Although the following procedure explains how to use overrides on groups, you can do the same thing with render-pass partitions (see Passes & Partitions [Rendering]) in a render pass, or even with scene layers (see Scene Layers [Scene Elements]).
Setting Object Visibility Properties
Each object in the scene has its own set of visibility controls that allow you to control how objects appear in the scene, or whether they appear at all.
For example, you may wish to temporarily exclude objects from a render but retain them in the scene. This can come in handy when you are working with complex objects and want to reduce lengthy refresh times.
You can also control how shadows, reflections, transparency, final gathering, and other attributes are rendered. Each geometric object’s visibility property editor has a variety of options that can be selected individually or combined with others to achieve the desired effect.
To set visibility properties for selected objects
1. In a 3D view, select the object whose visibility options you want to set.
2. Do one of the following
- Open an explorer (press 8) and expand the object’s node.
or
- Click the Selection button in the Select panel to display the selected object’s property nodes.
3. Click the Visibility node to open the object’s Visibility property page.
4. On the Rendering tab, you can toggle any of the following options to generally control the object’s visibility when the scene is rendered.
- Render Visibility: displays the object in the rendered image. Toggling this option off overrides all other settings on the Rendering tab.
- Ray Visibility > Primary: controls whether the object is visible to all rays emitted from the camera, including transparency rays.
- Ray Visibility > Secondary: controls whether the object is visible to secondary rays such as reflection, refraction, final gathering, photon lighting, and so on.
5. The Instance Master Hidden option allows you to hide the object if it is part of a master model hierarchy.
This is especially useful with particle and hair instancing, where you often don’t want the master hierarchy in the rendered images.
6. On the Rendering tab, you can also adjust options to give you fine control over the following surface attributes:
- Shadow options control whether the object can cast and/or receive shadows. For details, see Shadow Casters and Receivers [Lights and Cameras].
- Transparency/Reflection/Refraction options control whether the object can display these attributes, and how the object responds to rays of these types. For details, see Casting and Visibility Options [Material and Shader Basics].
- Final Gathering options control the way that the object participates in final gathering computations, provided you render the scene using final gathering. For details, see Setting Final Gathering Visibility Options [Indirect Illumination].
- Caustic and Global Illumination options control the way that the object responds to caustic and global illumination photons emitted by scene lights. For details, see Setting Photon Casting, Receiving and Visibility [Indirect Illumination].
7. Also on the Rendering tab, the Geometry > Visible Face options allow you to specify face-culling options for when the object is rendered:
- Inherited: if the object is a model instance, inherits its face-culling from the instance master. If the object is not a model instance, this value has no effect. For more about visibility properties for instances, see the following section: Visibility Options and Model Instances.
- Back Face Only: only the back-facing portions of the object's surface are rendered.
- Front Face Only: only the front-facing portions of the object's surface are rendered.
- Both Faces Visible: no face-culling occurs.
8. On the display tab, set the following General options to activate or deactivate any of the following, as needed:
- View Visibility: controls whether the object is displayed in the 3D views. Turning off View Visibility will not affect the rendered image.
- Selectability: determines whether the object can be selected in the 3D views.
9. You can also set the Animation options to control ghosting for the object, if the object is animated. For a full description of ghosting options, see Ghosting Animated Objects [Animation].
Creating Visibility-Option Groups
In complex scenes, you may want toggle the same visibility options for several objects. A good example of this is scenes that use caustics and global illumination, where you’ll most likely want to define which objects are caustic/global illumination casters, which are receivers, and which are both (or neither). The more objects in your scene, the more complicated this type of thing can be to manage.
A good way to alleviate some of this complexity is to use groups and overrides to set visibility options for several objects at once. So, in the case of photon lighting, you might create a casters group and a receivers group for both caustics and global illumination. You can then turn an object into, say, a global illumination receiver by adding it to the appropriate group. If you later decide that it shouldn’t be a receiver, simply remove it from the group. To control which visibility options affect the members of a group, all you need to do is apply an override.
For more information about groups and overrides, see Grouping Objects and Overriding Properties [Scene Elements].
