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In the Sub-Object levels there should be an Element level

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#1

There are currently 3 sub-objects levels for editing a mesh: Vertex, Edge and Face. In practice we also manipulate a lot a mesh thanks to the various elements it is made of. An element is a set of faces that is not connected to some other sets of faces inside the same object. We can already select such an element by first selecting one of its entities (a vertex, edge or face) and then press Ctrl + L.

ElementSubObjectMode

It would be very helpful, natural (and even consistent since this level is already available in the UV editor under the name Island) to have a 4th Sub-Object mode to be able to work on elements of a mesh.
3dsMax has such a mode, it is really consistent with the modeling workflow and would have all its legitimacy in Blender.

Thank you

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Blender UI paper cuts
#2

You can hover the mouse cursor over any poly-island and hit L key(with the default key map) to select all the connected geo under the mouse cursor already.

I’m not saying I have anything against the proposal, but for now this might make things a bit easier for you rather than having to first select a single element(vertex, edge or face) and then hitting ctrl+L.

#3

Thank you @megalomaniak. Indeed there is also the L key which is very helpful.

The thing is both L and Ctrl + L are “hidden” entrees. In other words to use it one has to know:

  • that the functionality exists,
  • what is the shortcut
    Plus she has to remind the shortcut, which is a real challenge in Blender because everything is shortcut…

I am in charge of an artists team that is new to Blender, they have various levels and backgrounds, and providing them all these shortcuts, in addiction to the Blender philosophy and the motivation to move to it, is a real challenge.
So I’m pushing for exposing all the small useful and obvious things that are quite accessible but not exactly there just at the top of the surface. Not too much so that the UI changes won’t impact advanced users but at the expected place so that everybody can benefit from them without having a strong Blender background.
And to me this small button will help many users a lot (in my team/company at least for sure).
These are real production requests, with real impact in production world.

Thank you for your understanding and your consideration for these small helping features :wink:

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#4

Yeah, alas, this is dependent on mouse cursors location, so there’s no point in placing the L-keys functionality into a menu either. But your proposal does offer an elegant and discoverable alternative. :slight_smile:

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#5

What if it was an active tool that was grouped with circle, box, and lasso select? If the delimit options were accessible through the tool settings, it’d be pretty versatile.

#6

That could work too, not sure that either is inherently better than the other.

#7

Blender should do like all the big boys do: double click on a face selects the island.

2019-09-05_02-57-33
2019-09-05_02-57-33.gif846Ă—532 395 KB

Everyone is familiar with it, just like double click on a edge to select the loop.

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#8

Yeah, I miss this a lot.

Why can’t blender be a little bit more standard? :weary: :weary: :pray:

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#9

@billrey, @julianeisel Hi William, Julian,
What do you think of this request? For us it looks like something particularly useful, consistent with the UV editor, and easy to introduce.
thx

#10

Yes, I would love to have that 4th button too, aswell as the dbl click changed in facemode to select connected faces of the face dblclicked. The face loop selection dbl click method could get changed to include a modifier key.

And please also update the Industry Compatible Keymap with this and “select linked”. Currently “select linked” is mapped to square brackets by default what is not reachable at all for non querty keyboard layouts.

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#11

Yesterday I had to clean a mesh that had a lot of islands (or “elements”). Was quite difficult:

  • The L key, well it’s an additional key you have to press for every island, less convenient than a mouse click. Plus it only adds new islands to the selection, is not possible to remove one (so inconsistency with vertex/edge/face workflow)

  • My process was to pick a face on each island and from time to time do a Ctr+ L to select them. Not very easy either plus umprecise.

When I compare that to the Island selection mode in the UV Editing tab I do think there is a quite serious production time to gain here by having this small button in the Modeling tab…

IslandSelectionInUVs

Could it be a future dev for modeling?

Thank you very much

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