To view the light cones of selected and unselected spotlights, choose Cones from the eye icon menu.
There are many ways to view your scene in the 3D views. These viewing modes are available from the Views menu in viewports and from the View menu in the object view. These menus have somewhat different options:
• The viewports’ Views menu lists the various camera, spotlight, and viewpoint views from which you can view your scene, as well as other views, like editors and data views, that you can open in viewports.
• The object view’s View menu lists the various camera, spotlight, and viewpoint views from which you can view your scene, as well as a number of viewing options that are unique to the object view (see Object Views for more information).
The following sections describe the views available from both types of 3D view.
Camera views let you display your scene in a 3D view from the point of view of a particular camera. You can also choose to display the viewpoint of the camera associated to the current render pass.
The Render Pass view is also a camera view: it shows the viewpoint of the particular camera associated to the current render pass. Only a camera associated to a render pass is used in a final render.
Selecting a camera or the Render Pass item from a viewport’s Cameras menu switches the viewpoint to that of a “real” camera in your scene. All other views such as User, Top, Front, and Right are not associated to an actual camera.
The Default Camera View (Object View Only)
In addition to listing the cameras in your scene, the object view’s View > Cameras menu lists the Default camera. This camera is a special perspective view that the object view uses to view selected objects.
Spotlight views let you select from a list of spotlights available in the scene. Selecting a spotlight from this list switches the point of view in the active 3D view relative to the chosen spotlight. The point of view is set according to the direction of the light cone defined for the chosen spotlight.
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To view the light cones of selected and unselected spotlights, choose Cones from the eye icon menu. |
For more information about working with spotlights, see Lights and Shadows [Lights and Cameras].
Viewpoints show you the geometry of objects in a scene. They can be viewed in the render region, but they cannot be rendered like camera views.
You can also choose different display types to change the visual appearance of the objects seen in viewpoints (see Setting Display Options).
Top, Front, and Right Views
The Top, Front, and Right views are parallel projection views, called such because the object’s projection lines do not converge in these views. Because of this, the distance between an object and the camera has no influence on the scale of the object. If one object is close to the camera, and an identical object is farther away, both appear to be the same size.
The Top, Front, and Right views are orthographic, which orients the camera so it is perpendicular (orthogonal) to specific planes:
• The Top view faces the XZ plane.
• The Front view faces the XY plane.
• The Right view faces the YZ plane.
The X, Y, and Z buttons are displayed in the viewports’ and object view’s respective menu bars.
Clicking these buttons lets you quickly switch to a right, left, top, bottom, front, or back view of the selected object as shown in the following table:
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X Button |
Y Button |
Z Button |
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Left-click |
Right View (+X) |
Top View (+Y) |
Front View (+Z) |
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Middle-click |
Left View (-X) |
Bottom View (-Y) |
Back View (-Z) |
If there is no selection, the global axes are used. If multiple objects are selected, the first one is used.
Once an X, Y, or Z view is enabled, you can do one of the following:
• Click the button again to reset the view to how it was before you clicked the X, Y, or Z button.
• Click another of the X, Y, or Z buttons to switch to another view. Once again, clicking the button a second time resets the 3D view to how it was before you clicked any of the X, Y, or Z buttons.
• Press Shift and click an X, Y, or Z button to switch to the corresponding view and frame the selection simultaneously.
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You can tell which X, Y, Z view is active by looking at the buttons: the active view’s button appears depressed, so be nice to it. |
The User view is a user-defined viewpoint that shows objects in a scene from a virtual camera’s point of view. This view can be either perspective or orthographic.
• In the perspective view, objects appear to converge toward a central vanishing point, and objects closer to the camera appear larger than those farther away.
• In the orthographic view, objects remain in parallel projection with the view being perpendicular (orthogonal) to the XY plane in camera space.
The User point of view can be placed at any position and at any angle within the global 3D coordinate system. You can orbit, dolly, zoom, and pan in this view.
In addition to displaying various views of your scenes’ 3D geometry, viewports can display a variety of other views. Some of these are data views, like the explorer and schematic view, while others are editors, like property editors, the texture editor, the animation editor, and so on. Select any view from the menu to display it in the viewport.
You can create custom displays using the Custom Display Host, which allows you to run other applications within Softimage. These applications can interact in real time with Softimage scene data.
If you’ve created and installed custom displays, you can open them in viewports by choosing them from the Custom Displays sub-menu of the viewport’s Views menu. You can also open them in a floating window by choosing View > General > Custom Display Host from the main menu.
The Vertex Color tool, which appears by default, is an example of an application embedded using the Custom Display Host. For more information, see the Custom Display Host [Softimage Wiki].
Autodesk Softimage v.7.5