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Although the following procedure explains how to use overrides on groups, you can do the same thing with render-pass partitions (see Passes & Partitions [Rendering]) in a render pass, or even with scene layers (see Scene Layers [Scene Elements]). |
To create visibility-option groups
1. Select the objects whose visibility options you wish to toggle.
2. From the Edit panel, click the Group button. The selected objects are added to a new group.
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It’s a good idea to give the new group a meaningful name from the start. Make sure the name indicates whether the group contains shadow casters or receivers. |
3. Open an explorer (press 8) and select the new group.
4. With the new group selected, choose Get > Property > Override from the Render toolbar. The Override property editor opens.
5. Click the Add Parameters button to open a pop-up explorer.
6. Expand any object’s Visibility node and Locate and select one or more parameters that you wish to toggle for the new group (shadow caster, reflection receiver, final gathering sampling visibility, and so on).
Hold down Shift while selecting to add multiple parameters to the selection. Then Click outside of the pop-up explorer to accept the selection.
7. The selected parameter(s) now appears in the override property editor. Activate it.
Because this overrides the local properties of each object in the group, toggling a parameter in the override property editor turns it on or off for all objects in the group.
Visibility Options and Model Instances
By default, model instances inherit their visibility properties from the instance master. When you modify visibility properties for the master model, or any object in its hierarchy, the results are propagated to all of the instances.
Instances do have visibility properties of their own, but they are limited in the sense that they allow you to set visibility options for the entire instance hierarchy, but not for individual objects within that hierarchy. Toggling a visibility option on or off affects the entire instance.
Before you can change or override an instance’s visibility options, you need to specify that those options are no longer inherited from the parent object, but controlled by the instance’s own visibility property. This is explained in the next two sections.
For more information about instances, see Instantiating Models [Data Management].
Setting Visibility Properties for Model Instances
By default, model instances inherit their visibility properties from the instance master. To set different parameter values for individual instances, you need to specify which parameters should not be inherited, which you can do by checking the unlabeled check box next to the parameters that you wish to change for the instance.
Overriding Visibility Properties on Model Instances
If you apply a visibility property override to a model instance, or a group containing a model instance, you need to specify that the parameters you wish to override are no longer inherited from the instance master. You can do this by adding each parameter’s Master Override parameter to the override.
So for example, if you want to override an instance’s primary ray visibility, you would add both Primary Ray Visibility and Primary Ray Visibility Master Override to the override.
You can then toggle the Primary Ray Visibility Master Override parameter to force the instance to use whatever Primary Ray Visibility setting is specified in the override. This is possible for most object visibility parameters.
For more information about overrides, see Overriding Properties [Scene Elements].
You can quickly hide and unhide selected objects in the 3D views using menu commands or the h shortcut key. This is a quick way to set the viewing visibility of a selected element.
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Hiding objects eliminates their visibility both in the 3D views and in the rendered output. |
To hide and redisplay selected objects in the viewports
1. Do one of the following:
- In any viewport, select the object you want to temporarily hide, and press h.
or
- From the main menu, choose Display > Hide/Unhide Selection.
The selected object is hidden in all geometric views but remains visible in the explorer (an H will appear on the icon of the hidden node). Hidden elements are not rendered in the render region nor do they appear in the final output.
2. Pressing h or choosing Display > Hide/Unhide Selection again redisplays the hidden object.
If you selected another element or modified the scene after you hid the object, pressing h or choosing Display > Hide/Unhide Selection again has no effect. In this situation, the hidden object can only be redisplayed by selecting its node in the explorer and pressing h or choosing Display > Hide/Unhide Selection again.
To hide and deselect selected objects in the viewports
• From the main menu, choose Display > Hide and Deselect.
The selected object is deselected and hidden in all geometric views but remains visible in the explorer (an H appears on the icon of the hidden node).
To hide unselected objects in the viewport
• From the main menu, choose Display > Hide Unselected Objects/Polygons.
Any unselected objects are hidden in all geometric views but remain visible in the explorer (an H appears on the icons of the hidden nodes).
To unhide all hidden objects in the viewports
• From the main menu, choose Display > Unhide All Objects.
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