Multi-lister

2

Multi-lister

The Multi-lister is the primary interface you use to create, edit, manage and display shaders, textures, lights, and the environment. You also use the Multi-lister to access the Control Window and the Color Editor.

In This Section:

• Multi-lister Overview 10
• Opening the Multi-lister 16
• Changing the Multi-lister Display 17
• Selecting an Environment, Shader, Texture, or Light 18
• Creating a Shader or Light 20
• Editing an Environment, Shader, Texture, or Light 21
• Saving and Loading an Environment, Shader, Texture, or Light 22
• Multi-lister Menus 23

Multi-lister Overview

The Multi-lister consists of a title bar, five menu buttons, and a swatch display area. The swatches represent the environment, shaders, textures, and lights contained in your scene. The title bar contains tools to control the display of swatches in the Multi-lister. The menu buttons contain tools to create, edit, manage, and display shaders, textures, lights, and the environment.

Title Bar

The title bar indicates the type of swatches listed in the Multi-lister. It also lets you control the display of swatches in the Multi-lister (text, small swatches, large swatches), and lets you close, track, and minimize/maximize the Multi-lister window.

Swatches

On the left side of the swatch display area is a scroll bar, which you can use to scroll through the list of swatches if they cannot all be displayed in the Multi-lister at the same time.

There are four different types of swatches used in the Multi-lister: environment, shader, texture, and light.

These four types of swatches are used to represent:

• the environment (the scene's surroundings)

• shaders (surface materials)

• textures (two-dimensional or three-dimensional patterns)

• lights (lights that emit light and illuminate surfaces)

• forces (lights that emit a force)

• glows (shaders that produce a glow, and lights that produce a glow, halo, fog, or lens flare)

• warps (lights that warp a surface)

• particles (shaders and lights that emit particles).

Swatches are listed in the following order: the environment, shaders, lights. Shaders and lights are listed alphabetically by name. Textures are listed next to the environment, shader, or light they are mapped to.

All swatches consist of an image, which represents the appearance of the environment, shader, texture, or light, and a frame, which contains the swatch name and any icons.

The type of swatch image, and the way you use the swatch, is different for different swatch types. All swatches, however, share the following features.

You can select a swatch by clicking on it. You can select several swatches by Shift-clicking on them. By double-clicking a swatch, you open the Control Window. You can then edit any parameter for that particular environment, shader, texture, or light. See Control Window on page 33.

You can edit the swatch name by double-clicking on the name and typing a new name. You can change the resolution of the swatch's image by click-dragging the white triangle on the right side of the swatch either up (higher resolution) or down (lower resolution).

If an environment, shader, texture, or light has a texture mapped to one of its parameters, the swatch will have an arrow in its bottom right corner. By clicking on this arrow, you can toggle the display of the texture in the Multi-lister.

If you have animated a parameter of an environment, shader, texture, or light, the swatch will have a diamond in its bottom left corner. By click-holding on this diamond, you can play back the animation of the swatch.

Shader Swatches

See Shaders on page 71.

A shader swatch uses a sphere to represent the appearance of a surface. By Alt-clicking on different parts of the sphere, you can open the Color Editor and edit the shader's Color, Specular, or Incandescence settings. By click-dragging on the sphere's highlight, you can interactively edit the shader's Shinyness or Eccentricity value.

Surface Texture Swatches

See Surface Textures on page 127.

A surface texture swatch displays the two-dimensional texture. By Alt-clicking on the top half of the swatch, you can open the Color Editor and edit the texture's Rgbmult setting. By Alt-clicking on the bottom half of the swatch, you can open the Color Editor and edit the texture's Rgboffset setting. By click-dragging anywhere in the swatch, you can interactively edit the texture's Urepeat and Vrepeat values.

See Positioning Surface Textures on page 132.

A surface texture swatch has two texture mapping symbols in its bottom right corner. By clicking on one of these symbols you activate either 2D mapping or 3D mapping.

The File and Stencil textures appear black in the Multi-lister until you specify an image file for them.

Environment Texture and Solid Texture Swatches

See Environment Textures on page 105 and Solid Textures on page 183.

An environment or solid texture swatch uses a two-dimensional pattern to represent the three-dimensional texture. By Alt-clicking on the top half of the swatch, you can open the Color Editor and edit the texture's Rgbmult setting. By Alt-clicking on the bottom half of the swatch, you can open the Color Editor and edit the texture's Rgboffset setting.

See Texture Placement Objects on page 96.

An environment or solid texture has a texture placement symbol in its bottom right corner. By clicking on this symbol you can display the texture's Texture Placement Object in the modeling windows.

The Ball, Cube, Sphere, Projection, and Volume textures appear black in the Multi-lister until you specify an image file or series of image files for them. The sCloud texture always appears black in the Multi-lister; the shader it is mapped to displays the actual texture.

Light Swatches

See Lights on page 225.

A light swatch represents a light as viewed from 10 units away with a 20 degree field of view. By Alt-clicking the swatch you can open the Color Editor and edit the light's Color parameter.

A light swatch has a light type symbol in its top left corner. If the light has a force component, the light swatch will also have a force type symbol. If the light is linked to a surface, the light swatch will also have an L symbol. If a light's link to a surface is exclusive, the light swatch will also have an E symbol.

Menus

See Multi-lister Menus on page 23.

The Multi-lister menus contain tools to create, edit, manage, and display shaders, textures, lights, and the environment. To display a menu, click and hold the mouse on a menu button at the bottom of the Multi-Lister window. The default active menu item is displayed below each button.

Opening the Multi-lister

You must open the Multi-lister to create, edit, manage, and display shaders, textures, lights, and the environment.

