[Plugin] Select by Material, and Hide All Unselected

[kwalkerman]

This is my first plugin, so go easy on me.

It has 3 basic functions:

1. It will select all entities within the active workspace that are painted with the current material. If the current material is the default, it will select all basic entities (but not groups or component instances). For now, the plugin doesn't look at UV, just material. Unlike the built-in SU tool, it also looks in sub-groups.

2. Hides all unselected items. This is handy if you only want to look at the items that are painted with a specific material.

Let me know how it works for you!

--
Karen

[EarthMover]

Nice work. Thanks Karen!

[CadFather]

Thank you Karen, funny how one's first plugin is often simple and so good.

one suggestion.. have you thought of a way of 'getting' the material under the cursor?

[Bob James]

This is exactly the tool I've been looking for

BUT: I selected a material (clicked on it to make it the current material), clicked on "Material Selection" in the Plugins drop-down list....but nothing happens
The material I selected was within a group: is that the problem?

[CadFather]

Bob, make the material active in the material browser

[Gaieus]

It can be ver useful when someone is modelling for GE for instance, too (like in this topic).
Models sometimes get rejected for "incomplete texturing" when the modeller misses to texture a face or two somewhere in the model.

[kwalkerman]

Thanks for all the positive feedback.

Bob - the tool should work to select materials within groups. However, if you are currently in component or group edit mode, it will only look at entities within the current workspace. Try exiting all components and running the plugin again. If this doesn't work, try it on a simple model... and let me know how it goes.

CadFather - I can add something like this... Just give me a few days. Weekends are for construction.

--
Karen

[CadFather]

thanks Karen and take your time..

[Bob James]

In the attached picture I have:
1. Clicked on the tile material in the model
2. Noted that there are 46 faces with this material
3. Clicked on the tile material in the Material Editor
4. Clicked on Material Selection in the Plug-ins

Nothing selected-nothing hidden

[CadFather]

there are 2 menus in the plugins, one to select and one to hide - they don't work together at once

but it all works fine on my SU8, WinXP

[kwalkerman]

The more I think about the option to 'get' the material under the cursor, the less it makes sense to me to add it into the plugin. I really like the fact that you can choose a material from the materials browser for selection. This way, you can choose to select something that you don't want in your model (or can't find), such as unpainted surfaces.

If you left the current functionality, and added the ability to get the material under the cursor, this would add a step to the process, which makes it no better than doing the following:

1. Pick a material with the built-in SU picker
2. Select materials

Let me know what you think.

--
Karen

[CadFather]

Hi Karen, i was thinking it could be fast right-clicking and select by material - though this way works just fine

[kwalkerman]

Bob - I sent you a PM, asking to see the model you are having difficulty with. Did you get everything figured out?

--
Karen

[Ben Ritter]

Karen, thank you. Great!

[Ben Ritter]

Karen,

I have the same problem as Bob. Other materials are not hiding. I'm using version 8. I tried it with the default entity Susan. Ben

[Bob James]

Karen,
Thanks for the offer to look at my model, but I think I have it now:
So the sequence is to make the material active, use "Material Selection" and then use "Hide All Un-selected".

CadFather: I did not see the other entry in the plugin list: "Hide All Un-selected".

That's sort of an unusual approach. I would suggest that the "Material Selection" entry have a fly-out menu for the Hide option.

[kwalkerman]

Bob (and CadFather),

I wanted to leave them separate because I thought 'hide all unselected' could be useful for other applications... But I think I can figure out a fly-out.

--
Karen

[CadFather]

i for one prefer them separate

[McGyver]

You rock!! I'm finishing up a huge model and just this morning I was thinking I wonder if there is anything that could... well, do what this ruby does!! THANK YOU!!

[Bob James]

i for one prefer them separate

I yield to the power (As long as they stay together in the plugin list)

[ahnvtk]

This is useful, thanks.

One limitation: it seems as if this will only select faces with a material if both sides of the face contain the material. For inconsistently textured scenes that would mean the material is overlooked.. Maybe it could have two modes: one where it will select only faces with the material on both sides, and another that selects faces if the material is on either side?

[kwalkerman]

Right now it looks only at the front side. I could do another run that looked at the back side, if that would help?

[ahnvtk]

Right now it looks only at the front side. I could do another run that looked at the back side, if that would help?

(Extremely late in reply - sorry)

Yeah, that would help - and then two options or modes depending on the result. 1) If the material on the back side is the same as the front, group it with everything else that has that material. or, 2) If the material on the back side is different, group it separately (in a group with all faces that have this back/front combination). That would be great.

[OG1]

I know it's been a while since this topic was started and posted in, but I just had to say THANK YOU!!! This plugin has saved me from going more mental! The meshes I make need to be low poly, so using both sides of a face is mandatory! It usually has a different texture on each side. After I export my mesh, the editor I work in reports if I have unpainted faces and prevents me from continuing with my submission. I sometimes go bonkers trying to find the unpainted faces. They are usually small faces, faces that shouldn't even be on the mesh, or like the post in the other thread, "couldn't see the forest through the trees"!

The one thing I couldn't do, was to unhide the faces I hid, without doing the 'Undo'. (unless I missed something?) Anyways, not a problem doing that, since this plugin has just saved me hours, if not days, trying to find those little buggers.

Sorry for the long reply, but I am extremely grateful and thankful for this plugin, as with all the others in here that make my life easier. This one just made me saner! Thank you!!!

[dereeei]

Nice one! And useful !
It would be neat to have some visual clues about where is the selected "thing", like thomthom's Solid Inspector. In this way, it would me much easier to navigate in the place. On a large model, to hide everything is a time-consuming operation. Also, to unhide everything after that is nasty, if there are a lot of nested entities.

[McGyver]

I probably should of mentioned this a year ago... this is probably a Mac issue. Following the above directions, I can not get this plugin to work. Big models (over 16 MB) crash SU 8 and 6 when activating "Hide unselected"... and in general the plugin either only highlights the edges of the wrong material (randomly) or hides the entire model with a randomly chosen material deselected, but still hidden.
I'm guessing this is a Mac (intel core 2 duo running OS 10.5.8 ) issue, since nobody else has reported anything similar in over a year.

I'm not complaining, I just thought you might want to know about it... sorry I did not post this earlier, I was very busy when I had tried it and when it did not work... I sort of moved on and forgot about it... Sorry.

[sauerkrauten]

You rock!! I'm finishing up a huge model and just this morning I was thinking I wonder if there is anything that could... well, do what this ruby does!! THANK YOU!!

+1
Great plugin Karen, very useful on large models.

Huge thanks