Blender 2.83 with Select Through patch

General Forums Blender Development Discussion
1

Hi,

I’ve compiled 2.83.2 stable release with the original mesh select through patch by Benjamin Sauder:
https://developer.blender.org/D6322

The build has been compiled with CUDA libraries but without OptiX, so you should be fine as long as you don’t require OptiX features for your work.

It’s useful for anyone who wants to have this essential feature in Blender:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e2YsFE-DFg58reMh7Jo14fbhGDSftDMH/view

A very short video of selection freedom it allows (without having to constantly toggle Xray ON/OFF and fight face center based selection):

8 Likes
2

But why on earth this is not in master already??? I can’t even think of a 3d app that can’t do that… :upside_down_face:

3

Now you know of one. Blender! :smiley: Here you can join 160+ post long thread of other people complaining: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/decoupling-x-ray-and-limit-selection-to-visible/3498
:wink:

2 Likes
5

Hi,

I’ve compiled 2.83.5 (Latest LTS) with the same original Select Through patch:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OFT0RrKKnnxRVMNaqI5jEIXsmXVw4oUo/view?usp=sharing
This time it’s been compiled also with the OptiX libraries, not just CUDA, so everything should work the same way as official build.

2 Likes
6

Nice to see you found a solution.
I guess, you will also like that.

7

I won’t. Behavior that changes randomly depending on the direction when using the very same tool is very frustrating IMO. :slight_smile: But if someone wants to use that, good for them. It doesn’t solve the select through issue in any way.

I mean, the one big reason I like the Select Through patch is that it removes the complete nonsense where edges are almost randomly being selected in different way depending on how many of them are inside selection box. So having yet another layer of selection unpredictability would be devastating.

If this makes it through, I will be extremely angry, because it’s been implemented as an additional checkbox in selection mode. That is the exactly same way the Select Through patch was implemented, and was rejected for over 2 years ago, despite being probably the most requested feature ever since.

8

Hmmm… i don’t know. For CAD workflows that feature is expected, needed, required and mandated, but for a generalistic 3D approach in Blender, probably not so much, since object/edit mode pretty much makes it not really needed, but i think anyone used to 3DSmax, any CAD or BIM software out there will welcome this, even in case of Blender, IMHO, it doesn’t make that much sense. Probably will be hidden behind an option, and most people will probably want enabled by default in time.

9

I.ve spotted in your video that you selected edges with 3 box selections, while this feature will allow to do the same with selection with a single one.
This is useful feature)

Speaking of select through, it is useful only for regular geometry, which is kinda limitation.
Anyway, we has reached a nice concept, suitable for implementation, the problem is that development was flawed, because too much people tried to prioritize their demands over the others.
Design process should be calm and clear, everything can be reached with a nice design.
I hope our singlebutton solution will reach master at some point, since it will solve the issue for the most possible cases.

10

No, this feature will mess up selection randomly depending on the direction. That just doesn’t make sense. Selection should be always consistent. So I want to choose how the edges are selected all the time, regardless of the direction of box selection. Select Through patch does it perfectly.

Most people here do not care about efficient modeling, but I do. So for example I can’t imagine the frustration having to move my mouse pointer back to initial position (left of the object) when I want to perform another box selection, otherwise, if I were to continue the selection stroke in the opposite direction, it would change the selection method.

This is extremely common scenario where I want to select part of the mesh and then deselect some part of the selection, without having to travel my cursor back where I started. It’d be really very angry if the selection method suddenly changed just because I changed the direction of the selection.

This bullshit they are coming up with is fine only for people who are comfortable with slow modeling process, where they don’t mind stopping and having to waste mental power remembering which behavior applies currently depending on some small intricate way the tool is used. But most efficient tools are always the most consistent ones.

I really find it fascinating how they just keep failing and prioritizing things properly. It seems that the less impact a feature has, the higher it gets on the priority list.

11

Wow, it will be optional anyway, so no worries.
I forgot that this kind of a selection is related to Autodesk Autocad/Revit, while in Autodesk 3dsmax window/crossing selection is a static switch, so indeed you may not be familiar with this kind of a selection.
My bad…

12

Yeah, sorry… I am still just really bitter about things like this having priority over things like select though. So then I have to waste time fixing and reapplying patches every time even a small hotfix is released. Patches of a feature that should exist in any reasonable software :confused:

1 Like
13

I tried this patch, and it looks good.
However, I would like to mention a couple of issues.