To open the Multi-lister:

• Select Windows > Multi-lister to display the Multi-lister menu. The menu item you use to open the Multi-lister will determine the type of swatches listed in the Multi-lister.

You can display:

• a specific type of swatch (select Shaders, Lights, Glows, Forces, Particles, Warps)

• selected (picked) lights and/or shaders that are assigned to active (picked) objects (select Picked)

• all swatches: the environment, and all shaders, lights, and textures (select List all).

See Changing the Multi-lister Display on page 17.

After you open the Multi-lister, you can change the type of swatches listed.

If there are no shaders or lights in memory, the Multi-lister lists two swatches: the environment and the default shader.

You can position the Multi-lister window anywhere on the screen, resize it or stow it, like any other Alias window.

Changing the Multi-lister Display

You can change the type, size, or style of swatches listed in the Multi-lister. For example, if you have many shaders, texture, and lights, you may want to only display lights, or to display small swatches, or low resolution swatches, to speed up the Multi-lister display.

To change the type of swatches listed in the Multi-lister:

See List Menu on page 28.

• From the List menu in the Multi-lister, select one of the following: All, Shaders, Lights, Forces, Glows, Picked, Linked Lights, Non-excl Lights, Warps, or Particles.

To change the size or style of swatches in the Multi-lister:

• Click one of the following icons in the Multi-lister title bar:

To change the resolution of a swatch in the Multi-lister:

1

Click the swatch to make it active.

2

Click-drag the white triangle on the right side of the swatch (up to increase resolution, down to decrease resolution)

Selecting an Environment, Shader, Texture, or Light

You must select an environment, shader, texture, or light in order to use the Control Window to edit its parameters, or to use many of the Multi-lister menu tools. You can select one or many shaders, texture, lights, and/or the environment.

To select a shader, light, texture, or the environment:

• Click on the swatch in the Multi-lister. The selected swatch is highlighted in white.

If the Control Window and/or Color Editor are open, their displays update with the parameters for the selected swatch in the Multi-lister.

If the selected environment, shader, light, or texture has a texture mapped to one of its parameters, the corresponding texture swatch in the Multi-lister is also selected and partially highlighted in white.

To select several shaders, lights, textures, and/or the environment:

• Shift-click on the swatches in the Multi-lister. The first selected swatch is highlighted in white, and all other selected swatches are highlighted in grey.

Creating a Shader or Light

When you start a new scene, there is only the environment and one shader (the DefaultShader) defined (and assigned to all objects). You can create a new shader (based on the DefaultShader) or light, or copy a shader or light that you have customized.

Shader#1 and Light#1 are not used explicitly as names; the first shader or light with a given name is implicitly numbered 1.

By default, shaders and lights are named sequentially as you create them: DefaultShader, Shader, Shader#2, and so on, and Light, Light#2, and so on. To avoid confusion, however, you should name all your shaders and lights as you create them. If you let the system assign default names and later combine two or more files, all shaders and lights will be renumbered to avoid duplicate names. It may then become difficult to distinguish shaders and lights by name.

To create a new shader:

See New Shader on page 25.

• In the Multi-lister, select Edit > New Shader. A new shader swatch appears in the Multi-lister. The new shader has the same properties as the DefaultShader.

See Creating a Light on page 226.

To create a new light using the Multi-lister:

See New Light on page 25.

• In the Multi-lister, select Edit > New Light. A new point light swatch appears in the Multi-lister and in the modeling windows at 0,0,0.

To copy a shader or light:

1

In the Multi-lister, click on the swatch of the shader or light you want to copy.

See Copy on page 25.

2

In the Multi-lister, select Edit > Copy. A new shader or light swatch appears in the Multi-lister. The new shader/light has the same properties as the original shader/light.

Editing an Environment,
Shader, Texture, or Light

To edit a shader, texture, light, or the environment:

See Control Window on page 33.

1

Double-click the environment, shader, texture, or light swatch in the Multi-lister to open the Control Window.

2

Edit the parameters to customize the environment, shader, texture, or light.

To change the name of an environment, shader, texture, or light:

1

Double-click the name of the environment, shader, texture, or light in the swatch in the Multi-lister.

2

Type in the new name and press Enter.

You cannot give an environment, shader, texture, or light the same name as any other shader, texture, or light, or object in your scene. This is because the SDL file uses the same naming convention for shaders, textures, lights, and objects. If you attempt to enter a name that is already in use, the system will display a warning that the shader, texture, light, or environment will be renamed. The system then assigns a number after the name to make it unique.

If you want your shaders to have the same names as the objects to which they are assigned, you can assign object names with all lowercase letters and shader names with mixed case letters. This creates enough of a difference in a UNIX-based system that each name is considered as unique.

To delete a shader, texture, or light:

1

In the Multi-lister, click on the swatch of the shader, texture, or light you want to delete.

See Active on page 30.

2

In the Multi-lister, select Delete > Active.

Saving and Loading an Environment, Shader,
Texture, or Light

You can save a shader, texture, light, or environment to a file that is independent from your scene's wire file to create a library. You can then load a saved shader, texture, light, or environment into any other scene.

To save an environment, shader, texture, or light:

1

Click on the swatch in the Multi-lister.

See Save as, Save on page 24.

2

From the File menu in the Multi-lister, select either Save or Save as.

• If you select Save, the shader, texture, light, or environment will be saved under its current name.

• If you select Save as, you can specify a different name to save the shader, texture, light, or environment under.

To load an environment, shader, texture, or light:

See File Menu on page 23.

1

From the File menu in the Multi-lister, select either Shader Browse, Texture Browse, Light Browse, or Environment Browse to open the File Requestor.

2

Use the File Requestor to select the shader, texture, light, or environment you want to load, and click either Load Shader, Load Texture, Load Light, or Load Environment.