The Flex Render Settings determine how Flex Tubes are rendered.

When you have a tube selected and you select this option from the menu, the Render Settings property bar comes up:

The first three settings determine what the tube "glow" looks like.

Glow Opacity

This determines how much the background "bleeds through" the tube's glow. A higher value displays more glow and less background, whereas a lower value shows less glow and more background. A value around 75-80% is a good starting point.

Glow Softness

This determines how soft the glow effect is. Increase this value for a larger, more diffuse glow, and lower the value for a glow with a harder edge. A good range for this value is 1-3, with 2-2.25 being about average.

Glow Thickness

This determines how thick the glow effect is. A larger value will display a larger glow effect, and a smaller value will show a slight glow. The normal range of values is similar to Glow Softness, 1-3. Less than 1 will show a very slight glow, and above 3 is a heavy glow.

The three above settings can be adjusted to work together for a desired result, and none of them are in isolation. Here are some examples that show various values and combinations.

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The next two settings determine what the tube itelf looks like.

Inner Tube Feather

This determines the thickness and diffusion of the bright inner glow of the tube. The range of normal values is about .1 to .3. Values less than .1 will show a harder edged innerr tube, while values above .3 will be very diffused. The Inner Tube Feather shows both the highlight of light on the tube and helps to give the tube a rounded look.

Inner Tube Opacity

This determines how much the tube color bleeds through the inner tube. The range of values is 0-100%. At 100%, the inner tube will be completely white, and at 0% it will not show up at all and the tube will have no inner tube highlight. The practical range of values is probably 30-100%.

As with the glow settings above, the two Inner Tube settings work together to get the desired effect.

Group

Check this to apply these settings to the selected group.

Set as Default

Click this to set the current settings as the default to new tubes.

Please Note: the rendering of the tube may not be drawn when you are zoomed out. If you have Show Flex Tubes on, and you don't see the tube render, then please zoom in tighter.