Softimage polygon selection problem

Yozora

Hi, I downloaded a trial version of autodesk softimage 64bit and after I set up all my hotkeys, I tried playing around with it and every time I try to select a polygon/edge/vertex, I end up selecting everything through the point I click including backfaces and everything else in the way, as if my click was actually a very small box selection.

The only "fix" I found was to enable some other selection mode like Raycast, but then I lose the ability to do rectangle selections without changing the mode again. This can be fixed if I used rectangle raycast, but then it doesnt select backfaces like I want it to.

Basically all I want is it to work like 3d max/maya/silo, where a single click selects a single thing, and a box selection selects everything in the box including back faces.

I'm using vista 64.

Heres a video of the problem, because I wanted to test out this screentoaster thingy

http://www.screentoaster.com/watch/stVUpSR01IR11bR11dU1pdVFZW


edit; After some googling I'm starting to think this is actually how its intended to work. Thats kinda messed up Any SoftImage user wanna confirm this for me?

dehebo

hmm as default you are able to do what you want to do in Softimage (thats if I have not misunderstood you)

what you have to do is you have to just be nimble with fingers and use hotkeys to keep it a faster workflow.

T: points - single or drag-box(with backfacing)

E: edge - works with single click or drag-box(with backfacing)
I: raycast edge - single or continuous select while drag(not backfacing)

Y: polygon - works with single click or drag-box(with backfacing)
U: raycast edge - single or continuous select while drag(not backfacing)

Also you may not be aware is that while you are using ANY tool if you press-and-hold any of the component selection keys you can select the items you want then release the key to keep using the tool.

dehebo

o yeah you can also convert your selections like in max etc.

so for example you can select polys and convert them to the relevant points etc

Yozora

I know about switching between the component modes with hotkeys, thats not the problem~

If you had a cube, and you want to select the front face only, you'd have to enable raycast poly selection to click it instead of staying in the rectangle selection tool?
Is it impossible to click a single face of a 3D mesh using the rectangle tool?


thanks for the convert selection tip, it made me look for the tool and its called "select adjacent" in softimage

dehebo

ok..

if you go to:
file > preferences... > expand the 'Tools' menu tree > Selection

Then uncheck the "Surround Polygon" in the "Rectangle Select Options".
This will enable you to single click select a polygon while in standard polygon selection mode, and allow you to drag-box around multiple.

In this same menu you will also see other options.. like enabling the selection of backfacing components while in raycast. Though if any of these toggles were to your liking they would probably be better used as a key assigned script

Yozora

the surround polygons tick box is for forcing the selection to stay within the boundaries of the selection box.
I tried messing around with all the settings in this window and none of them fixed it ~

http://www.screentoaster.com/watch/stVUpSR01IR11bR15UXF9aXlJV

dehebo

hmm ok, I thought thats what command did, never used it myself, as I am happy with the use of both standard and raycast polgon selection modes.

What you could do is:

• copy this code below to a script file and save it.
• Then open a new custom toolbar, select the script and drag it to this toolbar.
• Create the button as an external file when asked, this is then creating a custom command from the script's content.
• Fill the boxes, make sure the path to the script is correct.
• Press parse just to be sure.
• Press ok.
• You can close the custom toolbar you created with or without saving depending on if you want it or not. it doesn't matter.
• Go to File > Key map manager
• From the group menu choose 'Custom commands'
• You can then bind a key to this command(or use toolbar button)

Ok. what this will do is behave like 3ds Max's "Ignore backfacing" check box.
The command is a toggle, so one press turns backface culling on and off.
Culling the backfaces is off as default, that is while when you click/drag-box using the standard select tools you get any components that are behind. This will toggle that behaviour.

SetValue "Camera.camdisp.culbackface", Not GetValue ("Camera.camdisp.culbackface")

This code is really simple.
The only problem is it offers No visual indication whether the backfacing is on/off. Where as max has the checkbox etc.

You could add stuff to the code to activate certain effects or something dependent upon whether it is on or off.
If you can thing of something. My choiuce would be to perhaps have it change all the viewports shading to 'Hidden line removal' when backface culling is on. then open the script editor and look at the commands as you press something and add the relevent code line to the command/script.

Ofcourse you could just use the setup as standard and switch between standard and raycast mode

Yozora

yea lol, thanks for the help but the whole purpose of me trying to "fix" the problem is to reduce the number of hotkeys I'll need to push

Another reason I wanna fix it is because I try to keep the hotkeys from all my 3D apps the same (for example Z is always extrude, X is always cut, Q is always select, A is always vertex mode etc)

oh well, I guess I'll just get used to the standard setup of switching from raycast to rectangle