayed below the trimmed surface node. Untrimming will turn these trim boundaries back into curves-on-surface, displayed below the surface node.

To display construction planes:

The following shows a construction plane in the perspective and SBD windows. This construction plane can be created using Grids > Free Plane or Grids > Surface Plane.

To display animation:

If a DAG node, camera, image plane or CV of some geometry is animated, its box in the SBD window becomes a slanted parallelogram.

To display clusters:

A geometry node that is part of a selected cluster has an additional blue rectangle around its node. If the cluster is unpicked, the blue rectangle around the geometry box disappears.

To pick clusters:

To pick a cluster from the Cluster List window, click directly on the name of the cluster. (For information on the Cluster editor, see the Animating in Alias book.)

To toggle its pick status, click on the cluster's name.

If you select cluster in the Cluster List window, the leaf DAG node above the cluster is also picked, as in the side example.

To display skeletons:

When you create each joint, Alias creates a bone in the modeling windows with its pivot point at the new position, and adds a DAG node to the SBD display.

The following shows the hierarchical display of a skeleton's leg.

The following shows the SBD display for a lamp created using various modeling tools and the Objects > Draw skeleton function from the Tool Palette.

To add default lights and textures

When you perform a toggle shade, a quick render or a fast render, default lights are added to the scene.

The following example shows how the SBD window is updated with a toggle shade on a revolved object.

The following icon is also displayed in the SBD window as a separate transformation node beneath the Solid texture node.

See Windows Multi-lister in Rendering in Alias for more information.

In the MultiLister, the Solid or Environment texture icons display a cube with an arrow pointing upward to the right of the texture name.

To pick the camera node:

To access the camera's eye, view and up components, click the camera icon in the title bar of the Perspective window, or the camera's leaf DAG nodes in the SBD window using Pick > Component or Pick > Object.

To import image planes:

If you load an image plane into the perspective window, a green icon with a landscape outline appears below the camera's eye node in the SBD window.

If the image plane is loaded into an orthographic window instead, a new eye node appears with an image plane icon below it, as shown below.