Selecting multiple sets of linked objects
It's easy to select one object and then linked objects by Select Linked > Object Data.
But imagine we have 10 separate sets of objects, each set containing 10 linked objects, but the objects are not linked between sets. I hope you guys get what I'm talking about. In other words - 10 different objects, each having 10 identical (linked) copies of itself in the scene.
Now, good luck selecting them all in one step. You can only select one set of linked objects at a time. If you want to further expand your selection, you will select one object of the other linked set, then SHIFT+L > Object Data, and it will UNSELECT what you have selected previously. Sick. If I wanted to start my selection all over, I would just press AA to unselect everything. But I want to ADD stuff to my current selection.
The only way you can get 'em all bastards into a single selection is to make a collection, and then manually select each linked set and add it one by one to that collection. Sick.
Or manually select 100 objects one by one. Even sicker.
SketchUp, for instance, handles that perfectly - you just select a couple objects (called there: groups/components) that are or are not linked (called there: component instances) and by Select Instances SketchUp will select ALL instances of ALL objects you preselected.
Please, make it work like in SketchUp.
If there's no chance to make it into vanilla Blender, then please, somebody make an addon for it!
3 Comments
Hello, here you can find two versions github.com/EugeneDudavkin/small_things
first one as single menu entry
second one as a menu, where you can add your own entries by analogue (in future if needed)
adding to existing "Select Linked" menu not possible unfortunately (I did not find a way...).
feel free to modify.
Wow, did you write it just now, by my request?
You are amazing!
Thank you so much. I confirm it works properly in Blender 2.92, despite the warning during installation, that it was written for Blender 2.93.
This tool is going to save me a lot of time and frustration.
Just one question:
what is the practical difference between these two versions? I'm not familiar with programming, so I don't know if "adding my own entries" is something I should care about :D
Difference only in appears in "Select" menu as a single entry "Object Data (multi)" or as sub-menu "Select Linked (multi) - Object Data (multi)". Just use what is more suitable for you.