SolidWorks - Options

The Scene Manager's Options page controls various options which affect the behavior of the plugin on a global basis; that is, they are not related to any particular document.

User Interface

Option	Description
Show Tab Text	Shows or hides text on the Scene Manager tabs.
Restore Windows On Load	Sets whether or not the plugin should re-open windows which were opened at the end of the last session.
Use Custom Cursors	Enabling this may cause cursor issues on some video cards; it may be fixed by disabling cursor acceleration.
Use Custom File Dialog	Enabling this causes the plugin to provide a file dialog which is able to show previews for MXM, MXI, etc., files. It may be useful to disable this if the files you browse are large.
Color Picker	Sets whether to use the Windows, SolidWorks, or the plugin’s custom color picker.
Decimal Precision	Sets the precision for the plugin’s numeric inputs.
UI Preferences	Contains various settings related to the UI color theme.

Behavior

Option	Description
Ignore Linked Mxm Mode	Prevents any Linked Materials from reloading their linked MXMs at document-load.
Auto-update Linked Materials	Causes Linked Materials to actively monitor their linked MXM files.
Disable Path Check	At MXS export time, the plugin checks all texture paths; this takes some time, and it may be disabled using this option.

Interaction

Option	Description
Overlay OpenGL	When the Maxwell Fire image is shown in the viewport, this option controls whether the host application's OpenGL view is drawn transparently over the rendering Maxwell Fire image. This setting controls whether this is done when CTRL is pressed, when CTRL is not pressed, or not at all.
Verbose Messages	Enables more detailed command-line reporting.
Suppress Warnings	Suppresses ‘overwrite?’ types of messages, answering them in the affirmative instead of asking.
Disable Update Check	The plugin checks for newer versions and notifies you when there are; enabling this option suppresses this notification.

Material Defaults

Option	Description
MXM Mode	Sets whether or not newly-created materials will have linking enabled.
Preview Scene	Sets which MXS preview scene should be used in new materials.
Preview Threads	Sets how many threads to use during preview-refresh.
Preview SL	Sets what SL (sampling level) to use in newly-created materials.
Preview Save Quality	Sets the save quality used in newly-created materials.

Default Output

Option	Description
Scene Name	This is the name which will be used when Output > Name is empty.
Working Folder	This is the directory which will be used when Output > Folder is empty.
Use Document Path	When Output > Folder and Default Output > Working Folder are empty, then this option sets whether the plugin should try to write output to the current document’s directory, or to the default plugin output directory (located in your Documents folder). When this is enabled, the plugin will prefer to write to the current document’s directory, though it may still write to the default folder when the document has not been saved yet.

Network

Option	Description
Start Node	Determines whether to start a Network Node on this machine when exporting to the network.
Start Manager	Determines whether to start the Network Manager on this machine when exporting to the network.
Bind Node To	Specifies the IP address to which the Network Node will be bound.
Bind Monitor To	Specifies the IP address to which the Network Monitor will be bound.

Search Paths

Option	Description
Perform Path Checking	Sets whether or not the plugin should try to fix broken paths (i.e. textures, etc.) automatically.
Search Depth	Sets how many folders deep the plugin should search when attempting to locate missing files. This feature is not intended to allow the establishment of inherently-broken workflows, in which many file references are routinely invalid. A maximum of 255 directories, total, will be searched. If MXM (or other) files with broken references are routinely used, it is recommended that they be placed together in a directory, with their textures contained either in the same directory, or a "textures" subdirectory, next to the MXM files. To fix broken paths in a given MXM, open the file in MXED; you will be asked to locate missing textures; if all missing textures are able to be found in the same directory as the chosen texture, they will all be fixed at once, and the MXM can then be saved, storing in it the corrected paths.
Check File Version	Thumbnails and preview images for textures are cached by the plugin; this means that once a large bitmap has been loaded, it need not be loaded again, and this saves much processing time. It is a problem, however, if you edit a file which has already been cached during the session – the changes will not be seen in the plugin. Enabling this option will cause the plugin to physically check whether the file version has changed each time a particular cached bitmap is accessed, updating it if the current file is newer than what is cached.
IOR Files Folder	This is the folder which will be searched first when looking for missing IOR files.
Textures Folder (1-5)	These are folders which will be searched when looking for missing texture files.