[Figure 3-4] Figure Properties palette

Naming Figures
The default names of Figure 1 and Figure 2 can get confusing if you have several figures in the scene, so you should try to name your figures something descriptive like “Scary dude with a bad attitude who likes to kick dogs that cross his path.” Accessing the Properties palette lets you type a new name for the selected figure. Once a figure has a new name, this name will appear in the Figure Selection list.

Hiding Figures
With several figures in a scene, the redraw time can slow down, but you can speed up the redraw time by hiding the figures that you aren’t working with. To hide the selected figure, simply disable the Visible option in the Properties palette. This won’t delete the figure, but only hides it from view. Enabling the Visible option will make the figure visible in the Document Window again. You can also hide the current figure using Figure, Hide Figure (Ctrl/Command+H). The Figure, Show All Figures menu command makes all hidden figures visible.

If you’re worried about the redraw time in the Document Window, you can also look into using the Tracking option at the bottom of the Document Window or changing the Display Style.

Setting Other Properties
The Visible in Ray Tracing option causes the figure’s reflection to be cast to other objects in the scene when raytracing is enabled during the rendering phase. Raytracing is covered in Chapter 16, “Rendering Scenes.”

The Displacement Bounds value is used to set the maximum depth that a displacement map can indent an object. Displacement maps are discussed in more detail in Chapter 8, “Creating and Applying Materials.”

[Figure 3-5] Various figure heights

Setting a Figure’s Height
The default figure appears using a standard adult height, but you can change the selected figure’s height using the Figure, Figure Height menu command. The height of each option is measured relative to the size of the head. The height options include Baby, Toddler, Child, Juvenile, Adolescent, Ideal Adult, Fashion Model, and Heroic Model.

Figure 3-5 shows each of the various figure heights for the Ryan figure. Notice how the body’s proportion is changed along with its height.

Some of the default figures don’t change height very well. For example, the default SimonG2 cannot change into most of the smaller heights.