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Property

Object Hierarchy | Related C++ Class: Property

Inheritance

SIObject
   ProjectItem
       Property

Description

The Property object represents a property of a SceneItem. For example, Softimage objects which have Properties include X3DObject, Model, Null, XSIProject, Group, Scene and Cluster.

Note: It is important to distinguish between the Softimage Property, which is a specific type of object, and the properties that are part of a scripting object's API (along with its methods). Similarily it is important to distinguish this object from Softimage Parameter objects, which are usually individual numeric attributes of an object. One visual way to think of the difference is to realise that a Property is represented by a Property Page and its Parameters are the individual sliders on that page.

Some properties, for example Visibility and Geometry Approximation, do not have specific objects in the Object Model and are represented with this Property object. Other Properties have their own specialized objects which inherit from Property, for example Material, ClusterProperty, UserDataMap, CustomProperty and StaticKinematicState.

A Property object may be local or shared. The SceneItem.LocalProperties property is convenient for finding just the local Properties on the parent object. The MakeLocal command can be used to make a local copy of a shared Property. The ProjectItem.Owners property can be used to find all owners of a shared Property. Because a shared property has multiple parents, the SIObject.Parent property can return different objects, depending on the context.

Often, the state of a Property object is exposed as Parameter objects. Other state is exposed as specific properties on the object, for example ClusterProperty.Elements and Material.CurrentImageClip.

Methods

Properties

Examples

1. VBScript Example

'VBScript Example demonstrating the creation of a custom property
newscene ,false
set nullObj = Application.ActiveProject.ActiveScene.Root.AddNull

set customProp = nullObj.AddProperty("Custom_parameter_list",, "MyCustomParam")

'You can also access this property by name
set customProp = nullObj.Properties.Item("MyCustomParam")

'Custom Properties allow you to create your own paramters
customProp.AddParameter "DoubleCustomParam", siDouble, , siReadOnly, _
                            , , , 0.695, 0.0123, 10.456

LogMessage "Custom Property Name: " & customProp.Name
LogMessage "Custom Property Fullname: " & customProp.FullName
LogMessage "Custom Property Type: " & customProp.Type

'Output of this script:
'INFO : "Custom Property Name: MyCustomParam"
'INFO : "Custom Property Fullname: null.MyCustomParam"
'INFO : "Custom Property Type: customparamset"

2. VBScript Example

'vbscript: Example of Shared and Local Properties in Softimage

newscene , false

'Create a cylinder.  By default it will have several 
'local and inherited properties
set oCyl = ActiveSceneRoot.AddGeometry( "Cylinder", "NurbsSurface" )

PrintPropertyList oCyl.LocalProperties, "LocalProperties of Cylinder"
PrintPropertyList oCyl.Properties, "Properties of Cylinder"

'We can access properties by name
set oKine = oCyl.Properties( "Kinematics" )

set oMaterial = oCyl.Properties( "Scene_Material" )

'However code like the previous line that assumes what the name 
'of the material will be not ideal, because the material could 
'be renamed as follows:
oMaterial.Name = "MyMaterial"

'So this is a safer way to access the material property
set oMaterial = oCyl.Material
logmessage "New material Name: " & oMaterial.Name

'Material is an example of a Shared Property
PrintPropertyList oMaterial.Owners, "Owners of Material "

'Because we accessed the shared object via the Cylinder it will
'say that the cylinder is the parent
logmessage "Parent of Material: " & oMaterial.Parent

'This is still the same Material
logmessage "Another parent of same material: " & _
           ActiveSceneRoot.Material.Parent

'This will give the cylinder its own copy of the material
MakeLocal oCyl.Material
logmessage "Number of owners after calling MakeLocal: " & _
           oCyl.Material.Owners.Count

'Little helper routine to print out a collection
sub PrintPropertyList( in_PropCollection, in_strHeading )
   logmessage in_strHeading & " : "

   dim  oProp
   for each oProp in in_PropCollection
       logmessage "        " & oProp.Name
   next
end sub

See Also

Autodesk Softimage v7.5     <     >