is it possible to incrementally add adjacent triangles to current selected?

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Hi,

The current Mesh Editor is a very powerful tool.

I was wondering if there is a way to select adjacent triangles of the currently selected and add it to the currently selected?

Sounds like a complicated question   , but I will try to give an example to clarify.

For example, let's say there is a cube with a very high poly count rope wrapping around the cube (it's all one mesh).  I want to delete the entire rope from the mesh.  Through the Mesh Editor tool I would manually select all the triangles of the rope and then delete.  But, what happens if the rope contains 20K triangles?  I would have to make sure to select all 20K triangles before deleting, and if not, then there would be orphaned triangles after the delete.  All the orphaned triangles would have to be manually selected to be able to delete.  But these triangles can be so small due to the very high poly count that it would be very difficult to select every one of them if they are lingering in space.  Plus, the faces of the triangles can be in any direction due to the complex shape nature of a rope.

Is there a way to add adjacent triangles of the currently selected, to be included in the total selection?  Incrementally?  Let's say, if there was a button to add the adjacent triangles to the selection.  With each press of the button, it would incrementally add the adjacents to the selection, thus making the total selection grow each time.  This way, with just an initial selection of 1 triangle of the rope, each incremental add of adjacents to the selection can grow until desired.

I hope the above scenario makes sense.  I have encountered many complex meshes of which I am editing, and the above scenario is what is consuming a big chunk of my time.  If the features for Mesh Editor can solve the above example, it would be awesome!

Or, maybe there are already features of Mesh Editor available that I am overlooking?

Thank you!

Hi Superstar,

Thanks for your kind review of Mesh Editor and also for a very detailed description of your situation.

There is no option to expand or grow the selection of triangles, this is one of the features that does need to be added. But it would most likely work efficiently on low poly models, mainly due to the fact that the Unity meshes do not contain any adjacency information about the neighboring polygons/triangles.

The solution is to use the marquee/group select tool instead, by holding down the hotkey when left clicking and dragging within the scene. In the scenario you described I would first use the marquee tool to select all of the triangles in the mesh, and then deselect the triangles you want to keep by clicking on them while holding down the shift key.

Mesh Cutter has an option for selecting all of the triangles of any submesh (triangles with the same material) and I would say this is the fastest way possible to remove whole sections of a mesh. It also has different options for how you can cut the mesh.

I hope that helps with your project until I can get the feature implemented.

Best regards,
Alan

Thank you for your response.

Yes, I had already used the group select tool prior to your recommended solution, and thus, that selection tool is working great then and now.  With my current scenarios, unfortunately I have to edit meshes that are using 1 material.

The current features of Mesh Editor and Mesh Cutter is technically already working superbly as is.  It's just my scenarios are complex.  But, in the meantime, with patience and some added time, I can complete all my needed edits by using these tools.


I am looking forward to hopefully seeing this feature being implemented one day, and also to many great new features in the future!

Cheers!