Select From Scene dialog not respecting current selection in 3DS Max 2019

[Anonymous]

Our studio just upgraded to Max 2019 (from 2015), and I've noticed a very broken (IMHO) behavior wherein opening the Select By Scene dialog does not keep the current object selection.  I don't know if I'm missing an option setting somewhere, but this seems like a big deal to me.  I'm always using this dialog to modify my current object selection, either by adding or removing objects from the current selection.  If the dialog comes up with nothing selected, then I can't manage my selection without constantly creating saved selection sets EVERY time I want to open the Select By Scene dialog.  Is this a recent break to the workflow?

Ray

Your post subject line has been edited by @hagen.deloss: Select From Scene dialog not respecting current selection

[Anonymous]

It seems broken at the moment. Wonder why no one noticed this.

Workaround: Use the SceneExplorer instead.

You can hook 'Toggle SceneExplorer'  to a Shortcut, perhaps even 'H'

Report the bug here.

[Anonymous]

While the Scene Explorer might be a work around for some tasks, it won't help any script that calls selectByName()  I have a lot of scripts where I call selectByName() before running a process, and it's been a common practice to pre-select a number of objects (or use the resulting selection from a previous script), run the script, and then just hit the OK button in the Select From Scene dialog to use the current selection.  Now with the Select From Scene dialog being cleared from any pre-existing selection, it breaks this workflow.  selectByName() can't use the Scene Explorer, and I'm unaware of any other object selecting dialog built into Max that can be used by maxScript.

Ray

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

While the Scene Explorer might be a work around for some tasks, it won't help any script that calls selectByName()  I have a lot of scripts where I call selectByName() before running a process, and it's been a common practice to pre-select a number of objects (or use the resulting selection from a previous script), run the script, and then just hit the OK button in the Select From Scene dialog to use the current selection.  Now with the Select From Scene dialog being cleared from any pre-existing selection, it breaks this workflow.  selectByName() can't use the Scene Explorer, and I'm unaware of any other object selecting dialog built into Max that can be used by maxScript.

Ray

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You can still switch back to the legacy Select-By-Name dialog. Would that work?

See this article.

[hagen.deloss]

Hi @Anonymous

It looks like if you create a new selection floater UI, it takes into account the objects you had previously selected, I wonder if this would work with your scripts?

Here is an article on how to create the selection floater UI in Customize>customize user interface.

I hope this helps! I checked in 2018, and 2017, and it interacts similarly ( the selections are not maintained within that UI), so I'm thinking the way it currently works in 2019 is as designed (not sure why, I can ask development though!)

Talk to you soon 😄

Please select the Accept as Solution button if a post solves your issue or answers your question.

[hagen.deloss]

Hi @Anonymous

I wanted to check back and see if a previous post helped you with your problem? It would be super helpful if you could add a post with how you decide to proceed, and your results. That way other Community members can benefit from your process 😄

Please select the Accept as Solution button if a post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous]

In order for the objects selected in the scene to be marked as selected, you need to remove the check mark from the selection item here.

[Anonymous]

Sorry @Anonymous, this is wrong and does not help me.  Removing the checkmark from the Customize->Toolbars->Selection only removes the toolbar items related to Selection Sets from the Select From Scene dialog.  This does not affect what items are pre-selected when you open the dialog.

Ray

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Sorry @Anonymous, this is wrong and does not help me.  Removing the checkmark from the Customize->Toolbars->Selection only removes the toolbar items related to Selection Sets from the Select From Scene dialog.  This does not affect what items are pre-selected when you open the dialog.

Ray

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Why is this still going on? It was already discussed that this is a bug and should be reported.

A possible workaround would be switching back to legacy Select-By-Name:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/3ds-Max-How-to-switch-from-the-Select-From-Scene-dialog-to-the-legacy-Select-Objects-dialog.html?v=2015

If you can`t do that or don`t want to, for whatever reasons, you are out of luck.

[Drakan.]

Is there any progress in fixing this really annoying bug?

Lack of highlighting the selected objects from the scene, in "Select from Scene" window really makes work harder.

Please, do something with this, I'd rather not have to switch to the legacy version.

