• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

MSFS20 Element mode in Blender 2.9+

lionheart

lionheart

Messages
10,158
Country
us-arizona
Hey all,

Is there a way to select an Element in a Mesh object in Blender? For instance in Max, you hit 5 when an object in Modify mode is on, and you can select sections of a part. If its a multiple part of several objects, you can select each sub-object of it. Example, if its a seat with back, seat, and headrest and small parts and knobs, all saved to a single part (Attach), then in Max in 5 Element mode, you can select those parts, so that you can UVW Edit them, separate them, etc...

Not finding this in Google searches. Blender doesnt have an Element mode. It seems to only have Vertice, Edge, and Face (Polygon) modes.

Many thanks for any input.

I did find one item that sounded right in Google searches stating to click on a part in Edit mode and hold down L. This did nothing. And also in Edit mode, my plane turned into a super dark mesh with disappearing lines. Unable to see it. Very odd. No polygons illuminated.

Bill
LHC
 
Blender doesn't have "elements" like max. There's only vertices, edges and faces. Generally speaking I found it's good practice not to attach separate parts together, but rather build a hierarchy of objects. That's specifically the case when you have for instance multiple screws on another object. In that case, leave the screw separate, but set the screw's parent to the "master-object". Then use ALT+D (yes Alt, not shift!) to duplicate-link the screw to all the other position it is in. Linked-duplicate means that the mesh is shared by the object i.e there's only ONE mesh, but multiple objects that use it. There's two benefits doing this: 1. you can still bake an AO map without funky faces. 2. it increases the performance, since even in the sim only ONE mesh is loaded.

Back to your question: yes, in edit mode, L will "select linked". There's a menu popping up in the left corner with options! In there, you can select by what property you want to select, depending on what you need. In your case, you'd probably want to select "normal". Notice however that your current selection is ignored when you press the button! Instead, you need to hover the mouse over one of the faces of the mesh you'd like to select, then press "l" and make your selection.

Btw. In object mode, you can use Shift+L to make a similar selection. This is very useful to find all objects that share the same material for example.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top