Hi Lang, I'm sorry but I'm not entirely sure if I understand.

> Is there a way of selecting the whole object from just picking up an
> edge or one side of the object?

That's how selection does work when you do an initial click on an unselected object - the first click on an unselected object, including on any edge or side of it like you're asking here will select the whole object. So that does what you seem to be asking here in this sentence but I'm not sure that it's really what you were after?

Then if you do further clicks on an already selected object it will "drill down" to select edge or face sub-objects.

Also you can use window selection to select objects - that's when you click in an empty area and then hold the mouse down and drag to make a selection window. If you start the window on the left and drag towards the right only objects contained entirely within the window will be targeted - if you start on the right and drag towards the left anything that's even partially contained within the window will be targeted. Often times strategic use of these different window modes can help.

See here for some other tips on selection and some links to some demo videos on window selection:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5118.10

If that does not answer what you are looking for maybe it would help if you could post the model file with your particular objects in it so that I could get a better idea of what situation you are working with.

- Michael

Hi Michael

Thanks for your reply. When I read back what I wrote I could see it didn't make much sense either.

Basically what I'm after is the ability to select everything attached to the same polys or objects so I can hide them to reveal what I have just on the inside shape. I've attached a model of a bottle that has an inner shape and I wanted to make an amend to just that part but when I try and select the inside I can't without selecting the outside too even though they're not connected.

I hope this makes more sense. I'll read it back later and probably find it doesn't ;-)

Thanks again

Lang

If you clcik the outside bottle, and hide it, then there are your objects. If you window select the top area, it will select just the shape that is fully enclosed in the window selection. If you look in the top of the bottle, (Where the 2 surfaces meet) you can zoom up just a bit and note that you really can select just the inside shape. The larger outside one takes precedence from a distance. In the objects area where you have named the outside, you can hide that with the scene browser.

Hi Lang, thanks for posting the file - and yes like Burr mentions above usually your best bet for such things when some piece is getting in your way is to select that piece and hide it so that you can then more easily work on other things without that getting in your way.

If you are struggling with selecting things, it's usually a sign that hiding some things would help - it's kind of a good habit to use hiding frequently, don't hesitate to do it otherwise you can waste a bunch of time.

Also a strategic use of window select can also work well to grab interior objects when you start the window on the left and drag it towards the right only objects contained entirely inside the window will be targeted. See here for an example of using that to select interior objects:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1810.2

But it probably is easiest to just select the outer one since that is the easiest one to click on and then hide it so that it won't be in your way anymore temporarily.

- Michael

Thanks guys. Great to see you've now released the mac version too.