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Selecting a range of objects


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Suppose you have a rig that has massive amount of different objects on the timeline, which is the usual case, and you want to select half of them. You would need to click and start scrolling up or down an insane amount of time in order to select all the stuff on the timeline. Why not just add a way to select entire ranges. If this is not clear enough, basically imagine objects are files here:

 

 

Selecting files individually while holding shift already works, however it lacks selecting entire ranges. It should be:

ctrl + click = select files individually

shift + click = select entire ranges

Just like on Windows or in most software.

 

Btw, when you have selected multiple timelines and click on "Select all keyframes on this timeline" one would expect that all keyframes on all selected timelines get selected, as it stands it only selects the one you clicked. This means that you have to go one by one clicking on "Select all keyframes on this timeline" which if you wanted to do this for a ton of timelines would be a waste of time.

Edited by moniker
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6 minutes ago, Dr. Nexil said:

You can do this by clicking and dragging.

23d1e527e6b2d9e8c743efac9bdc4471.gif

As shown in the gif, I can add to my selection by holding shift as well.

If you're asking for a faster way to do this, I don't see the point. The capability is there and it does not take very long.

15 minutes ago, moniker said:

Suppose you have a rig that has massive amount of different objects on the timeline, which is the usual case, and you want to select half of them. You would need to click and start scrolling up or down an insane amount of time in order to select all the stuff on the timeline. Why not just add a way to select entire ranges. If this is not clear enough, basically imagine objects are files here:

Like I said above, im aware. The problem is, if you have a massive list of objects, you have to scroll throught an insane amount of time when you could simply click first and last while holding ctrl+shift as you can do in most programs.

 

scroll-mineimator.png

Look how tiny the scroll bar is. No matter how much tiddying up you want to do with folders, some rigs just doesn't make sense to add stuff that belongs in the same category to different folders, these surfaces are part of the same thing, so there isn't a point in adding up folders and more folders. It would make more sense to have the ctrl+shift range selection that every software except Mineimator has.

Edited by moniker
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Just now, moniker said:

Like I said above, im aware. The problem is, if you have a massive list of objects, you have to scroll throught an insane amount of time when you could simply click first and last while holding ctrl+shift as you can do in most programs.

 

I specified at the end that since we already can select multiple object easily, there's really no reason for a slightly quicker shorthand. I can't image having a project so large that it would be more than a minor inconvenience to scroll for a few seconds. 

Not very related but you can also do "ctrl+a" to select or deselect everything.

Another option is to organize while you work by putting things into folders. If you are selecting that many things then I'm assuming that you're only changing position of visibility, which can be done through folders.

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7 minutes ago, Dr. Nexil said:

I specified at the end that since we already can select multiple object easily, there's really no reason for a slightly quicker shorthand. I can't image having a project so large that it would be more than a minor inconvenience to scroll for a few seconds. 

Not very related but you can also do "ctrl+a" to select or deselect everything.

Another option is to organize while you work by putting things into folders. If you are selecting that many things then I'm assuming that you're only changing position of visibility, which can be done through folders.

In some cases you would need this. For instance you are making an episodic series and you want to export everything exactly as it ended on episode 1 into a new project because by the end of episode 1 the software is already struggling to deal with the keyframes. To ensure everything is exported exactly as it ended, you should select literally every single thing at the end of episode 1, this means expanding every single folder, then selecting every single object timeline, not just the folder but the contents of the folders to guarantee everything is exported in its right place, and then delete all keyframes before that, then move them to frame 0, now you can export this and import it into a new project for episode 2. For this having the ctrl+shift feature would save a lot of time.

Any software has this feature, if it was added the net result would be positive for the software, non-debatable.

Edited by moniker
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12 minutes ago, moniker said:

 

scroll-mineimator.png

Look how tiny the scroll bar is. No matter how much tiddying up you want to do with folders, some rigs just doesn't make sense to add stuff that belongs in the same category to different folders, these surfaces are part of the same thing, so there isn't a point in adding up folders and more folders. It would make more sense to have the ctrl+shift range selection that every software except Mineimator has.

Wow, just curious, what are you making here? 

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God I couldn't agree more. In a lot of apps I use, shift-clicking to select a whole set of items is standard behavior, and not having this in MI really slows things down.

