3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [92]
If you click an object in the Scene Explorer dialog box, the object row is highlighted. Holding down the Ctrl key lets you click to select multiple objects, or you can use the Shift key to select a range of adjacent objects. Selected objects also can be removed from the current selection with the Ctrl key held down.
The Select menu also includes options for selecting objects. The All (Ctrl+A), None (Ctrl+D), and Invert (Ctrl+I) menu commands work as expected, selecting all objects, deselecting all objects, and selecting the inverse of the current selection. You also can access these commands using the buttons at the bottom of the dialog box.
The Select Children (Ctrl+C) option causes all children objects to automatically be selected when the parent is selected. The Select Influences option selects all influence objects that are attached to the selected objects. An influence object is an object that controls or shapes another object. For example, when a sphere is constrained to follow an animation path, the path is an influence object to the sphere. Another example is a skin mesh being influenced by a biped rig. The Select Dependencies option selects any objects that are dependent on the selected object, such as an instance and reference.
When the Select⇒Sync Selection option is enabled, any objects selected in the Scene Explorer dialog box are automatically selected in the viewports also. This also works in reverse, causing any objects selected in the viewport to be selected in the Scene Explorer dialog box.
The Scene Explorer recognizes any defined Selection Sets and lets you select these sets from the drop-down list at the bottom of the interface.
The Display toolbar includes several object type icons. The yellow icons are selected and allowed to be viewed in the Scene Explorer. To filter out a specific object type, disable its icon, and then all objects of that type are no longer displayed in the list. These same commands are available in the Display⇒Object Types menu.
The Display menu includes some additional commands for displaying children, influences, and dependencies. You also have an option to Display in Track View. This option opens the Track View with the selected object's tracks visible.
Cross-Reference
The Track View interface is covered in more detail in Chapter 36, “Working with the F-Curve Editor in the Track View.” •
Finding objects
You also can use the Find field to search the hierarchy for a specific object by name. All objects that match the typed characters are selected. If you enable the Select⇒Find Case Sensitive option, uppercase characters are distinguished from lowercase characters.
If the Select⇒Find Using Wildcards option is selected, you can use wildcards to locate objects. Acceptable wildcards include an asterisk (*) for multiple characters in a row and a question mark (?) for single characters. For example, an entry of hedra* selects all objects beginning with “hedra,” regardless of the ending and hedra?1 finds “hedra01” and “hedra11” but not “hedra02” or “hedra0001.”
The Select⇒Find Using Regular Expressions option provides yet another way to search for specific objects. Regular expressions are commonly used in various scripting languages and require specific syntax in order to locate objects. Table 6.5 lists some common regular expression characters.
If regular expressions seem confusing, you also can search using the Advanced Search dialog box, shown in Figure 6.20. This dialog box is opened using the Select⇒Search or by clicking the Configure Advanced Filter button. In the Property field, you can search by Name, Type, Color, Faces, or any of the other available columns. In the Condition, the options include Starts With, Does Not Start With, Contains String, Does Not Contain String, Regular Expression Matches, and Inverse Regular Expression Matches. Multiple criteria can be added to the search list.
Editing in the Scene Explorer
Any of the display properties listed in the Scene Explorer can be enabled by simply clicking the check box to enable