Okay, can someone explain to me - (preferably in words of one syllable - cos I'm thick) how I can select just the things I want without spending hours holding down shift while I keep clicking in the hopes that eventually only the things I want will be selected? (these things are all mostly in the same place) - i.e. I want all the elements of the fire I've made but not the bowl under it, nor the terrain/s etc. Help???

hehe, I wrote this yesterday. Hold Ctrl, click on a group will bring up a sub menu, select an item on the sub menu. Hold Ctrl, click on the group brings up the submenu, now to select another item that is NOT checked, you release the Ctrl key, hold the shift key and click on the next item in the list you wish to select. This also works with deselecting one item in a group. Just click on an item name that has a check. Have fun ICM

Um... I tried ctrl and click, selected ALL in the submenu and then tried to deselect the bowl but ended up with just the bowl selected... (sigh)

Can you explain in simpler terms just how to deselect one item?

Trouble is I keep getting lost, as there are just so many things in this one spot, the bowl (for instance) isn't called a bowl it's two spheres, but there are also a lot of other spheres in there making up the fire. But the bowl is also called an "organic boolean"... Fran - frazzled.

Message edited on: 05/02/2005 07:49

Look here's the wireframe so you can see why I get lost:

Draw a square aroudn all the things you wantor try to get most of the things and then do the control click thing to ge tthe rest. I am lazy that is how I do it.

Tried that; if I do it in top view I end up just moving the terrain. If I try in camera view, I still get the bowl as well... Tried clicking after getting all (using the draw-a-box method) (bowl as well,) but I still end up with just the bowl that way.

Yeah, this is why sooner or later we have to start naming everything and/or organizing by color groups. ;o) I place the cursor in the area of the thing I want to select. I hold down my "Ctrl" key and do a normal mouse click. the little context widow pops up with names on it, and hopefully what I need will be listed there. If not, try, try again. (from various angles) AS

Ungroup your group. (yes everything will revert to solids, but you can fix that after) Hold CRTL key Click on group choose the sphere that you think it is in the submenu. (Since your bowl is booleaned, the postive part has solid wireframe lines the negative has perferated lines) Once selected, click on the "M" button and see what the material is. If it's your bowl material, close the Material editor, click on the "A" button and name this object "Bowl 001". You can also assign a family color, which in turn you can assign the same color to all the rest of the objects in this group. Next you're looking for the negative part of your Bowl Boolean. Same procedure and name this one "Bowl 002". Repeat this with your Fire spheres also (fire 001, fire 002, etc). Once you have all of them named & colored the same, you can select that family color and re-group them. It takes a little time, but that's why I name everything now. And.....this is why I'm apprehensive to pull this Scorpion model apart...NO NAMES OR COLORS...UGH!!

(showoff) Lol, j/k. Gorgeous modeling. AS

Finally! Managed it using families... after some long time trying to find everything in the mess without moving anything. Phew! Thanks.

That's why I use color groups and lock down anything I don't want moved, or am not using....=) Wow yes, very nice vehicle!!!!

Message edited on: 05/02/2005 23:12

Lock down? How do you lock something down?

Like this. AS

OooooOOOoooo! Ta

Yeah, and if you forget what's locked, don't worry, it will be grayed out and you won't be able to do 'anything' with it until it's 'unlocked', although I think you can change the texture.....

But you CAN select it to get at the atributes to unlock it - yes?

Yes....=)

GOOOD!!! (ggg)