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Selecting groups directly within the viewport instead of object manager?


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Is there a way to group objects in such a way so that when I click on any of the object in the group, the entire group gets selected. I have to manually select the null of the group in the object manager to select the entire group. 

Sharing a screen recording of Sketchup in which I make similar selections. 

 

 

 

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Not really. The usual way we select groups IS the object manager. Although if you put objects in a Connect (weld off), that is easily selectable in vp, as is a null if you give it a clearly visible icon...

 

CBR

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I guess, I will soon be called Tediousman, because that's what my suggestions are.

 

Yet, for completeness sake, I'd like to add two options:

  1. You can put objects on a layer and then drag the layer to the HUD. Right click in HUD and choose "Action->Enter Command...", enter "Select from Layer". Bamm! With just four clicks and entering 18 characters (incl. space and return...), you can now click the layer in the HUD to select its objects.
  2. You can use the Selection Object (Menu: Select -> Selection Filter -> Create Selection Object) in a similar way. A wee bit simpler. Drag the Selection Object to the HUD. Double click its icon to select the objects.

Nobody said, life is easy. And I'm of the firm opinion, you got to know the complex stuff to cherish the simple solutions.

 

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3 hours ago, Cerbera said:

Not really. The usual way we select groups IS the object manager. Although if you put objects in a Connect (weld off), that is easily selectable in vp, as is a null if you give it a clearly visible icon...

 

CBR

 

Thanks. I'll definitely try this method and share my experience. 

 

1 hour ago, MighT said:

I guess, I will soon be called Tediousman, because that's what my suggestions are.

 

Yet, for completeness sake, I'd like to add two options:

  1. You can put objects on a layer and then drag the layer to the HUD. Right click in HUD and choose "Action->Enter Command...", enter "Select from Layer". Bamm! With just four clicks and entering 18 characters (incl. space and return...), you can now click the layer in the HUD to select its objects.
  2. You can use the Selection Object (Menu: Select -> Selection Filter -> Create Selection Object) in a similar way. A wee bit simpler. Drag the Selection Object to the HUD. Double click its icon to select the objects.

Nobody said, life is easy. And I'm of the firm opinion, you got to know the complex stuff to cherish the simple solutions.

 

 

This looks quite complicated and even slower than selecting the objects from the object manager. It will probably take me 20-30 minutes to understand how this entire process is to be done. Do you actually use this method in your daily workflow? 

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I had hoped, I had made sufficiently clear that I was mentioning these options for completeness sake, only (and partly for the joke).

 

But yes, I have indeed used the second before. If a project is only complex enough and the hierarchy in OM gets deep enough, there is a, admittedly rare, use case. BUT even then you can reach similar effect with dragging a parenting Null to the HUD. Or by using layers to hide parts of the hierarchy in OM. Many roads leading to Rome, I guess.

 

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If you really want to do it with no object manager...

 

Go to my Gumroad: https://cairyn.gumroad.com

Download the free collection of selection scripts.

There is one script called Object_Select_Parent. Put that on a keyboard shortcut.

 

Now you can select one object in your group, and trigger the script (no need to have any visual representation of the group*), and you have the group selected. The advantage of that method is that you can go even higher in the hierarchy if your groups are nested a lot.

 

There are other useful selection scripts in this collection.

 

-----

 

* I assume you know that nulls DO have a visual representation in C4D, and you can change that via the attribute manager (Object -> Shape), so if you often need to select the same group, you can modify its null into some different, selectable shape in the viewport. You can switch off those representations via the viewport filter.

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On 6/21/2022 at 4:38 PM, Cerbera said:

Although if you put objects in a Connect (weld off), that is easily selectable in vp, as is a null if you give it a clearly visible icon...

Thanks! I tried this method. It works really well. 

 

On 6/21/2022 at 11:11 PM, Cairyn said:

There is one script called Object_Select_Parent. Put that on a keyboard shortcut.

 

 

 

I have installed all the scripts in my scripts folder like this. 

image.png.08137c0df4450bb70630c01b4169275e.png

 

However, when I search for the script in my command manager, I don't find anything. What should I do? I am using Cinema 4D v26.

 

image.png.07ab0ddc4afd5f44f2ca97d35ce5f76e.png

 

image.png.1aa82b6344ec71e81dbbec1b8cea6fd6.png

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1 hour ago, Cerbera said:

Scripts are not run from there. I think you need Extensions menu / User scripts etc

 

CBR

 

 

Thanks a lot for this. This made me realize my mistake. Earlier, I created a new folder called scripts and pasted the files there. I should have pasted the script files in the scripts folder which is located inside the library folder. I clicked on the 'scripts folder' here and found my scripts folder empty. 

 

image.png.f1e96bd13f0edcb2ecd377fe548e8187.png

 

 

 

I searched in the command manager. Now the script is showing. I ran it. Works absolutely well. Thanks a lot @Cairynfor making these scripts. I'll try all of them! 

 

I wish I could mark two posts as solution here. 

image.png.8f750b3cb1d4256d3de5e9169e03343d.png

 

 

Edited by scifidesigner (see edit history)
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For scripts are pre-created folders (doesn´t matter if installation or preference folder in this case).

So, you need to put all your scripts there. As I see your screen, you need to go just one level deeper (in installation/preference folder search for "library" and inside you´ll find "scripts" folder and here is the place for all your scripts)

 

screen.png.698f4d2bf924f0ede317e0ee5577281f.png

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You can also define an environment variable C4D_SCRIPTS_DIR and let it point to an arbitrary folder.

This adds an additional location for scripts in C4D. All other script folders (as the one described before in this thread) are unaffected and keep working.

 

In this way, you have a folder for scripts shared between all your C4D versions. Of course scripts contained in there may only work in certain C4D versions. But pretty much every script can be easily made compatible with almost all relevant versions of C4D (at least back to R18, when this environment variable got introduced). If compatibility gets an issue, feel free to ask for help.

 

 

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Thanks Andreas for additional infromations about environment variables and its advantages. For people who wants to know WHAT are and HOW to adjust environment variables, please look into this video...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA6hdD2PrLY

 

Be sure, depending on user´s c4d version could variable names  a bit different, so also need to look into software manual

(For latest c4d you should look here but in previous version users could find this info in the same section of their manuals)

 

https://help.maxon.net/c4d/en-us/#html/11083.html?Highlight=environment variables

 

ps, sorry to creator of this thread for breaching original topic, for some users it could be helpful

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