How to make Soft Selection only affect isolated part of mesh?

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

Question of the ages here: In Maya 2018 I've used Ctrl + 1 to isolate a part of the mesh I'm working on. I need to use soft selection to organically stretch *only* that specific part of the mesh, without affecting the rest that has been hidden. Even though the rest of the mesh is hidden, soft selection has still affected it after I unhide it. Is there a way to get around that happening?

[mspeer]

Hi!

Use Soft Modification Tool

which works on selected components only.

[Anonymous]

Hello, thanks for the reply, I tried the Soft Modification tool, but it's still affecting the rest of the helmet. I just want to modify the horn, but isolating it with Ctrl + 1 doesn't seem to limit the effects of Soft Selection or Soft Modification. I know an old school method would be to select the horn and detach it into a separate object, do the modifications to the horn, and then quickly combine the objects and fuse the vertices after, but isn't there a way to modify specific parts of a single unified mesh without the soft selection/modification bleeding over to the rest?

[damaggio · Accepted solution]

Detach horn, adjust , reatach .. There's always a way to keep working moving along.

[mspeer]

Hi!

1. View selected or Hotkey CTRL + 1 is not a selection, it's only a display filter

2. Soft SELECTION does selection on it's own as the name indicates.

3. Soft Modification Tool only affects selected components as stated.

Select the horn faces or vertices and then use the tool.

[Anonymous]

Yeah that's what I ended up doing. The helmet has evolved!

[damaggio]

looking sweeeeeett!!

Great job man and thanks for sharing it.

Texturing next.

[izabellanne]

Don't know if I can help you, but if you go in the "Tool settings" of the Move tool by double clicking it in the left, then you go in the "Soft Selection" Menu, there is an option called "Falloff mode", it's at "volume" by default, but if you choose "Surface", the soft selection will only affect the vertices/faces that  are directly connected to the ones you selected. It won't affect another part of the same object that is very close but not connected to the parts you selected. 

[leodavi3d]

Perfect! It's exactly what I need. Thx!