SelectionMan

• Options
• Known Bugs/Limitations
• History

Options:

• Save/Load Selections Rollout:
  Allows you to save and load selections at the vertex, edge, face, or object level.
  • Save/Load Type Dropdown List:
    This sets what type of selection you want to save. The options are: Object Selection Sets, Vertex Selection, Edge Selection, and Face Selection.
  • Save/Load:
    Saves and Loads the current selection, according to the Save/Load Type.
    
    Object Selection Sets can take a while to save, and so there are two progress bars below these buttons. While saving Object Selection Sets, the top bar represents progress for the current selection set, and the bottom bar represents the progress for all the selections sets.
• Selection Tools Rollout:
  This rollout containts miscellaneous tools for selecting things. The tools are context sensitive in that they will work on the vertex, edge, face, polygon, element, or object level, depending on what sub-object mode you are in.
  • Select By Name Text Field:
    Typing in an object name with a wildcard ("*") allows you to quickly select groups of objects with similar names, without waiting for the standard Select By Name dialog to redraw.
    ie. Type "*sphere*" (without the quotes), followed by enter to select all objects with the word "sphere" in their name.
  • Keep Sel:
    If this is on, the selection will be added to when you use the "Select By Name" text field. If this is off, then the selection will first be cleared.
  • Select Random:
    This button will select a random percentage of items (what it selects depends on what sub-object mode you are in. The supported modes are: Object Level, and Editable Mesh Vertex, Edge, Face, Polygon, and Element).
    
    If there is an existing selection, then a random subset of that selection will be selected. If there is no existing selection, then the random selection is pulled from all available objects/verts/faces/etc.
    
    Note: While at the Element or Polygon level, Random Selection will be (very) slow the first time you use it, as the script caches information about the mesh. Every time you use it afterwards on the same unmodified object, the script will be considerably faster. If you notice the script selecting elements or polygons incorrectly, hit the small "R" button to force the script to update its internal caches.
  • R:
    This is only valid while at the Element or Polygon sub-object levels, and will cause the script to re-build its internal caches used for making selections more quickly. Usually the script can catch when an object has changed and will re-build the caches itself, but if it fails to catch a change and begins making non-sensical selections, you can for an update with this button.
  • % Amount:
    This sets how many objects to select out of the current selection, or items available for selection.
• Select By Object Property Rollout:
  Allows you to select objects based on their object property states.
  • Keep Selection:
    If on, the existing selection will be added to when one of the buttons below is hit, otherwise the new selection will replace the old selection.
  • Ignore Hidden:
    If on, hidden or frozen objects will never be selected.
  • Property/On/Off:
    Each object property has a corresponding On/Off button pair or a dropdown.
    Hitting "On" will select all objects that have that property turned on, hitting "Off" will select all objects that have that property turned off.
    Selecting an item from the list will select objects that have that property turned on.
• Normal Select Rollout:
  Allows you to select faces on the currently selected object(s) according to the direction the faces they are pointing.
  • Options Group:
    • Angle Threshold:
      Sets how far a face angle can diverge from the specified "Selection Direction" before is is not selected.
    • Keep Selection:
      If this is on, the existing face selection will be added to, otherwise the face selection will first be cleared before making a new selection.
  • Selection Direction Group: These controls let you choose which direction is used to select faces on currently selected object(s).
    • World Axis:
      Choosing this option causes the selection to be based after the world axes.
      • X/Y/Z
        These buttons let you choose which world axis to use for selecting faces.
    • Object Direction:
      Choosing this option causes the selection to be based after the orientation of an arbitrary object in the scene.
      • Pick Object
        Use this to pick an object in the scene to use for selection direction. The picked object's Z direction will be used as the selection direction.
      • Object Label
        Just shows the name of the object being referenced for selection direction.
  • Select Faces
    Actually selects the faces of the currently selected objects according to the options set above.

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Known Bugs/Limitations:

• None.

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History:

1999.01.27 - Added the "Select by Name" type-in selection option - JB
1999.02.18 - Added a bunch of shite for copying multiple selections between
             SO levels, and saving said selections... but scrapped it all in favor of
             just using Max's built in Copy/Paste mesh buttons for now.
             The (partial) code is still in here just in case. - JB
1999.03.11 - Added ability to save and load vert/face/edge selections.  Based after
             Tharyn's script, but given an overhaul (re-write) for error checking. - JB
1999.04.06 - Added a copy selection button above the save and load selection
             buttons. - TV
1999.06.17 - Added a selection attach utility and Selection conversion functions -TV
2000.02.25 - Ported to 3.1 BFDtools
             Commented out selection conversion tools (broken)
             Commented out copy/attach buttons (broken) - JB
2000.05.17 - Slapped in Jared's object selection set saver - JB
2000.06.17 - Combined normal select and re-arranged UI a bit - JB
2000.06.18 - Added random selection for elements and polygons - JB
2000.06.21 - Bug fix and changed behaviour of random select a bit.
             The random selection will be a subset of the current selection (if present),
             or a subset of all available items (if there's no current selection) - JB
2000.08.30 - Added the "Select By Object Property" rollout
2001.01.19 - Added "Ignore Hidden" for Select By Object Property.

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