About Views

There are two view types in Composer, normal and custom views.

• Normal views capture all non-neutral viewport properties: positions and properties of all actors, actor visibility, camera position and zoom scale, Digger position, and so on.

  Note: Only the properties of visible objects are stored in views.

• Custom views, also known as intelligent views, capture only the actors and properties you specify. When you apply a custom view to a normal view, only the captured properties are applied. For example, you can apply a custom view that captures only camera position to one or more normal views.

Each view has a preview thumbnail image. Thumbnails for custom views have diagonal lines and shading.

Normal View	Custom View

The active view is the one that is currently displayed in the viewport, and on which you are performing modifications (such as moving or adding actors, changing actors' properties, etc.).

The active view is surrounded by a thick border in the Views pane. This enables you to differentiate between the active view and other views which may be selected (these are surrounded by a thin border and highlighted).

Active View, not selected: surrounded by a thick border	Active View, selected: surrounded by a thick border and highlighted	Inactive View, selected: surrounded by a thin border and highlighted

Note: When the mouse focus is in the Views panel, the color surrounding the active view and selected view(s) is a light blue. When the Views panel loses the focus, the color surrounding the active view and selected view(s) turns to a light gray.

There are a number of things you should know about views.

• You can create normal views and perform many view-management operations from the Views pane. To create custom views and perform customized update operations, use the Views workshop.
• When you modify your scene and then switch views, you are prompted to update the view or create a view.
• When you open a model in View mode, the first view listed in the Views pane is displayed. See Project.
• Composer animates the transition between views. You can control the animation using Animation document properties. To ensure smooth animation between views, use the same Camera Perspective Mode for each view. See Animation and Status Bar.
• The Define actor visibility in views by option specifies how view definitions store actor visibility, which affects file size and update behavior. See Update.
• You can create animations by dragging views to the timeline. For example, drag the view showing initial actor positions to the beginning of your timeline and then drag the view showing final positions to a later time.

  Note: If collaborative actors do not appear in the animation, click in the timeline and then change collaborative actor visibility (for example, click Home > Visibility > Visibility > Show All or press Ctrl+T). To change actor visibility, set Opacity property keys.

• When you play a view, if an object becomes or remains invisible between views, its properties are not modified.