Autodesk 12812-051462-9011 User Guide 3 - Page 1681

XRef Objects File menu > XRef Objects Externally referenced objects, XRef objects, appear in your master (current) scene, but are actually referenced from external 3ds Max files. As a result, the source objects are protected from modifications you make to the XRef objects. Updates or changes made to the source objects are also updated in the master file when the source scene is reloaded. However, if an XRef object's entities are merged, the controls are local and can be modified. Therefore, they no longer reference the original attributes. For example, if you set the Modifiers option on page 6946 of the XRef Objects dialog on page 6941 to XRef or Ignore, the only entry in the modifier stack will be "XRef Object." You can add additional modifiers to the object, but you cannot access the original ones unless you merge the XRef object into the scene. If you merge the modifiers into the master scene, you can edit them in the stack. However, changes that you make to the modifier stack in the master file have no effect in the source file. An externally referenced object can be animated in the master file only if its transform controller has been merged. In other words, no animation can be added or blended with an XRef controller. However, an offset can be added, but it then applies to the whole animation, and the offset cannot be animated. NOTE The XRef behavior of world-space modifiers is different than the object-space modifiers. World-space modifiers are not externally referenced. They are always merged. Transforms and manipulators in your source file will be treated according to the Merge Transforms and Merge Manipulators setting in the XRef Objects dialog. 6936 | Chapter 23 Managing Scenes and Projects