Q: I created a car using 3ds4. It consists of about 30 objects, these are all linked together in Keyframer so when I move the centre box everything else moves too (the rest of the car). However once I'd finished it and animated it I wanted to create other cars - identical in shape but with different colours. So I did a copy of the box in keyframer and created the other cars (using copy tree) - easy peasy - and then animated them. But when I went back to the basic "3d editor" of course only the one car was there. Is there any way to do a materials edit for the other 2 cars in the normal way, ie. Materials - choose - "blue metal" - assign to object etc.
Of course you can't do a copy tree in the 3d editor like in Keyframer because it just can't do it. DO I have to copy everything across seperately in the 3d editor! This I know would take hours because the objects no longer seem to make up a car in the 3ds editor but are sort of exploded all over the screen. ie. windscreen here, body there, lights there (coz they're not linked in the editor).
It's all fine when I go to the keyframer, everything lines up ok - but because it doesn't in the editor such a copy would be almost impossible.

Any ideas how I can:
1. change the surfaces on the other 2 cars.
2. create multi-linked objects that look ok when you go back to the 3d editor.

A: When you Clone objects in the Keyframer, you just place the same object on a new location. It is still the same mesh as the original, so you cannot have other texture informations for it. This is tha basic idea: You create ONE master object and copy it 100 times. If you change the master's mesh or material, you don't have to change the 100 copies - they will do all the changes automatically. Plus: the copies don't require memory in the KF - only in the renderer.
In your case, you have to use the Object Snapshot function in Keyframer. It creates a copy of the mesh from the KF in th 3D Editor. If you click on the parent object of the car, you can snapshot the sub-tree too. You get ONE OBJECT in the 3D Editor that is a copy of the mesh in the KF (including any Transformations like Move,Scale,Squash etc.) Then you have two options:

1)You can assume that the new copy of the car will keep the materials of the original. It is easier to assign new materials to each separate part of the master car. Then do the cloning again - you have a 3rd car with the new materials, and go to 1) In this way the car parts are like a factory that gives you more new versions of the car using Snapshot.

2) In 3D Editor, hide the original parts of the car. Only the whole new car object remains visible. Use Surface/Material/Show to select all the faces that have one material, and assign a new material on the face level. (Thsi is really a SECOND option... ;o)

BTW, the book "Inside 3D Studio" describes how to use the snapshot function as a modeling tool. Check it out!