Preview Window

The Preview Window with Actor Delphine Selected

The Preview Window or Preview Object Window has a quick render preview of the currently selected object in the object tree. This works for most objects, including actors, items, statics, etc.

The Preview Window can be accessed from the right-click menu in the Object Window, or from the Main Toolbar via View -> Preview Window.

The Preview Window automatically updates to display the current base ID selected in the Object Window, which makes it handy when browsing objects in that window. It may help performance to disable the preview window when not in use, however, if it is causing significant performance issues.

Any animations embedded in the .nif file can be previewed by selecting them from the Animation list in the lower-left part of the dialog.

Unfortunately, the camera controls for the Preview Window are a markedly different and simplified subset of those in the Render Window. This can take some getting used to.

• left-click - rotate the camera around the center of the object.
• mousewheel - zoom in and out.
• middle mouse - pan.
• right mouse - preferences, to ajust the movement speeds of the preview controls.
• W - wireframe.
• C - view object from the side, at a size that fills most of the viewing area.
• G - turn on/off the background ("ground plane").

Data Fields

• Havok
  • Run Havok Sim: Toggles the Havok physics simulation in the Render window. The physics simulation will only be run on the objects that are currently selected - everything else will be frozen. This is useful for "settling" items and corpses in a natural manner.
  • Reset: Returns the object to its origin.
• Background
  • BRG: Changes background color using specified values.
  • Select: Changes background to color selected from Color picker.
  • Use default: Reverts values to the default background color.
  • Background Texture: Changes the background to the specified DDS file.
• Wind
  • Speed: Not used.
  • Wind Dir: Not used.
• Ground Plane
  • On: Toggles the ground plane, as does the "G" key.
  • Height: Adjusts height of ground plane according to the slider value.
• LOD Slider: Not used.
• Focus Camera: Resets the camera's position to the default.
• Animations
  • Pause: Pauses an animation in progress.
  • Slider: Displays progress through current animation.
  • Animation Speed: How fast to play the preview animation, with 1.0 being normal speed.
  • Allow Movement: Whether to allow the object to move (translate) as part of its animation.
  • Animation Lists: Shows the available animations for object.
• Animation Notes: Not used.
• Script Events: Not used.