Autodesk 12812-051462-9011 User Guide 3 - Page 1795

Blocks and Materials When assigning a material in 3ds Max to an instance of a block or block component, all the instances of that block or component are assigned the same material automatically. This is called automatic material propagation. This feature helps align 3ds Max behavior with that of AutoCAD Architecture. If you find that a material you've assigned to a block or block component is not what you wanted, you can undo the material assignment by choosing Edit menu > Undo or pressing Ctrl+Z. If you undo a material assignment, the undo will propagate to all instances of the objects to which you assigned the material. NOTE When assigning a material to a block or block component, you are not prompted to accept or cancel the material propagation. You can only control propagation of materials by toggling Propagate Materials To Instances on page 5328. For more information about working with materials and assigning materials to blocks in 3ds Max, see the Material Editor, Materials, and Maps on page 5259 topic. Multi-View Blocks (MVBlocks) 3ds Max accommodates both AutoCAD blocks and AutoCAD Architecture multi-view blocks through the file linking functionality, and for the most part the two block types behave similarly in 3ds Max with some exceptions. The structure of AutoCAD Architecture multi-view blocks is expressed differently than AutoCAD blocks in 3ds Max. Rather than peer into the internal structures of multi-view blocks, as is done with AutoCAD blocks, 3ds Max relies on the multi-view block's own ability to draw its own 3D view, much as it does in the AutoCAD Architecture Object Viewer. Because of this, you will notice that multi-view blocks never exhibit nesting in their object structure when they are file linked into 3ds Max. Behavior of instanced AutoCAD Architecture multi-view objects is different from that of AutoCAD blocks as well. Multiple instances of multi-view blocks require more memory in 3ds Max than do multiple instances of AutoCAD blocks. But multiple instances of multi-view blocks are better behaved when being cut by live section objects than their AutoCAD counterparts. 7050 | Chapter 23 Managing Scenes and Projects