Thanks

[cmoss]

Why is this still not fixed!!! With 2020 out I can assume this will never be corrected. There are so many changes with the UI that are affecting normal everyday workflows in a negative way, that I wonder if anyone at Autodesk actually uses their own software.

Also, this should not be marked as solved. Every release before 2018 maintained the selection properly when you bring up the select from scene or pick object dialogs. 

[Anonymous]

cmoss: Right? Like how hard would it be to fix this? I don't know how Hagen's comment was marked as the solution, I didn't do that. Her comment was a hack that the user could do, but it doesn't FIX the problem.

I need to grab 2020 to test it, but if it's not fixed then I guess we need to start pushing for a 2020 hotfix #1

[hagen.deloss]

Hi @Anonymous @cmoss @Drakan. 

Thanks for posting regarding the Select from scene tool. I wanted to clarify a few things.

You are talking about the tool called [Select from Scene], the icon that looks like this, correct?

What is the exact issue? That once the object is selected within this mode, that it has to be closed before the selection takes affect? I want to make sure I have a clear understanding of your desired workflow.

From this documentation, it says "the dialog is modal, so there is no automatic synchronization between highlighted items in the list and selection of the corresponding objects in the scene. To make a selection, first use the dialog to highlight the objects to be selected, then click OK to close the dialog and select the objects." 

Since this isn't the way you expect the tool to work, and as @Anonymous mentioned, you can switch the tool back to the legacy Select Objects mode by following this guide here. 

If you believe the tool should work a different way, please post to the 3ds Max Ideas board! The development team is highly active on the board and always open to feedback. 

[Drakan.]

The issue is that, when you select objects in the scene and next open "Select From Scene" window, then you can see that selection in that window is empty. Objects selected in the scene aren't highlighted in this dialog window. I have attached the video with this problem.

I can't understand why in newer 3ds Max versions than 2016, the functionality of "Select From Scene" window has changed in this way.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Drakan, hopefully that helps.

Hagen: So the documentation seems to describe how the dialog works. There is no discontinuity there. The problem is that someone at Autodesk thought that "there is no automatic synchronization between highlighted items in the list and selection of the corresponding objects in the scene" was a good idea. In the 17 plus versions of max prior to Max2016, if you selected some objects and then opened up the selection dialog, it would have a selection that WAS synchronized with the scene. As artists and users of Max, this is how it always was, and it made since. Autodesk then created a new selection dialog with lots of new features (which is great!), but someone decided to break this synchronization. Maybe it was for a good reason (performance?), but there is no option to re-enable this synchronization. This is a really basic workflow issue that has been broken. Reverting to the "old dialog" does restore this workflow, but we also loose access to all the new features of the new dialog.

[hagen.deloss]

@Drakan.  : Thanks for the video!

@Anonymous : I now understand the extent of the problem. I logged this as an issue within our internal database, thanks for being thorough in your explanation!

[cmoss]

Thanks for the video Drakan, that shows the issue better than my rant. 

Hagen, here's how this came up for myself. Many times you may want to get a material from a selected object. The material editor used to have a menu option to get material from selection. That was removed some time ago, so then I would just click on the eyedropper, then hit H which would bring up the pick object dialog (which was replaced by the scene explorer I guess), and it would have the selected object already selected. Obviously, there are other ways to do this like maxscript or a filtered scene materials list. But you get used to the tools functioning a certain way, and when that functionality gets removed for no apparent reason, it gets really annoying. 

Here are some posts of all the people annoyed by the removal of "get material from selected object" way back in 2010.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/get-material-from-selected-object/td-p/4153791

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/where-is-get-material-from-selected-object/td-p/4147720

I found a workaround, but now my workaround needs a workaround 😕

[Anonymous]

Isn`t 'Edit Selected Object`s Material' essentially the same?

[cmoss]

I should have mention I was referring to the compact editor. When they removed that menu option, there was no slate editor. I know the slate material editor now has "get from selected" . But it was never added back to the compact menu one as far as I can tell. In the compact editor, it seems you have to filter selected objects in scene materials in the material browser.

[Anonymous]

You are right, it`s the same command like 'Get from Selected' in Slate.

No love for Compact Editor, it seems.