Hi PaQ,

> But my suggestion was to 'keep safe' the selection if the
> click + drag appends anywhere over the actual object
> selection.

It actually does do that mostly - for example draw 2 circles apart from one another. Now select them both, then after they are both selected drag on one of them - notice that your selection is not modified because you dragged on an already selected object.

But I say "mostly" because there is an exception and maybe that is what is causing the problem for you.

When determining which object to target with the mouse, there is a scan done first to see if there are any unselected curves within a tighter radius (half of the regular selection radius) of the mouse. If there are, then the closest one of those unselected curves is targeted which creates a kind of preference for targeting unselected curves in denser areas.

That helps in some situations to kind of screen out curves that you have already selected, because if you click on an already selected curve it will deselect it, so it is possible for already selected curves to kind of get in your way when you are trying to build up a selection.


That mechanism is something I could disable, it could make some kinds of "click to select" things a bit harder but probably help with your dragging problem.

- Michael

Hi Michael,
I've a similar problem.
Sometime I need to create one or more clones of a object. I copy the base object and then paste it in the new place. After I've created it, I need to move it, rotate it....but it's on or between other objects that I can't hide or lock. So, I need a tool where, after the clonig operation, the selection shifts from the base object to the clone. Does exist it? Or it will be possible?

kind regards

FiL

Hi Fil, if you use Copy and paste (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V), to make your duplicate object, the selection is actually set to the newly pasted in stuff. So you can for example run the Move or rotate commands after pasting and they will work on that newly pasted in object.

It's also possible to set up a keyboard shortcut that will select the objects that were created by the last command that was run. To do that, go to Options > Shortcut keys, and add in a new entry. For the key put whatever you want to trigger it, and for the command part, paste in the follow script:

script:var a = moi.command.lastCommandRevisionStart; var b = moi.command.lastCommandRevisionEnd; var objects = moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects(); for ( var i = 0; i < objects.length; ++i ) { var obj = objects.item(i); if ( obj.databaseRevision> a && obj.databaseRevision <= b ) obj.selected = true; }

- Michael

Thank Michael

so fast...

FiL

Hi,

I don't use the drag feature often for the reason paq mentioned, a profile curve or something else gets selected.
Only when it's certain there's nothing else in the way, otherwise I nudge or move.

Maybe this selection shift could work for the control points only?

Marc

I definitely recommend using a move transform hotkey. My workflow seems to be the exact opposite of yours, in that I rarely use the "tweaking" method except when moving around CVs like Michael showed. I simply bind all the transform commands to the W, E, R hotkeys typically found in most poly modelling applications. I find it's just as fast to do things this way, plus you get the benefit of construction lines, etc.

Hi, Marc

>Maybe this selection shift could work for the control points only?

So do I. I use this way only for points, but for moving the lines and the objects I lock the selection with the tool Move (more help-points and precision).

FiL

That selection shift when dragging on unselected objects can be pretty useful for arranging simple objects other than control points.

For example here it comes into play when just dragging these lines to snap them together:




That's just doing 2 drags, no other keystrokes or clicks are needed. That's what is enabled by shifting the selection when dragging on an unselected object.

If that was removed, then this simple sequence above of just dragging some lines to snap on to other things would require an additional click in between in order to clear the selection.

- Michael

Yes, but I normally use 70-100 objects in a drawing ... all in 15-20 sq. mm ...
Only the early steps of work I use your method that is truly good. I recognize it.

FiL

Hi FiL, well with a complex model with 70-100 objects you can still temporarily simplify that by hiding other objects so that you only have a few visible on the screen to work with. Then the simple mechanisms can still be applied.

One quick way to hide other objects it to select the few that you are interested in, and then right-click on the Edit > Hide button. That will do an "Isolate" of those selected objects and make them the only ones showing. When you are done working on them right-click again on the Hide button to restore back to the pre-Isolate state.

It's pretty important to try and hide things that are getting in your way earlier in your workflow rather than wasting too much time struggling with a cluttered screen.

Of course in some situations you may be trying to work on a bunch of things at once, but the more that you can break things down into simple things at a time really helps.

- Michael

Hi Michael, I' m agree with you in this concept. Even if the necessity to place 3 or 4 selected objects on all the other objects is very fondamental.
It's not only a calculated placement according with tecnical parametres, but there is the design also. The job is to develop beautiful objects (overview) and in the same time it's to be bounded from hard tecnical parametres ( sometime with a tollerance of 0,05 mm). Often I'm forced to draw between a web of costruction lines because this way is faster than a continous hide-show-hide-show...
Now with the tool "Lock" all is simpler than before. Better would be a lock that keeps the chosen color ... maybe less intense.

