What is the proper way to deselect?

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hello,
I been using Blender for a while now but just realized that I never really understood how to properly deselect so usually I just make completely new selection instead of deselection.

As I understood you can basically shift + double click which kind of does the trick but not always. For example if you have mesh under the mesh you are deselecting then you cannot deselect at all. Added few examples below:

The deselect works however its a bit weird to shift + double click for it to happen.

De select does not work with shift + double click

2

ALT+A

or

clicking in a empty area (which may not be possible)

3

But that deselects everything? I mean the issue is usually that you end up selecting something extra and want to deselect that one thing while keeping the rest selected

4

Shift+Click, twice. Not double-click. The first will make the element Active, the 2nd will deselect it.

5

According to keymap for Box Select and Lasso Select tools holiding Ctrl + LMB activates “Subtract” mode. That is, you need to draw an area to deselect (like you would normally select with these tools), not just click. And it doesn’t change Active Object this way.

6

If you have object under the object this will not work. It will just toggle between activating and non activating the item. I wish you could change this behavior somehow. Like usually when building environment for example or like in this video below

7

Thanks, yea this works but with lasso tool it requires you draw over the origin of the object which is sometimes a bit annoying like if the origin of the object is at the world center and you are working somewhere else or if all of the objects have aligned origin at specific location then you will deselect all of them.

8

My go to way to deselect all is “A,A” or “Alt+A”. And to deselect only certain objects, I usually press “C” and middle click over the origins of the objects you want to deselect.

1 Like
9

Thanks, I guess I have to try to get used to this. Coming from Modo it feels a bit weird

10

I’m totally with you that it doesn’t function nicely. A more standard approach would just be alt+click to deselect. But currently alt+click brings up the select menu, where it lists the objects under your cursor and you can select the desired one from there. This menu could also be an effective method for you, on the condition you named your objects.

Though, it gets complicated in more complex scenes where lots of objects are overlapping. Not sure what the best approach would be.

1 Like
11

You can also try to add a custom keymap:

image
This one (I looked at Tweak tool for an example) is not perfect either - it deselects on click, but makes an object active. But no need to touch origins at least… i think.

2 Likes
12

Thanks, This actually solves it. I set it into D = Deselect since it was not used for anything.