From the course: Maya 2026 Essentials Training

Selecting objects - Maya Tutorial

From the course: Maya 2026 Essentials Training

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Selecting objects

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- [Instructor] When we work with objects in Maya, we may have to select or deselect them. So let's take a look at the selection tools in Maya. Now, the basic selection tool is here in the toolbox, in the upper left hand corner of the interface, it's called the select tool. Now the hotkey for that is the letter Q. Now, when I have that activated, all I have to do is hover over an object and left click, and that selects the object. If I want to select a different object, all I have to do is hover over that and left click, and notice how it deselects the previous object and selects the new one. Now, if I want to deselect, all I have to do is just left click on nothing and then nothing will be selected. Now if I want to select multiple objects, all I have to do is hold down the Shift key. So if I hold down Shift, select this one, I can continue to click and I can click on this one. Now, one of the things I want to point out is that notice how the highlights on these are different. The first one I selected is highlighted in white. The last one I selected is highlighted in green. Now, this is important in Maya because a lot of times the order of selection is important for a lot of functions in Maya. So that green highlight tells you that that is the last one I selected. So if I were to hold down Shift and continue to select, notice how that green highlight moves around. Now, if I want to deselect, all I have to do is just hold down the Shift key and I can deselect objects one by one or reselect them. So notice how by holding down the Shift key, I can basically just toggle objects on or off by clicking on them or clicking again, and that will select or deselect that object. Now, another way to use the selection tool is to use what's called marquee select. So all you have to do is left click and drag, and you can draw a box. So if I left, click and drag and draw a box around this one, I select it. If I left click and drag around these ones, I can select all of them. Now notice how that marquee only selects that which is inside the box. It doesn't have to be fully inside the box, it just has to be somewhat inside the box. So I can select that or this just by basically drawing the box a little bit over. Now, marquee select can also be used with the Shift key. So if I left click and drag with the Shift key down, I can select all of these, or hold down the Shift key and I can select all of these, or hold down the Shift key and deselect these. Now instead of the marque, you can also use what's called the lasso tool. And this is a little bit more precise. So if we go down here, we have what's called the lasso tool, and it's exactly as described. You can draw a shape and anything that falls within that shape gets selected. And of course, you can use that with the Shift key. So there are a number of ways to select objects in Maya. You can use the basic select tool or the lasso tool.

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