The Selection Region flyout gives you five different ways to select objects within a particular area or volume. Clicking and holding on the Selection Region button opens a flyout containing the Rectangle, Circular, Fence, Lasso, and Paint Selection Region buttons, from top to bottom.
Selection Region flyout
For the first four methods, you can select either objects that are completely within the selection region (window method), or objects that are within or touched by the selection shape (crossing method). Toggle between the window and crossing selection methods by using the Window/Crossing toggle on the main toolbar.
Note: If you hold down Ctrl while specifying a region, the affected objects are added to the current selection. Conversely, if you hold down Alt while specifying a region, the affected objects are removed from the current selection.
Note: The Smart Select command activates the Select Object function and, with repeated invocations, cycles through the available Selection Region methods. By default, Smart Select is assigned to the Q key; you can use Customize User Interface to assign it to a different keyboard shortcut, a menu, and so on.
Procedures
To select using a region (general method):
- Choose a Selection Region method from the flyout.
- Drag in a viewport, then release the mouse. The first location you click is one corner of the rectangle, and where you release the mouse is the opposite corner. Attention: If you're using Select Object, you can start dragging anywhere to select a region: on an object or off. However, if you're using one of the transform tools, such as Select and Move, start the drag operation away from an object; that is, in an empty part of the viewport. Otherwise, if you start dragging on an object, most likely 3ds Max will assume you intend to select where you click and will begin the transform operation immediately.
To cancel the selection, right-click before you release the mouse.