There are a lot of things I want to improve about navigating and using the timeline, this is definitely going to be one of those things.

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17 minutes ago, Voxy said:

God I couldn't agree more. In a lot of apps I use, shift-clicking to select a whole set of items is standard behavior, and not having this in MI really slows things down.

There are a lot of things I want to improve about navigating and using the timeline, this is definitely going to be one of those things.

And something else comes to mind: A button to expand all/collapse all, if you want to select everything you have to manually expand all folders and then collapse them again also manually.

Something like this:

 

Also I realized it should be ctrl + click = select objects individually

shift + click = selects the range

Just like on windows or in most software.

Edited by moniker
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55 minutes ago, moniker said:

And something else comes to mind: A button to expand all/collapse all, if you want to select everything you have to manually expand all folders and then collapse them again also manually.

Something like this:

 

Also I realized it should be ctrl + click = select objects individually

shift + click = selects the range

Just like on windows or in most software.

This is already in MB, so it's common sense that it's probably coming to MI as well.

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2 hours ago, moniker said:

And something else comes to mind: A button to expand all/collapse all, if you want to select everything you have to manually expand all folders and then collapse them again also manually.

Yeah, as SoundsDotZip said, there are expanding/collapsing buttons in MB which will be ported over, there is a behavior from Figma (my design tool) that I want to try and convince Nimi to bring to MI so we'll see about that as well.

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although the idea is interesting and would be cool, the scale you're wanting this for is ridiculous, how many damn surfaces are there and what are they even for?? plus, like said before, mine-imator is not a program built for this scale

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7 minutes ago, Floofy said:

although the idea is interesting and would be cool, the scale you're wanting this for is ridiculous, how many damn surfaces are there and what are they even for?? plus, like said before, mine-imator is not a program built for this scale

I don't think it's fair. Yes Mine-imator is first and foremost a program for beginners, but that doesn't mean you should "punish" people who create bigger projects by denying them basic QOL features. Besides, with one of the big focuses for 1.3.0 being the user interface, suggestions from seasoned MI users with all kinds of crazy workflows is exactly what I need. ? 

Edited by Voxy
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56 minutes ago, Voxy said:

I don't think it's fair. Yes Mine-imator is first and foremost a program for beginners, but that doesn't mean you should "punish" people who create bigger projects by denying them basic QOL features. Besides, with one of the big focuses for 1.3.0 being the user interface, suggestions from seasoned MI users with all kinds of crazy workflows is exactly what I need. ? 

I didn't deny them of QOL features? I just said having a project with that many surfaces is ridiculous, if I worded it wrong that's my bad, im bad at english

Edited by Floofy
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11 hours ago, Floofy said:

I didn't deny them of QOL features? I just said having a project with that many surfaces is ridiculous, if I worded it wrong that's my bad, im bad at english

My bad, it sounded like you were saying the idea didn't make sense because it would only be useful for huge projects like theirs.

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On 3/13/2021 at 10:35 PM, Floofy said:

although the idea is interesting and would be cool, the scale you're wanting this for is ridiculous, how many damn surfaces are there and what are they even for?? plus, like said before, mine-imator is not a program built for this scale

It's not even that complex. Those surfaces are just some rig of a plant, the surfaces are leaves. This is just basic behaviour in any GUI for a software irrespective of how complex your project is anyway. It's like not being able to select many files at once to import as resources, right now you have to go one by one. This is already fixed for 1.3.0 I believe.

Another thing that would improve workflow a lot is being able to have the Camera timeline visible at all times, because you build the animation around the Camera timeline to match the keyframes to the scenes, which means for every keyframe you draw you have to constantly scroll up and down like a madman to make them fit within the Camera keyframes for the scene. I've suggested a "sticky object timeline" solution. All of that slowly adds up and the end result is that the workflow is improved even if you thought you wouldn't make much use of it at first. It's one of those things.

Edited by moniker
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On 3/16/2021 at 12:47 PM, moniker said:

It's not even that complex. Those surfaces are just some rig of a plant, the surfaces are leaves. This is just basic behaviour in any GUI for a software irrespective of how complex your project is anyway.

I have collections of objects in large numbers that need organizing and easy selection, that's why I put them in folders.

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