  1. Lost fast edges loop selection for architectural/CAD workflows.
    As a result, there is no ability to select such a loops in select through mode, and you have to constantly switch between them.
    SS_EDGES

  2. Visible in wireframe mode facedots do not provide facedots selection.
    As a result, falling into wireframe mode don’t give advantage in selecting tiny geometry by facedots.
    SS_FACEDOTS

Probably, those types of selection should not be controlled that way, or they cause too many workarounds and unnecessary actions.

14

Something is definitely broken there. I do not have any facedots in wireframe. It just works here. Otherwise, if you mean that you actually do want to use facedots, then why are you using this patch? Its whole point is to get rid of them.

Here’s a video of selecting those faces with no issues:

You don’t even have to be accurate, since the select through actually works reliably, you can always rely on being able to deselect the excessive selection without having to switch any mode, or check where the face centers are.

In case of running into an extremely rare scenario, where you have triangulated model but at the same time perfectly straight, world axis aligned edge loops, I can still select all those edges relatively fast. I dare to say equally as fast as it would take you to drag 3 individual precise selection boxes over those 3 loops:

But if you have this kind of result, why on earth wouldn’t you do just a simple tris to quads operator before starting to work on that mesh?

You are intentionally creating difficult scenarios for yourself just to then be like “See? In this shitty situation I’ve gotten myself into, this is actually better!”. We both know that these are cherry picked scenarios and how miserably Blender’s legacy selection works in most of daily bread and butter situations.

I’ve been using the patch in production for over the year now, and it works perfectly. If you do not want to change your legacy workflow, then there’s no point of testing this patch, this won’t work for you.

But bottom line is that everything you are showing can always be done as fast, if not faster, if you just change your mindset.

Your entire selection methodology is completely deformed by years of using Blender, so already before you start selecting anything, the idea of how you plan to achieve the selection result will be very different because your brain is already taking the limitations of Blender’s legacy selection into account.

Feel free to post more examples if you want. I can guarantee I can achieve any selection you make with Blender’s legacy selection method equally as fast (when measuring the time it takes to complete), regardless of which case you cherry pick.

With all this being said, this is not my patch. This is kio’s patch. My proposal for the patch intended to keep the old face dot based selection as an option. So if I was capable enough to make such patch myself, I’d certainly keep both the legacy edge selection method as well as the legacy face dot selection method in there as an option. I just personally would not use it.

15

Hi

I am workflow designer, so I walking around and looking for different solutions and approaches to different problems. Just as usual, nothing special or personal.

Nice videos, thank you. But there are too many precise actions for my motor skills)
I can’t reproduce that.

A nice example of perfectly striaght but triangulated models - BIM/FBX/SKP architectural building models imports. They are always triangulated, and cannot be turned to quads, because there is a high chance to loose proper material assignment. A simple NDA-free model with no materials to depict a case we usually deal with.

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Not sure, I am 3dsmax user since 2002, and Blender user since 2011.
I still have to deal with 3dsmax sometimes because of it’s proprietary format.
Also I work with different software (CAD/vector), and everywhere selection methodology and contexts are different, in this case, the possible motor development skills are limited.

Yes, I know. But anyway it is a nice working example to test.

Yes, I am also trying to find a solution that can possibly satisfy everyone.

16

If you take individual motor skills into account, then there’s no point of taking about software side solutions at all, because then it would all become subjective. It would literally not matter at all which selection method would be used then, because individuals with superior motor skills would always be better at it.

Anyway, the most benefit of the select through comes mainly from reliability. If it’s always enabled, you are always, in every single selection action case 100% certain of the outcome of the selection. That does not apply to legacy selection. And that’s what brings most of the productivity gains. The certainty, which minimizes the amount or erroneous selections. Even if it comes at the cost of more difficult selections in certain corner cases, it’s still net productivity at the end of the day, since the bulk of the daily bread and butter workflow aren’t corner cases for most people.

17

Not sure, when I compare max and blender at the same models, at the end of the day in max I feel exhausted because of too many precise actions to be done, and if you missed a little bit - you have to perform all those annoying deselection cleanups.
Of course, I can reproduce that selection on that cube, but no one can’t afford such ninja actions 8 hours in a row at completely desorienting geometry)

That’s why we’ve chosen Blender - its selection type is compatible with complex trashed geometry.
But if such a cases are rare for you, probably, you will feel no difference, because you don’t deal with them.