Layers and outliner, scenes and hiding
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I'm confused by the conflicting opinions on when to control visibility using hide/unhide, and when to use layers.
For example: I have modeled all the storefronts on both sides of one city block. Some, but not all, of these storefronts are going to be replaced. I need to display many different streetscapes with various combinations of old and new storefronts. I also need to be able to make all the stores on either side of the street invisible, so I can look through them to see the entire other side of the street at one time.
If I do all my modeling on layer0, that means that I will have multiple overlapping models of some storefronts (as-is, proposal#1, proposal#2, etc.). Don't know why, but that makes me nervous. Plus, it requires constant toggling of hide/unhide in order to work on them.
There has to be a better way. Thoughts, anyone?
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Do all your modeling on layer0 so that all geometry is on layer 0. But when you complete a storefront, move the entire storefront component onto its own layer. Then just the component container is on a different layer, but all its geometry is on layer 0. Then you turn on and off layers to show and hide various storefronts. And save Scenes that control layer visibilty only, so you can have a scene for proposal one, proposal 2, and on and on.
This seems to be the most sane way to manage this type of model in my opinion.
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This may help some as well?
http://www.srww.com/blog/?p=1419 -
I prefer to use Hide as a way to temporarily hide entities while working on the model but I use layers for controlling visibility. As Chris says, all geometry remains on Layer 0. Only components have other layer associations. One way to think of this is that turning off a layer's visibility activates a cloaking device around the the geometry. As long as each storefront proposal is a different component (or group) you will be safe having them occupying the same space and not showing unless you turn on the specific layer. I use this way of showing options on furniture all the time. It helps to keep the model tidy.
Make separate scenes for each proposal and change the scene visibility as appropriate for each one. All should be just fine then.
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