I have three spheres overlapping each other and joined them so I could spin the object as one piece. Now I need to adjust one of the spheres but don’t know how to unjoin them. I’ve seen some horrible-horrible-horrible suggestions of having to select separate verts (of the object you want removed) then click ‘p’ to undo them. This would be a nightmare considering the complexity of the overlapping meshes.
If Blender is missing this rudimentary feature, is there a way to import and object in place of one in the scene?
Selecting vertices en masse isn’t that hard – Use Alt+RMB to select a loop or string of verts (or, you can start with even a single vertex), then use Ctrl+NUM+ (the plus sign on the numpad) to expand the selection. You’ll eventually have all connected verts selected that way, and the selection can be moved as needed with the mesh editing tools. Ctrl+NUM- deselects (unexpands) the selection.
BTW, the Alt+LMB can be used with Shift to expand your selection loop by loop, and also can be used on edges and faces. Ctrl+Alt+RMB selects edge rings instead of loops. These combos can be extremely handy when mesh editing.
Since it is likely that each sphere is still an island of interconnected vertices, just select one vertex belonging to the sphere that you want to separate, then use CTRL+L to select all the connected vertices and just them, then P to separate the selection.
You may not even need to separate the spheres, either. After selecting, you can hide unselected vertices/faces with Shift+H-KEY, and work then on only the remainders. Alt+H-KEY unhides anything hidden. This way you can work unobstructed on portions of any mesh in Edit mode.
