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Grouping Multiple Objects in the Scene Window

BlackAcerbicBlackAcerbic Posts: 0
edited January 2013 in New Users

Hello folks,

This ~MUST~ be a noob question because I have Googled it to death and can't find a thing. This leads me to believe that I'm asking the wrong question, because I can't believe I'm the first person with this problem.

I have a great deal of separate, but similar objects in my scene. They all show up on individually in the Scene window. I would simply like to select them all at once and also make them all invisible/visible with one click.

I attempted to parent them to a Null object, but while this does clean up my list, it doesn't allow me to select them as a group or toggle their visibility as a group.

I can think of plenty of reasons that this functionality would be useful to me and I can't be alone. (I hope!) Perhaps it's my experience with Photoshop that this seems like such basic functionality.

Any help would be greatly, greatly, greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

Edit to add: I'm using Daz Studio 4.0 Pro

Post edited by BlackAcerbic on

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,822
    edited December 1969

    DS does now have a grouping function, but I can't recall if that was new in 4.5 or present in 4.0. Select the items you want to group, then Create>New group and give it a name.

  • BlackAcerbicBlackAcerbic Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Thanks, Richard. I think it must be new.. Isn't present in my Create menu. Looks like I'll have to look into installing 4.5 without breaking anything! :P

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    You can also group items in any version of DS by using a Null. Go to Create > New Null,,, and parent all of the items to that Null, and rename it to what you want. It is much the same as a group, and it is how everyone had to do it before DS 4.5

  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited December 1969

    Actual grouping was introduce in 4.5 and it has a single, but large, advantage over the null methodology. When using DS Grouping you can toggle visibility on the group and it will toggle visibility of all items in the group. Parenting to a null doesn't give you that.

  • Miss BMiss B Posts: 3,071
    edited December 1969

    adamr001 said:
    Actual grouping was introduce in 4.5 and it has a single, but large, advantage over the null methodology. When using DS Grouping you can toggle visibility on the group and it will toggle visibility of all items in the group. Parenting to a null doesn't give you that.

    Very true. I always have to expand the view of what's in a null in order to toggle on or off everything within the null. DS Grouping is a new feature that saves several steps, depending on how many items are in the group.
  • garyp156_91954b7311garyp156_91954b7311 Posts: 36
    adamr001 said:

    Actual grouping was introduce in 4.5 and it has a single, but large, advantage over the null methodology. When using DS Grouping you can toggle visibility on the group and it will toggle visibility of all items in the group. Parenting to a null doesn't give you that.

    This is an old post but adamr001 you rock!  I was wondering what the difference was.

     

  • Ken OBanionKen OBanion Posts: 1,447

    As an alternative, you can select one of the items you want to group, and then 'parent' the other items to that.

    For example, I have a table and six chairs that I want to rearrange on the diner floor.  In the Scene tab, I expand the Table, and then drag each chair onto the top-level node of the Table object (it's almost always named 'table' -- can't imagine why); they will then appear in the scene hierarchy under the 'table'.  Then, just select the Table, and drag it around to your heart's content!  (I prefer to use the translation/rotation sliders for that, however.)  The individual chairs can still be positioned independently of the others in the hierarchy.

    And if you want to make it disappear altogether, just click the visibility icon (the little eye image).

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