Methods of Selection in Edit Mode of Blender

Objective: There are many ways of selecting in Blender. This post goes over the various methods and explains why certain methods are preferred in certain situations over others. The methods are ranked by the most used to least used method.

To learn how to master 3D Printing see more posts at:
http://3dprintingninja.blogspot.com

Please leave your comments.

and as always thanks for visiting,

The 3D Printing Ninja

3DNinjaneer@gmail.com

[Right Click] is the way to select something, as this may not be intuitive. As you select something the object with become highlighted.

To select multiple objects [Shift]+[Right Click].

If you [Right Click] on an already selected item than it will deselect it. The important note here is that [Shift]+(any selection method)= deselection In addition if you accidentally select something you can always undo with [Ctrl]+[Z]. Or redo with [Shift]+[Ctrl]+[Z].

[A] to select everything. [A] again to deselect everything.

[Alt] + [Right Click] on an edge between two vertices. This will only work as well as your topology is.

Usually you should select the vertices, but occassionally it is smart to select the faces or edges. This can be done by changing what you want to select as seen in the image below. This can also be done witht the hotkey [Ctrl]+[Tab].

[B] This is an excellent method to select that allows you to draw a box around what will be selected. This is especially useful when using it in a view such as front view [1] (and orthographic [5]). Remember that you can also deselect with box mode with [Shift]+[B].

[C] This will allow you to color over your model and anything within the circle will be selected. You can adjust the circle size by scrolling. When finished with your selection push [Enter] to apply or [Esc] to exit.

[Ctrl] + [Right Click Drag] Draw the shape around what you want to select.

This is a really awesome feature that you will need to know for more advance use of blender. Here are the steps which can also be seen below:

Make your SelectionGo into the Object Data MenuClick on the Add button to create a new vertex groupName your vertex group (optional, but makes it easy to work with)Click assign to make your selection apply to the vertex groupAt any point in time you can select this vertex group

This is not a selection, it is view that will make selection easier. You can go into wireframe with [Z] or using the button seen below. Note that your selection will be both the front and back of your model now.

Another way to select everything in front and in back is to turn on the see through feature by pushing the button. Your model will go see through as seen below.

[L] This is extremely useful as it will guess selections for you. An example is when you want to split an object into two you can use this to select the object. You can also slowly adjust the selection with [Ctrl] + [+] or [-] to grow or shrink it as seen below.

[Ctrl]+[I] will make what you have selected and deselect that and make everything else selected.

There are also many other methods of selection which you can find within the select menu. The two I will highlight in this post are Random and Checker. Note that you can change the settings of the random select with the small options tat appera in the bottom left hand corner.

First select an edge loop, as mentioned earlier, then go into the select menu and choose "select loop inner-region" as seen in the image below.