topic Unable to Select Backface of an Editpoly in 3ds Max Modeling Forum

Unable to Select Backface of an Editpoly

liamyongging — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 22:10:32 GMT

Hi Gang,

im fairly new to this so apologies for the silly questions.

Im trying to select the base/ backface ( in yellow ) of an editpoly geometry.

I have tried clicking / unclikcing backface / occluded but no luck.

Any help will be much appreciated

Kind regards,
LL

Re: Unable to Select Backface of an Editpoly

Casey_H_ — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 22:31:11 GMT

What you've tried isn't super clear, so this may be repeating something you've tried:

Most people eventually discover is that if you keep your pointer in the same position, as long as it is over the face you wish to select, clicking without moving the pointer will select/cycle through whatever it is touching from front to back.

In this case, if you click once for the front face, don't move the pointer and click again, it will select the next face behind. If you think about it, there's no other way to accurately select something behind something else via the viewport without orbiting or isolating.

Isolating would be my second suggestion if cycling through clicks isn't your thing. ALT + Q is the hotkey to toggle isolation mode. Start using it and it quickly becomes second nature to isolate an object then quickly select the parts you need and toggle back, etc.

Re: Unable to Select Backface of an Editpoly

FilipecsRocha — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 10:43:22 GMT

Like Casey explained, clicking multiple times cycles between the poligons/edges/vertices.

If you click on "Ignore backface", then you will not be able to select backfaces.

When you are strugling to make selections in edit poly due to geometry getting in the way, use the option to hide/show in the edit poly modifier. Just hide the polygons that are preventing you to do the work, hide them, once you are done unhide them back (I recommend to also do unhide all in vertex mode, sometimes only unhides polygons and keeps the vertices hidden)