Autodesk 3ds Max 9 3D animation software uses the latest technology advancements, such as 64-bit workstations, enabling you work with more complex scenes and create stunning 3D.

Hidden Line Display mode / Bitmap Proxies by Joshua

One of the easy missing but lovely new feature in 3ds Max 9 is the Hidden Line Display mode. It is a wireframe mode that hides faces and vertices with normals pointing away from the viewpoint, as well as any parts of objects that are obscured by closer objects.

Left - Wireframe display, Right - Hidden Line display.



To toggle the Hidden Line display mode, you just need to right-click on the viewport label, choose Other > Hidden Line.

Another new feature that helps us boost our productivity is Bitmap Proxies. Bitmap Proxies are intended for use primarily in the viewports when building and editing scenes to reduce the amount of memory required by the bitmapped textures, but you can also use them at render time.

Here is a high resolution (2160x1080) image that we will use to make the earth.



This kind of high resolution image will occupy a lots of memory of the Max scene and slow down the machine. To use Bitmap Proxies to tackle with this problem, go to the Render Scene dialog, click Setup in the Bitmap Proxies area.



Check Enable Proxy System and then choose one of the options in the Downscale map to.... dropdown list. Choose one of the three Render Mode according to your needs. Click the OK, Generate Proxies Now button.



3ds Max will now use a lower resolution image in the scene and free up the memory for other use.