I use a lot of the groupment of objects in order to obtain a clean work.

> but the more that you can break things down into simple things at a time really helps

Is not possible insert a object in more groups now? I could simplify even further my drawing.
Remove whole sections work from the screen. Sections far from where I'm working.

I hope you understand my not very good English.

FiL

Hi FiL,

> Better would be a lock that keeps the chosen color ... maybe less intense.

You can set it up like that if you want, the option for it is here:



Uncheck that to make locked objects keep their regular colors.



> Is not possible insert a object in more groups now? I could
> simplify even further my drawing.
> Remove whole sections work from the screen. Sections far
> from where I'm working.

You can assign objects a name, and then use the Scene browser to turn them on or off as a set.

Please see this previous post:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3607.2

- Michael

Hi Michael,

>You can assign objects a name, and then use the Scene browser to turn them on or off as a set.

Ok. I can insert a object inside a group by the name and the same object inside another group by the color...
Thank

FiL

Hi Vodkamartini, Yes I use keyboard shortcut for transform all the time. :-)

Hi Michael, it makes much sense the way you describe it.

Maybe pressing shift while dragging could preserve the existing selection?

Marc

Hi Marc,

> Maybe pressing shift while dragging could preserve
> the existing selection?

Possibly.... But there may be some complications with that. One thing is that it wouldn't work for dragging a duplicate with Ctrl because Ctrl+Shift is already used to trigger a window selection.

Also some people are used to holding down shift because in other programs it is required to hold down shift to do multiple selection. So I'm a bit wary of making it do special things in MoI because many people may be holding it down already, without really intending for it to trigger special behavior.

In particular the case that I'm worried about is if you hold down shift and then drag in this situation here:




So there are 3 selected circles, and now the mouse is over top of the 4th one which is unselected. Then if you hold down shift and drag on that currently unselected one, what would you expect to happen?

From what you are asking for, I guess it would cause only the other 3 already selected circles to be dragged, and the one that you actually clicked and dragged on to be ignored and remain unselected. That may be surprising for someone when the thing they actually clicked on did not get dragged at all.


Maybe some better overall solution would be some kind of manipulator widget that you could target.


- Michael

Well looks I've take some wrong habit by not using the proper move tool enough ...

It's not like I don't feel confortable how selction / draging works actually, and it seems not possible to improve anything without loosing some other feature.

For info, 3dsmax use the space bar (by default) to lock a selection (so you don't accidently deselect or select any else), while the actual MoI lock system is called 'freeze'.

I still like Marc idea, maybe not using the shift key, but any way to lock (a la 3dsmax) a selection using a key can still be usefull ?

Hi PaQ,

> I still like Marc idea, maybe not using the shift key,
> but any way to lock (a la 3dsmax) a selection using
> a key can still be usefull ?

Well, I guess it could be possible to set up something for scripting so that you could then assign what ever shortcut key you wanted to lock the selection, that would then work with a separate individual keypress like pushing space or L or something like that, not a modifier that you would hold down while clicking like Ctrl or Shift.

How does it work in Max for unlocking the selection if you then want to change the selection again, do you push Space a second time?


But right now you can already set up a key for running the "Move" command which will essentially do the same thing....

For example, set up your selection, then push your key to start the Move command - then after that when you pick 2 points with the mouse you will not alter the selection since you will be in the point picking stages of the Move command. Your picks at that point are taken as points and will not do anything to selection. It's pretty much like your selection is locked while you are in the process of doing the move.


- Michael

Hi PaQ, something else that might help more for your original case would be a modifier key that caused the mouse to only target faces rather than curves or edges.

It would then be pretty difficult to click on an unselected thing because only the topmost face in the zorder is shown, unlike curves where if you have hidden-lines displayed the hidden curves are still faintly visible and selectable.

Normally curves have priority over faces, which is necessary because since they are thin objects and if they didn't have a kind of priority gravity around them they would be really hard to select. But that also causes them to get in the way more often, that problem of unselected curves being in your way seems to be what is mostly causing the original problem that you put the screenshots up for.

- Michael

Yeah the locking of selections via the spacebar in 3ds max is a simple toggle. As someone who must constantly jump between Max & Maya, it's one the first key assignments I end up changing, lol.

But yeah PaQ, when running a transform command your selection is locked. I think you'll find it's a superior workflow once you adjust to it.