Collecion - Selection of related objects
I would like to ask to give to Collection this kind of selection behaviour:
- OUTLINER:
When selecting the Collection name in the Outliner then all included objects should be selected automatically
- 3D VIEWPORT:
If Collection would have a special LOCK property ( some lock icon at the name ) then selecting by mouse pointer any object of the collection in the 3D Viewport should select whole Collection ( all related objects ). It would give a "Group" functionality to the viewport that is missed in Blender from the beginning ( translate/rotate/scale all related object together just by selecting all by single click one of them). That is how acts Actor selection in UE4.
I think that Blender could get many good UI solutions that are implemented in UE4.
7 Comments
What if instead of the collection having a special LOCK property, there were a group select tool in our fancy new active tool set that selected all objects in the collection by clicking just one. It could be grouped in with the Circle/Lasso/Boarder select tools.
I like the idea of it but this automatic selecting of all nested elements becomes tricky when you link things. If you want to select all nested elements then better use "select objects" Adding another icon to the outliner would make it even more cluttered. There would then be 4 different ways of changing visibility (Soon 5 with local view) and 2 ways of changing selectability :D I agree there should be a way of easily selecting all objects within the same collection. Shift + G is what that is supposed to be but only uses the one collection and ignores nested collections.
@billyjonsmith: Don't know the Group Pro addon but might check it out later.
Just keep in mind that the outliner works different on a fundamental level than in other software (as far as I know). Implementing these things is not as easy since it doesn't always mesh well together with the linking workflow.
@julien.kaspar: Let's focus only on collections. If sth is part of collection ( do not matter if it is linked with other object ) is going to be selected with all the rest in that collection. And all unselected linked objects will act as the usually they acta when are connected to selected parent object that is going to be transformed/scaled/rotated. Let's make this case simple. Do not make it too complex. It will work very intuitive.
@tomek: I'm not talking about things like linked object data but the same object itself being linked into multiple collections. You select one and you select them all since it's the same object. This is the core idea of the new outliner.
"Let's make this case simple. Do not make it too complex. It will work very intuitive." Easier said than done. It's already complex. Just saying to make this simpler doesn't make it simple ;)
We need to take all relevant features into consideration , otherwise we are discussing changes that will end up buggy and unusable.
Thank you for making this post, had been planning on doing one myself about both of these after testing the latest build and experimenting with collections.
I think the Group Pro addon is great reference point for dealing with collections. Groups/Collection treated like objects where you can dive in to them similair to how object/edit mode works on any instance/original.
From a single Pie you can create, add to, remove from, make unique, dive into and edit including nested groups among other things.
Addon was a life changer and seeing similair functionality as a core part of Blender would be a dream.
#2 Is much needed. This was a major hurdle to me when switching from 3ds max. I like the way you suggest doing it too.