Named Selection Sets and Locking Objects?

[JRobinson]

Hi, I read Bill's sticky on named selection sets, sounds awesome, should be just the ticket for gathering up and exporting groundpoly layers, the only thing I missed was how to actually create a named selection set? One would assume selecting the desired objects and "Edit > Edit Named Selections > Add" would be a logical approach, but all the buttons on that dialog are grayed out no matter what I do. I'm stumped, how do I make a named selection set?

Also, is there any way to positively lock an object's position in Gmax? I've got all these polys in one gmax file and it's getting so every time I try to position a poly I'll get hold of one of my background polys instead and move it slightly without noticing. Then I can't figure out the undo process well enough to assure myself that the poly is back in it's correct position, so I bail out without saving and start all over. Yes I know about "Selection lock" and it helps immensely, but half the time I forget to turn it on. There must be some way to positively lock something and have it stay put until you go back and unlock it, but again I'm stumped. I think I've been through every menu in the program and can't seem to find a way to do this. Any clues?

Thanks,
Jim

 

[delivery guy]

hiding poly's

Hi J Robinson,

For the first question: How to use the name selection!

Select 2 parts or more. Then type a name in the box on the top row tools above. Then maybe hit enter.
Then when ever you want to just select those parts, simply select the name you created in the list.

I actually don't need this. You should always group areas of your project. This method is easy and clean.
Then you can just hide all the other objects and work on one. Also it is a good idea to use the same texure over and over.
Don't use the same texure but as a new texture name. This make bad performace and has to call more textures. plus it makes
a larger library.

For your second question: How to not move background poly's!

There is 2 methods I use.
1. go to another view and highlight half the poly's that your not using, and right click and hide selected poly's. Then go back to your other view and your ok now.

2. You can select the ignore background box. This works good, but depends on some situations. So I prefer to use my first method.

when your finished. Just right click hit unhide all poly's. You don't have to.
But when you come back next time. They will still be hidden.

Hope this helps! WOW THIS THREAD IS OLD. i CLICKED NEW POSTS!

DG

 

[n4gix]

Jim, let's deal with the object "locks" first. The Max/GMax "Help" is a wonderful asset, but one must actually open it once in awhile to gain an appreciation of what's there...

With that said however, honestly I'd never even thought about "locking" an object, so I had to go looking myself! Open the "User Reference" and type "lock" in the search box. Ah! There's something called "locks rollout." That might be something useful...

Locks Rollout
Make a selection. > Hierarchy panel > Link Info button > Locks rollout

Procedure
To lock all move transforms:
Select an object in the viewports.
In the Locks rollout, turn on Move group > X, Y, and Z.
Only rotate and scale transforms will work.
The object does not need to be part of a hierarchy.

Okay! That sounds like what we want...

Sure enough, by placing a check mark in the Move X Y Z boxes, the object is now "locked" and cannot be accidentally selected and moved from it's position! Yea Baby!

Now how about those "Named Selection Sets..."

If you look across the top toolbar you'll see an "empty white box." After selecting all the objects you want to be part of a "Named Selection Set," simply type in a name for the selection set in that "empty white box" and hit the Enter key. Done!

From now on, clicking on the dropdown arrow on that "empty white box" will bring up a list of all of your Selection Sets. No matter if some or all of the objects in that set are Hidden or Frozen, clicking on the Selection Set Name will allow you to select all of the objects of that Set in one click!

Now that the "Named Selection Set" has been created, you will use the dialog you've already discovered to Edit and/or Add to that set.

 

[JRobinson]

Jim, let's deal with the object "locks" first. The Max/GMax "Help" is a wonderful asset, but one must actually open it once in awhile to gain an appreciation of what's there... :

I tried that once but I couldn't find "Here's how you lock objects, Jim" in the topics listing so I gave up and decided to ask Bill instead .

With that said however, honestly I'd never even thought about "locking" an object, so I had to go looking myself! Open the "User Reference" and type "lock" in the search box. Ah! There's something called "locks rollout." That might be something useful...


Okay! That sounds like what we want...

Sure enough, by placing a check mark in the Move X Y Z boxes, the object is now "locked" and cannot be accidentally selected and moved from it's position! Yea Baby! :

Well, I'm a little embarassed to admit that I did in fact find the locks rollout (via the help files no less) and read up a bit, deemed it useful at some point in the future for restricting movement to one axis or another, but honestly it didn't occur to me to try locking all 3 axes, hello... You young guys are so clever

Now how about those "Named Selection Sets..."

If you look across the top toolbar you'll see an "empty white box." After selecting all the objects you want to be part of a "Named Selection Set," simply type in a name for the selection set in that "empty white box" and hit the Enter key. Done!

From now on, clicking on the dropdown arrow on that "empty white box" will bring up a list of all of your Selection Sets. No matter if some or all of the objects in that set are Hidden or Frozen, clicking on the Selectin Set Name will allow you to select all of the objects of that Set in one click!

Now that the "Named Selection Set" has been created, you will use the dialog you've already discovered to Edit and/or Add to that set.

