Anders
Dahnielson

# User Interface

## Introduction

## Application Window

The Application Window is open at all times while you run &k3d;. Closing the Application Window ends your &k3d; session. You can use the Application Window to create new Documents and open existing ones; record macros and tutorials; play scripts; and edit your user Preferences.

### Application Window

## Document Window

You can have as many &k3d; Documents open at a time as you like. Just as &k3d; has an Application Window that remains open while the program is running, every open Document has an associated Document Window that remains open while you work on it. One of the most important sections of the Document Window is the Objects list, which displays all of the &k3d; Objects within your document.

The Document Window functionality will be replaced and extended by the DAG Window in the future. Giving you a better overview and control of your &k3d; documents.

### Document Window

### Transport Controls

Note the Transport Controls at the bottom of the Document Window, which are used to preview your animations before rendering. Each Document has a View Time that controls which moment within the time slice is visible within Camera Viewports. By using the Transport Controls to manipulate the View Time, you can preview an animation before rendering.

### Objects

Each &k3d; Document you create is made up of &k3d; Objects, and Objects is a list of Objects in a Document.

We can Highlight objects by clicking the Left Mouse Button on them within the Hierarchy, highlighting refers only to the object's appearance within the Hierarchy. We can Highlight multiple objects by holding-down CTRL while clicking on them.

The operation we're most likely to want to perform on an object after it's been created is to examine and alter its Properties. To do so, we simply Highlight the Object and hit the "Edit" Button. All of the controls and menus that you see in the Hierarchy apply to Highlighted objects.

### Undo / Redo

An important feature in &k3d; is its unlimited Undo / Redo system, which should encourage you to experiment with new ideas, while giving you the ability to easily undo mistakes. The Undo Stack displays a list of changes to your Document as you make them.

#### Document Undo / Redo

### Available Plugins

All &k3d;'s available plugin objects are listed here. It can either be a visual object like a sphere, or a object that just influence other objects in the scene. Objects has also properties that can be connected to other objects, or animated by channels.

#### Available Plugins

See for more details about the available plugin objects.

## Options

### User Interface

The options dialog holds various global options for the &k3d; application. You can use the User Interface panel to set &k3d; to load a regular &k3d; document as template every time you create a new scene.

#### Options User Interface

Start Blackbox Recorder Automatically At Startup: | Toggle if you want the blackbox recorder to log (great when filing bug reports)
Show Tutorials At Startup: | Toggle if you want the tutorial window to pop up when starting
Restore Window Size/Position: | Toggle if you want &k3d; to remember the placement of windows
Template Document: | Specify a template document to be used for all new documents
Preferred Language: | Specify the preferred language that will be used if a translation is aviable

### Render Engines

In the Render Engines you choose what RenderMan compliant renderer you want to use in the RenderManEngine by default. &k3d; currently supports Aqsis, BMRT (no longer available), PRMan, NetPRMan, 3Delight, RenderDotC and Pixie; note that Aqsis and Pixie is the only free (as is freedom) renderers.

#### Options Render Engines

### Applications

In the Applications panel you will find options for various external helping applications used by &k3d; to process content.

#### Options Applications

HTML Viewer: | Browser to be used when viewing HTML documents.
Bitmap Viewer: | Image Viewer to be used to view bitmaps
Shading Language Preprocessor: | Preprocessor to be used for shaders

### Paths

The Render Farm Path point to a directory that &k3d; will use to store RIB and image files when rendering previews.

#### Options Paths

## Command Node Inspector

The command node instpector will display the current component object model (COM) available for scripting.

### Command Node Inspector

## Script Editor

The script editor is a small built in text editor for convenient editing of scripts.

### Script Editor

Use the file menu to open and save scripts. Use the play button to run the script in the text buffer.