Multi selection options

rtweed

Is there a way, when you select some faces or vertices with a lasso or rectangle, to then un-select some of what you just selected, without having to shift-click on them all individually?

I've tried some key combinations like Shift, or Shift+Alt, etc., while using the lasso, but this just inverts the selection, so while it unselects the extra faces you don't want, it also ends up selecting more faces nearby that were in the lasso area, but weren't selected before. The best I've managed so far is going back and forth repeatedly shrinking the unwanted selection until it's quite small, then unselecting the remainder one item at a time. However that's very time consuming and in some cases, leads to points still being selected that shouldn't be, because it's hard to differentiate them from the points you did want selected.

A really common example of why you need this is you select something on the front of your model, but in doing so you also select everything at the back, which you don't want. It should be possible to simply go to the top view and unselect everything at the back. When I try to do this with Hexagon, I end up with the correct things selected at the front, but almost everything selected at the back except for a small "hole". That's worse than the original problem!

In some cases you can sort-of get around this with paint selection, but that's not a great solution when you want to select a large chunk of a detailed mesh, or if you're doing something more complicated.

patience55

rtweed said:

Is there a way, when you select some faces or vertices with a lasso or rectangle, to then un-select some of what you just selected, without having to shift-click on them all individually?

I've tried some key combinations like Shift, or Shift+Alt, etc., while using the lasso, but this just inverts the selection, so while it unselects the extra faces you don't want, it also ends up selecting more faces nearby that were in the lasso area, but weren't selected before. The best I've managed so far is going back and forth repeatedly shrinking the unwanted selection until it's quite small, then unselecting the remainder one item at a time. However that's very time consuming and in some cases, leads to points still being selected that shouldn't be, because it's hard to differentiate them from the points you did want selected.

A really common example of why you need this is you select something on the front of your model, but in doing so you also select everything at the back, which you don't want. It should be possible to simply go to the top view and unselect everything at the back. When I try to do this with Hexagon, I end up with the correct things selected at the front, but almost everything selected at the back except for a small "hole". That's worse than the original problem!

In some cases you can sort-of get around this with paint selection, but that's not a great solution when you want to select a large chunk of a detailed mesh, or if you're doing something more complicated.

You may find the use of "temporary Shading Domains" helpful.

rtweed

Is there any documentation on temporary shading domains? I tried searching but all that came up was more mentions on this forum without any explanation. Do you just mean creating shading domains normally, or is there some way to make them temporary? Is it possible for the same polygon(s) to be a member of more than one shading domain?

So far the best solution I've found to the original problem is to hide vertices/polygons that are likely to get selected by accident, rather than trying to remove them after they are selected. Of course it's not perfect because you have to know what's going to get selected by accident, which you normally only know after you've made the selection, so it involves a lot of back and forth,

patience55

rtweed said:

Is there any documentation on temporary shading domains? I tried searching but all that came up was more mentions on this forum without any explanation. Do you just mean creating shading domains normally, or is there some way to make them temporary? Is it possible for the same polygon(s) to be a member of more than one shading domain?

So far the best solution I've found to the original problem is to hide vertices/polygons that are likely to get selected by accident, rather than trying to remove them after they are selected. Of course it's not perfect because you have to know what's going to get selected by accident, which you normally only know after you've made the selection, so it involves a lot of back and forth,

Not likely to be any tutorials on the topic lol ... Hexagon is very good at zapping Shading Domains so until all the mesh work is totally finished any S.D. can be temporary whether or not so desired ;-)

Select the faces and click the 'new' button for to make a Shading Domain.
Can be "hidden" by clicking the little ball beside the name.
Then what is underneath can be selected and given another Shading Domain.
Be careful with "looping" though because hidden Shading Domains might still be caught in a loop selection.

The same face normal can be re-selected and given a different Shading Domain ... but any one face has at most only one Shading Domain.

To clear ALL Shading Domains, weld a line to another ... then go up top to Edit and select "undo". It'll undo the welding, zap the Shading Domains ... the welding will have zapped any uvmap too. Not guaranteed, but usually works this way.

patience55

Thought just crossed mind, ... you do know that you can click and then drag to select multiple faces I hope. Can't de-select this way though.
Hold down the Shift key to add ... if the click isn't "just so" it'll start to pull what was already selected, Edit > undo and try again.

Also when selecting a lot of faces, every now and then the whole selection goes 'poof' and only the last one selected is chosen. Do not panic. Just click Edit > undo once, maybe twice ... and then the large masse of selections will be back :-)

Roygee

There is unfortunately no method of multiple de-selecting. To avoid selecting back-faces, you need to be in solid (as opposed to transparent ) mode. The first icon - a cube - in the second group of icons from the left at the bottom of the screen toggles between solid and transparent.

ben98120000

Ctrl + shift + lasso/rect to deselect, but just the area you already have selected. Its something like on/off selection switch, so if you lasso/rect something that is selected, it will deselect it and if you lasso/rect something that is not selected it will select it.

Or first drag the lasso/rect and while still holding right mouse button, press and hold ctrl key. You should get little "-" (minus) sign next to lasso/rect so your lasso/rect will turn into just deselect tool.

patience55

ben98120000 said:

Ctrl + shift + lasso/rect to deselect, but just the area you already have selected. Its something like on/off selection switch, so if you lasso/rect something that is selected, it will deselect it and if you lasso/rect something that is not selected it will select it.

Or first drag the lasso/rect and while still holding right mouse button, press and hold ctrl key. You should get little "-" (minus) sign next to lasso/rect so your lasso/rect will turn into just deselect tool.

Sadly that feature does not work on all copies of Hexagon on all computers ... would be nice if it did.

Sometimes I accidentally get the minus or plus thing going but normally not, and normally it's not desired because when it's doing that, it doesn't work the rest of the selection options correctly. I usually end up doing a reset to default load options to get everything back to "normal".