Disabling Modifiers to Increase Interface Responsiveness

As you develop your 3d models and scenes, you inevitably come to a point where the responsiveness of the 3D View begins to diminish. There are many ways to deal with this issue, but one way that may not be too obvious is to simply temporarily disable the effects of some modifiers in the 3D View.

This works really well for modifiers that add geometry or objects to the scene, such as:

• Subsurf
• Particles
• Mirror
• Array

For example, you add a Level 2 Subsurf to a model in a scene and begin working on some other aspect of the scene. You can temporarily disable the Surbsurf effects for any existing models while still having the Subsurf applied during the render. This lightens the load for the 3D View and increases the interface's responsiveness as you continue to work on other aspects of your scene. Using this strategy in a scene containing several objects with multiple modifier's applied can result in a significant increase in performance.

To disable a modifier's effects in the 3D View, simply deselect the button indicated below. This same button can be found on the control panel of all modifiers and is enabled by default.


Also, note that you can disable a modifier's effects during a render and in the editing mode by toggling the appropriate button.

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