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FIGURE 6.6

A lion cartoon character with its white selected nose

Locking selection sets

If you've finally selected the exact objects that you want to work with, you can disable any other selections using the Selection Lock toggle button on the Status Bar. (It looks like a lock.) When this button is enabled, it is colored yellow, and clicking objects in the viewports won't have any effect on the current selection. The keyboard shortcut toggle for this command is the spacebar.

Caution

In Photoshop and Illustrator, the spacebar is the keyboard shortcut to pan, but in Max it locks the current selection. If you accidentally lock the current selection, then you can't select any other objects until the lock is removed. •

Using named selection sets

With a group of selected objects, you can establish a selection set. Once it's established as a selection set, you can recall this group of selected objects at any time by selecting its name from the Named Selection Set drop-down list on the main toolbar or by opening the Named Selection Sets dialog box, shown in Figure 6.7.

You can access this dialog box using the Edit Named Selection Sets button on the main toolbar or by selecting the Edit⇒Manage Selection Sets menu command. To establish a selection set, type a name in the Named Selection Set drop-down list toward the right end of the main toolbar or use the dialog box.

FIGURE 6.7

The Edit Named Selections dialog box lets you view and manage selection sets.

You also can create named selection sets for subobject selections. Be aware that these subobject selection sets are available only when you're in subobject edit mode and only for the currently selected object.

Editing named selections

After you've created several named selection sets, you can use the Named Selections Sets dialog box to manage the selection sets. The buttons at the top let you create and delete sets, add or remove objects from a set, and select and highlight set objects. You also can move an object between sets by dragging its name to the set name to which you want to add it. Dragging one set name onto another set name combines all the objects from both sets under the second set name. Double-clicking a set name selects all the objects in the set.

Isolating the current selection

The Tools⇒Isolate Selection (Alt+Q) menu command hides all objects except for the selected object. It also zooms to extents on the object in the active viewport. And it opens a simple dialog box with an Exit Isolation button in it. Clicking this button or selecting the Isolate command again exits isolation mode and displays all the objects again.

Isolate Selection mode is very convenient for working on a certain area. Figure 6.8 shows the Isolate Selection mode for a selection set that includes all elements of the lion toy's face.

FIGURE 6.8

Isolated Selection mode lets you focus on the details of the selected object.

Selecting objects in other interfaces

In addition to selecting objects in the viewports, you can use many of the other interfaces and dialog boxes to select objects. For example, the Material Editor includes a button that selects all objects in a scene with the same material applied.

The Select by Material button opens the Select Object dialog box with all objects that use the selected material highlighted.

Another way to select objects is in the Track View, which can be opened using the Graph Editors⇒New Track View menu command. To view all the objects, click the + sign that precedes the Objects track. You can identify the Objects track by a small, yellow cube. A hierarchy of all the objects in a scene is displayed. At the bottom left of the Track View window is the Select by Name text field. Typing an object name in this field automatically selects the object's track in the editor's window, but not in the viewport. Clicking the yellow cube icon selects the object in the viewport.

A third interface that you can use to select objects is the Schematic View, which is opened