Selection Is Weird Now

[jaxtraw]

So, playing with 2.8 I can’t get my head around how selection now works, or is supposed to work. I am presuming the problems I am encountering are because we can now select and edit multiple objects, which I guess is nice if you want to do that, but currently it seems one can’t stop doing so.

Let us say I have a figure with an armature and I want to select and move the thigh bone. I right click it in Pose Mode and… I find I’ve selected something else. I’ve dropped back into object mode and now I’ve got both the armature and the mesh around it selected. In other words, it seems the depth picking is ignoring that I was posing and has decided I wanted to select both. So now I click the bone again, and maybe again, and then if I can click enough times I eventually end up with just the bone selected and I can actually pose it.

I am guessing that it’s supposed to work this way but it’s damned weird and makes what was one click before into several. Sometimes a double right click seems to do the job but I’m not sure if that’s a design choice or not, I think I’m probably imagining things.

So now let’s say I’ve got two armatures in the scene, maybe an FK for most of the figure and an IK for the feet. Well, woe betide me if I hit “A” to select the whole Foot IK armature ready to keyframe it. Because even though I hadn’t got the other armature selected, I now find every darned bone on both armatures is selected.

Is this deliberate? What am I meant to be doing?

While I’m at it…

I’m praying we’re going to get bones as wireframes back (currently they’re stuck on solid) and also a proper wireframe overlay when not in edit mode. Currently there is a weird sketchy wireframe of the triangulated mesh (rather than quads).

Further to animation, the hiding of the keying set is also meaning an extra click (I have to pop up a little popup to see and change Rotation to LocRot, etc. Personally I’d like to see these choices permanently available as a little list of checkboxes for rapid switching on and off each parameter (location, rotation, scale, etc). Maybe on the T shelf, except…

… I am still baffled as to what the T toolshelf is for now. It now has these big buttons on it for things one commonly uses well remembered shortcuts for like Grab/Move and Rotate (I mean seriously, nobody wants a button for them, do they?) that look almost like they’re for touch screen users, but you can’t do 3D modelling with a touch interface, so I’m baffled there.

But anway, main thing. What’s going on with trying to select my bones? Is it unfinished or is there a new paradigm I’m meant to adopt?

[zeauro]

@jaxtraw

Let us say I have a figure with an armature and I want to select and move the thigh bone. I right click it in Pose Mode and… I find I’ve selected something else.

That’s a bug. You are not supposed to select more than indicated.

@jaxtraw

So now let’s say I’ve got two armatures in the scene, maybe an FK for most of the figure and an IK for the feet. Well, woe betide me if I hit “A” to select the whole Foot IK armature ready to keyframe it. Because even though I hadn’t got the other armature selected, I now find every darned bone on both armatures is selected.

That is totally normal. You are editing several armatures at same time. It is legitimate that a Select All selects all selectable bones.
You still have ability to quit pose/edit mode, select only one armature and only edit this one.
Just be careful. A workspace switch is switching mode for all selected objects.
You created 2 armatures in Layout workspace. If both are selected when switch is made to Animation workspace; both are in pose mode.
You have bone layers at disposal.
You have other selection operators. Select Grouped, Select Linked, Select Pattern. Extend Child Extend Child.
So, there are other tools at your disposal to do a pertinent selection.
Probably, a new Select Same Armature bones operator should be added to be productive.
But, limiting all operators in edit/pose mode to only armature of active bone would simply kill the interest to have Multi-object editing/posing.

@jaxtraw

I’m praying we’re going to get bones as wireframes back (currently they’re stuck on solid) and also a proper wireframe overlay when not in edit mode.

There are a Transparent Bones overlay only available in edit and pose mode.
That was the cool display made before the acceptance to restore a wireframe mode for meshes.
So, bones display was not the priority. There is room for improvement. Custom shape display has not been restored, yet, too.

@jaxtraw

Personally I’d like to see these choices permanently available as a little list of checkboxes for rapid switching on and off each parameter (location, rotation, scale, etc). Maybe on the T shelf, except…

… I am still baffled as to what the T toolshelf is for now. It now has these big buttons on it for things one commonly uses well remembered shortcuts for like Grab/Move and Rotate (I mean seriously, nobody wants a button for them, do they?) that look almost like they’re for touch screen users, but you can’t do 3D modelling with a touch interface, so I’m baffled there.

There are many people using graphical tablet + stylus for various reasons.
It may be not your workflow or a workflow that is less efficient.
That should not prevent devs to bring accessibility of some parts or the whole Blender to these users.

We could imagine to migrate keying sets buttons to right half of Topbar.
It would be totally consistent with Grease Pencil draw mode that have several options about GP keyframe/stroke creation at this place.

[Gtx]

Yes selection is damn terrible in 2.8 and I hope this is just a bug and nothing else.
With 2.79 its easy to select a bone but in 2.8 I have no idea why sometimes it selects the armature or another bone then goes to select ALL BONES then the bone I want.

[Mikequeen123]

Let us say I have a figure with an armature and I want to select and move the thigh bone. I right click it in Pose Mode and… I find I’ve selected something else. I’ve dropped back into object mode and now I’ve got both the armature and the mesh around it selected. In other words, it seems the depth picking is ignoring that I was posing and has decided I wanted to select both. So now I click the bone again, and maybe again, and then if I can click enough times I eventually end up with just the bone selected and I can actually pose it.

I had the same problem. That’s probably why blender 2.8 has this button. I have used it quite a lot when posing my own models. Definitely helpful with the way the selection acts now.

[jaxtraw]

@Mikequeen123 yes, that helps, thanks for that. It still feels less instant though, more extra clicks to pop things up. But at least it helps.

@Gtx Yes I don’t think I mentioned that, the ALL BONES for no obvious reason. I’m getting that too.

@zeauro Firstly, I was referring to touchscreen not tablets. I’ve got a Wacom. Big buttons are for people using their fingers. I appreciate nowadays it’s the fashion to design everything for smartphone finger interfaces, but you can’t use blender with that kind of interface. Fingers are rubbish. For a tablet, you’d want lots of smaller controls to tap like, um, the old Toolshelf with most everything on it, tabbed.

Also, the A selecting all bones does it regardless of whether the armatures are both selected. If they’re both in Pose mode, it selects them all. Even if one is not selected when you do the A. Talking of which the new “double tap A” is not as good as the old toggle. Can’t see the point of changing that.