The “Application Preferences” dialog can be accessed via the pulldown menu (Edit→Preferences). This dialog lets you set application-wide settings across several categories as described below.

These settings are basic, high level options for the Modeler.

Use this slider to increase the size of GUI components like fonts, icons, buttons, scrollbars, etc. This feature is particularly useful when running on high-resolution monitors (e.g., 4K monitors on laptops).

Note: The Display Scaling slider is preferable to using the operating system's tools to increase readability/usability.

Where possible, any operation that may result in the loss of a node edit will be delayed until the user permits it to proceed. This feature is in place to prevent the accidental loss of carefully edited model components.

When enabled, many of the Modeler's CPU intensive operations (like computing the model) will use all available logical CPUs.

Note: Collision is always performed in a background thread, regardless of this setting.

Enable this option to bypass the SpeedTree specific open dialog.

The settings in this group control the automatic background saves used for crash recovery.

Controls whether or not autosaving is allowed.

When enabled, a message will be printed to the console when an autosave occurs.

Sets how often autosaves happen.

The settings in this group apply to the Tree Window.

When enabled, the selection indication goes away as soon as an edit is made. This feature is to allow you to more easily see the edit but still be able to see what's selected as you pick different parts of the model.

Sets how tall (in generic units) the human indicator on the height stick is.

Selects when the Fan icon is shown.

The options in this group modify the default mouse control mechanism.

Change the direction of pan operations.

Change the direction of rotation operations.

Change the direction of zoom operations (including the mouse wheel).

Select the scheme used for mouse navigation. Options include “Default”, “Autodesk Maya”, and “Autodesk 3ds Max”.

The options in this group affect the behavior of the Property Bar.

Use this property to control what happens when you click a group heading in the property bar. “Reveals” expands the group where it is to show its properties. “Slams to top” moves that group to the top and reveals its properties.

Toggles whether scrolling is animated or instant.

Enables the standard mode where only the properties near the scroll position are revealed. The rest of the property groups are stacked above and below the scroll position for easier navigation. Disabling this mode shows the properties as a static list in each group.

The properties in this group control the graphics quality used when rendering the model in the Tree Window.

When the graphics driver allows application-controlled multi-sampling, use this option to enable/disable the feature and control the quality. Higher settings result in better anti-aliasing.

Note: Multi-sampling must be enabled for the “sample alpha to coverage” (A2C) transparency technique to work. This option applies to all newly created windows (existing windows will be unaffected).

The tree window uses depth maps for shadow effects. The edges of these shadows can be softened by sampling the depth map multiple times. Select how many times the depth map is sampled with this parameter. Higher values result in softer edges and slower render times.

Each material asset has a “Max resolution” setting. For any material using the “Default” setting for this property, this application preference value controls the maximum size of the largest dimension of any texture map loaded for that material.

Lower this value to decrease texture memory usage and increase rendering speed in the window.

Note: Actual exported texture resolutions will not be affected. This preference only governs texture usage inside of the Modeler.