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The Selection Tool

To understand this text it is neccesary that you know about The Main Window User Interface, the 2D and 3D Views and the Introduction to Editing.

The Selection tool allows you to select objects like brushes, entire entities or bezier patches in your map and move, scale, rotate or shear them. Selecting objects is also needed if you want to use functions of CaWe that only work on a single object or a group of objects and therefore need a selection to decide on what object(s) the function is to be used.

Functions of CaWe that are related to a selected object are for example copy, cut and delete. These work only with one or more selected objects on wich these actions are performed.

You can use the Selection tool by clicking on the Selection icon marked in the left screen or by pressing the Shift+S keyboard shortcut.

Selecting objects

To select an object you have to choose the Selection tool and click on the object you want to select. In the 3D-view you have to click on a surface that is part of the object to select it. In the 2D-view in is necessary to click exactly on an edge that is part of the object since no surfaces are displayed in this view.

In the 3D-view the surface of the selected object will be changed in color and its edges are colored yellow to mark it as selected. In the 2D-view only the edges of the selected object are colored red.

Another way to select objects is to open a selection box in a 2D-view window. This is done by left-clicking into the window without clicking on the edge of an object and moving the mouse while holding down the left mouse button. Releasing the mouse button opens a selection box. You can now move and scale this selection box until it covers all objects you want to select. You can select these objects by pressing the Return-key on your keyboard.

If you want to select more than one object you can do this by selecting your first object as described above. Additional objects have to be selected while pressing the Ctrl-key on your keyboard. This way you can choose as many object as you want and perform an action on all these objects simultaneously.

You can deselect all selected objects by pressing the Escape-key, which nullifies the selection.

Working with selected objects

Now that one ore more objects have been selected you can perform actions on them.

In the 2D-view a dashed rectangular box has been drawn around the selected object by the editor (this box is only visible if the object itself isn't rectangular) and the edges and vertices of this box have white squares attached to them. By moving the mouse over one of these squares and dragging this square by holding down the left mouse button you can resize the object in the direction of the square you clicked on.

If you click again on an already selected object white dots at the vertices of the box become visible. Moving the mouse over one of these dots and dragging this dot by holding down the left mouse button rotates the object smoothly. It is also possible to rotate the object in multiples of 15 degrees by pressing and holding down the Shift-key while rotating an object.

A second click on an already selected object shows white squares at the edges of the box. By left-clicking on a square and moving the mouse while holding down the left mouse-button this edge can be moved in two directions along its own axis and in this way the object is deformed.

To delete a selected object just press the Del-key on your keyboard or choose Delete from the Edit-menu.

There are more things you can do with selected objects, as for exmaple copying and pasting them. These functions are explained in the documentations of the Edit-menu (TODO) and the Tools-menu (TODO).

The Selection tools Option Bar

:mapping:cawe:editingtools:selectiontoolbar.png

Once the Selection tool is activated the Option Bar of this tool is visible on top of the view-windows. This toolbar contains some selection parameters and buttons for further functions related to selections.

  • Ignore Groups: This option specifies if grouped objects are selected as a group (selecting one object selects all objects) or if groups are ignored and objects are selected normally even if they are part of an object-group.
  • Lock Materials: This option decides if the Material of an object is locked to the object itself and therefore doesn't change, even if the object is moved. If this option is not selected the Material is locked onto the point of origin of the world coordinate system and therefore the part of the texture visible on the object may change when the object is moved.
  • Group: This button puts two ore more previously selected objects into a group. Grouped objects can be selected all at once by clicking on one object of the group.
  • Ungroup: This button reverts grouped objects bach to single objects. This function is only working if a group of objects has previously been selected.
  • Hide: Hides all selected objects from the view-windows. The objects are not deleted, but simply not displayed, which is particularly usefull when working with big maps that contain a lot of objects.
  • Hide Other: Hides all objects except the selected objects. For more information about hidden objects, please refer to the VisGroups documentation (TODO)
  • Apply Material: Applies the currently selected Material to the selected object(s).

Selection tool keyboard shortcuts

  • Return:
    • If a box-selection is opened → selects all objects that are part of the box selection
  • Esc:
    • If Eyedropper-tool is active → returns to Selection-mode
    • If a box-selection is opened → closes the box-selection
    • If an object is currently resized, rotated, sheared or moved → move object back into original position and form
    • If objects are selected → deselect objects
  • Delete:
    • If objects are selected → deletes the selected object(s) from map
  • Ctrl:
    • If in selection-mode → add new selected objects to selection list instead of removing old selection and only selecting clicked object
  • Shift:
    • If Rotating an object → rotate in multiples of 15 degrees
    • If moving an object → object is copied first then moved, so original object remains in place
  • E:
    • If in selection-mode → switch to eyedropper-mode
    • If in eyedropper-mode → switch to selection-mode
  • Page up:
  • Page down:
    • If last select-click covered more than one object → cicle trough objects
mapping/cawe/editingtools/selection.1191512717.txt.gz · Last modified: 2013-01-07 12:07 (external edit)