These controls are located at the bottom right of the active World View.
Multi-Edit Objects
Toggle: When this button is on
(highlighted in yellow ) and you have multiple
items selected, whatever you do with them in the World View (with the Edit
Sphere or the mini-slider gadget-- see below), such as move
or rotate, will happen to all of those items. If there are
items that you will often want to manipulate together, you can make
a Group out of those
items and set the group to Auto-Select.
So any time you select any item in that group, the whole
group will be selected and you can multi-edit them.
Channel Group (pulldown
list): Use this list to select which type of channel
group editing you want to do. For example if you select
All Channels, then whenever you make a keyframe for an item
it will make it for all channels of that item. This
setting is also important when you are using Transform Key Range,
working with the Dope Sheet, and working with the Motion Graph,
etc.
Independent Channel: Edits only the currently selected channel or channels. The channel you are working with for each item is remembered, so when you switch to another item then switch back, it will still be set to edit on the channel you were using last. When you make a keyframe it will make it only for the current channel.
Independent Channel Group: Edits the current Channel Group (for example, all of Motion, or all of Rotation). Similar to the above, but when you make a keyframe it will make it for the channel group.
Synchronized Channel: All items will edit on the current channel. This makes it so whichever item you select, it will default to the same channel you were using with the previous item. For example, if you are using channel Y, it will create a keyframe on channel Y only. Then if you switch to another item, it will also be using channel Y and when you move the item a keyframe will be created on channel Y only.
Synchronized Channel Group: All items will edit on the current channel group. This makes it so whichever item you select, it will default to the same channel group you were using with the previous item. For example, if you are using channel Y, it will create a keyframe on channels X, Y and Z (the motion channel group). Then if you switch to another item, it will also be using channel Y and when you move the item a keyframe will be created on channels X, Y and Z.
Note: The two Synchronized modes are intended to allow for the kind of "locked mode editing" that exists in other software. For example, when you work with LightWave, Maya, XSI, etc., you must choose Move, Scale, or Rotate when animating objects. However, messiah always had an "independent editing" system that allowed for, say, one object to be set to Rotate, and another to be set to Move. While the independent system allows you to set the mode once for each object, reducing redundant clicks, this can be difficult for users of other software. So, with the Synchronized modes, messiah can now operate like those other apps, while still retaining the ability to easily revert back to the Independent modes.
Motion (pos, rot): Edits the position and rotation channels only.
Object (pos, rot, scl): Edits the position, rotation, and scale channels.
Object All (pos, rot, scl, piv): Edits the position, rotation, scale, and pivot channels.
Extended (>11): Edits channels above channel 11. For example, the Zoom for the Camera is channel 12.
All Channels: Edits all channels.
Current Channel (pulldown
list): Use this pulldown to select which channel you want
to work with. This is useful if you have the Edit
Sphere or Slider hidden (ESC). You can also
choose a channel by pressing 0-9 on your keyboard (the main part of
the keyboard,
not the numeric pad).
Mini-Slider Gadget: Use this
to adjust the setting for the current channel (see above).
This is useful if you have the Edit Sphere or Slider
hidden, or if you don't want to use them. Click on the icon
and drag up or down to adjust.
Note: With sliders, using this mini-slider gadget will allow it to go higher than 1. This is perfectly OK, just make sure you're aware of it, because you might not want it to go higher.