Mesh Selection

In this section, we will learn about selecting different parts of the mesh using various selection tools and shortcuts. Take your time to familiarize yourself with these tools and shortcuts; there is a lot of information. Creating a specific selection is an essential part of working in Blender. Visit the manual to learn more.

An object consists of:

• Vertices
• Edges
• Faces

Open a new Blender file and enter  Edit Mode by using Tab. Take a look in the top left corner, where the Selection Modes are. By default, it should be on  Vertex, which are the points of the Mesh.

Select a single Vertex using LMB, you can see that it is highlighted as a white dot with the edges in orange.

Let's change the Selection Mode to  Edges. You might have noticed that the selection is gone, which makes sense because we only selected a single vertex. Select an edge that highlights the edge in white. If we quickly switch back to Vertex Selection Mode, we see that we now have two vertices selected because an edge consists of two vertices.

The last one is  Face Selection Mode, which selects a single face. As you can see, the edge selection is gone because a face needs four connected vertices to form a face.

We can extend the selection by holding Shift and selecting multiple faces. Instead of selecting the Selection Modes with the mouse, we can use:

• 1 for vertices
• 2 for edges
• 3 for faces

Open a new Blender File and enter  Edit Mode on the default cube in the scene. Press RMB to open the Context Menu (or W if you are using right click select). The context menu is different depending on your selection mode. So if you are in  Vertex Selection Mode, it will show different functionalities than  Edge Selection Mode.

Subdividing

Select Subdivide (you need a selection for it to work) to create smaller and smaller sections on your mesh. Do this three times.

Selecting Edge/Vertex Loops

Starting with  Edge Selection Mode (2) and by holding Alt, you can select horizontal and vertical edge loops.

Selecting a loop using the vertex/edge selection modes (horizontally or vertically, relatively speaking) by selecting the edge in the direction of where the edge is pointing.

Selecting Face Loops

Selecting a loop using the  Face Selection Mode:

• A vertical edge will select the loop horizontally.
• A horizontal edge will select the loop vertically.

You can hold Shift + Alt to extend the selection, and you will keep selecting loops (right now I'm using  Face Selection Mode).

Pick Shortest Path

Select a face first, and by holding Ctrl, we can select another face, and it will connect the face selection. It will try to select the shortest path "route" to the next selection. This will also work for vertex/edge selection modes.

Circle Selection Tool

By using C, we can activate the Circle Select Tool. It creates a small circle around the cursor, and by using LMB, it will select everything that fits within the area of the circle. Using the Wheel or Numpad -/+ will increase or decrease its size. As you might have noticed, you can't orbit around the model when using Circle Select.

• Holding Shift deselects the selection.

From the Toolbar T, you can also choose Select Circle, which will be the default selection method. This mode works slightly differently, and I recommend that you use any other selection method instead. The selection methods in the Toolbar also work in  Object Mode, which is why you don't see the other selection tools/methods because they only work in  Edit Mode.

Box Selection Tool

Use B to activate Box Select Mode, which selects everything that fits within the box area. Similar to the previous Circle Select Tool, you are "locked" and can't orbit around the object.

• Holding Shift deselects the selection.

Try the Select Box in the Toolbar and hold LMB to create a selection. This might feel similar to other software for creating a selection.

Some important details using the Box Select:

• Holding Shift extends the selection.
• Holding Ctrl will deselect the selection.

Lasso Selection Tool

In the Toolbar, change the tool to Select Lasso. With this tool, you can freely draw a shape, and every element of your mesh that fits within the lasso will be selected. A nice way to select items is by using the "straight" side of the lasso.

Some important details using the Lasso Select:

• Holding Shift extends the selection.
• Holding Ctrl will deselect the selection.

Select More/Less & Invert

We can increase/decrease our selection by using Ctrl + Numpad +/-. If you don't have a numpad, go to Select > More/Less to achieve the same.

Use Ctrl + I to invert the selection. It is sometimes easier/faster to create a smaller selection and invert the selection to apply particular modeling operations.

X-ray

The last but not least is how  X-ray affects your selection. Using Alt + Z will toggle X-ray, which makes the selection ray pass through the mesh, selecting the backside. In orthographic view, it can be hard to maybe see when X-ray is activated, just remember to take a look at the button to see if it's activated.

That was the end of the lesson. We have learned:

• That by using RMB we bring up the Context Menu where we can Subdivide the selection.
• The difference between selecting Vertex/Edge Loops and Face Loops using Alt.
• Holding Ctrl we can Pick Shortest Path.
• Using C or B we enable Circle or Box select and the differences between the Toolbar and Edit Mode variants.
• Using the Lasso Select tool.
• Selecting More/Less and Invert the selections.
• How X-ray works and affects our selection.