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Old 27th February 2008, 12:03 PM   #1
Edymnion
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Default Select/Hide Surfaces

I know that when I am modelling something, especially when I'm using extrusion, I will tend to get polygons inside the model where I forgot to tell it to Remove Original. These eat of resources, make unsightly lines in the render where they half peek through, and in the case of subdivisions deform the model.

However, there is often no easy way to get inside the model to remove them, short of selecting all surfaces in the general area and then deselecting the good ones until only the bad one is left. Or, in some cases, you can zoom in on the model in 3D mode until you go inside of it to see the rogue polygons directly. Either way, this is time consuming.

Can it be rigged to allow individual surfaces and polygons to be hidden, without hiding the entire object? That way, I could select the facing polygons over the bad ones, hide them, and then remove the bad ones much more easily. As is, the only way to do that would involve cutting those surfaces out of the model, hiding the new object, then merging it all back together when I'm done.
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Old 10th March 2008, 04:41 AM   #2
Ham
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Default Re: Select/Hide Surfaces

I second this request. Hiding/showing groups of polys would be handy.
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Old 12th March 2008, 04:34 PM   #3
lisa
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Default Re: Select/Hide Surfaces

I agree, something like this would be helpful... or allow the "hide" command to work on a surface level, not just on a an object level.

The method I usually use is to select the object and set the whole thing to the same material, say orange. Then, I switch to surface mode and unclick "select through". I highlight the faces by marquee selection, but since I have select through turned off, this selects only the visible faces. I click the material palette again, and turn these a different color, red. Now, I right-click on orange in the materials palette and choose "Select surfaces with this material". Because only the hidden faces are still orange, this selects only the hidden faces, which I can then delete.

Also helpful: Pressing the "f" key will allow you to focus in on any part of a model. This is helpful for getting the camera inside models and other places it won't normally go.
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Old 12th March 2008, 09:17 PM   #4
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Default Re: Select/Hide Surfaces

Its a bit fiddley but there is a way to do it, because you can toggle 1 sided shapes and 2 sided shapes, and 1 sided and 2 sided surfaces, so depending on how desperate you are you can select the surface(s) and hit the approriate "1S" in set surface type and "Flip Normal" in the Surface menu! see what you think.

SIDE NOTE: If you are doing this on a large model or finished object I would NOT suggest making the whole object 1 sided because you could find that the prime normals are facing the wrong way and you will have 4 extras hours work to do!

Hope This Helps!
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Old 13th March 2008, 09:36 AM   #5
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Default Re: Select/Hide Surfaces

Ooh, never thought of doing it that way Lisa, thanks!

Oh, and Steve, I always work with 1 sided polies. I find it just generally gives me better results. As long as you start the work with 1 sided polies, it isn't hard to keep everything facing the right direction.
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