You mean the white box with the "Named Selection Sets" tooltip? That's the slickest thing yet, I don't know how I got along without this. ...and you can select a set right from the main toolbar! "Yeah baby" is right. Thanks

I actually don't need this. You should always group areas of your project. This method is easy and clean.
Then you can just hide all the other objects and work on one.

Hi DG and thanks for your reply. The problem with hiding objects is that I'm using the background polys as a guide for placing the runways, taxiways, etc. so I have to be able to see them. Also I tried grouping, but it seemed to combine all the objects in a fashion similar to attaching. So can you ungroup them again if you need to edit a poly or something?

WOW THIS THREAD IS OLD. i CLICKED NEW POSTS!

No, I just started it last night. Maybe you are reading the month/date incorrectly? That happens to me all the time.

Thanks very much both of you for the help here. I've got both questions answered and have both working in Gmax now and my life just got a lot less frustrating . Appreciate the help.

Jim

 

[hcornea]

Consider "freezing" the background instead

Select the backgound object/s

Rightclick to bring up object properties Uncheck "Show Frozen in Grey"

Rightclick again and "Freeze selection"

Can't be selected, and Can;t be moved until you unfreeze it.

 

[n4gix]

Freezing any object will display it in gray, which might not be much of a problem, but...

...I use the "Frozen" function as simply another way to keep objects "off screen" without having to use the "Hide" area...

IOW, any objects I want to keep separately from those in the "Hidden" bin I simply toss into the "Frozen" bin...

To use the "Frozen" bin in this fashion one has to uncheck the "Show Frozen Objects in Gray" in the scene's properties of course.

GROUP: Warning! Using the "Group" feature in GMax is not really a very good idea, because if you should have a need to "Ungroup" a collection of objects, there is a very real possibility that rounding errors will occur, particularly in the scaling parameters. This often leads to the infamous "OBED Scaling Error" syndrome when exporting your model file.

 

[n4gix]

You young guys are so clever

Wow, thanks! This sixty-two year old man appreciates being called "young!"

You mean the white box with the "Named Selection Sets" tooltip? That's the slickest thing yet, I don't know how I got along without this. ...and you can select a set right from the main toolbar! "Yeah baby" is right. Thanks

Do keep in mind that the same object can be a member of more than one "Named Selection Set" also.

I'm very anal about organization, so I tend to take advantage of every opportunity to make my life easier, including Link(ing) related objects together. For example, a sub-panel in a virtual cockpit would be Linked something like this:

interior
...main panel
......audio panel pilot
..........vol knob
..........squelch knob
..........com1 switch
..........com2 switch
..........nav1 switch
..........et cetera

From this, I might have three Selection Sets:

INTERIOR (all objects for the interior model)
MAIN PANEL (all objects Linked to the main panel object)
AUDIO PANEL PILOT (all objects Linked to the audio panel object)

You may also notice that I even take the time necessary to actually NAME each object so I can find it later on...

I've received .gmax or .max source files from folks seeking my help and have been horrified to see 34,239 "unnamed objects" with no hierarchy whatever...

...just a seemingly endless list of...

box1
box2
...
box2514
rectangle1
etc.

 

[n4gix]

Also I tried grouping, but it seemed to combine all the objects in a fashion similar to attaching. So can you ungroup them again if you need to edit a poly or something?

If you DO choose to use the "Group" feature, do NOT "Ungroup" if you need to (re)edit any object in that Group...

Use the "Open Group" function instead. This will allow you to easily (re)edit any object as necessary. Use the "Close Group" function when done.

Ever since I found out about the potential for creating an "OBED Scaling Error" nightmare, I've completely abandoned "Group" for FS design work.

You see, once your source file has become "contaminated" by the "OBED..." it can never be "fixed." It's now burned toast!

 

[JRobinson]

Wow, thanks! This sixty-two year old man appreciates being called "young!"

Yeah I knew you had a few years on me Bill (I'll be 48 in a month), that was meant to be "tongue in cheek". Regardless, durn near everything I know about Gmax (or gauges) I picked up from something you've written. Every time I get stumped I ask myself "What would Bill do?" In all seriousness though, you're an amazing asset to the FS community, thanks for all your informative posts over the years.

You may also notice that I even take the time necessary to actually NAME each object so I can find it later on...

I've received .gmax or .max source files from folks seeking my help and have been horrified to see 34,239 "unnamed objects" with no hierarchy whatever...

...just a seemingly endless list of...

box1
box2
...
box2514
rectangle1
etc.

That was my first approach, I gave everything a name and prefixed their names with "layer08_", "layer12_", etc. which made gathering each layer up for export fairly simple in the "Select by name" dialog. I still like the Named selection sets better though.

Thanks hcornea for the suggestion on freezing objects "not in gray". I'd tried freezing the background polys prior but obviously in gray they weren't much help in aligning taxiways and such. I didn't know about unchecking "Show frozen in gray". The only problem is you can't select them when they're frozen, so in order to "export selected" you have to unfreeze them first. I'll take it though, it'll still come in very handy for temporarily locking down an object when you're trying to manipulate another nearby object. Thanks.

Jim