From the course: 3ds Max and Twinmotion: Architectural Visualization

Selecting and manipulating objects

From the course: 3ds Max and Twinmotion: Architectural Visualization

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Selecting and manipulating objects

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- [Instructor] When you work into a motion, you'll often need to select, move, rotate, and scale objects. So let's go into that. Now, selecting an object can be as simple as left-clicking on it. So we have along this bar here this tool, which is basically the Translate Tool. It allows to move, rotate, and scale. By default, it's on Translate. You can also hit the hotkey four to get into that. Now once I'm in this mode all I have to do is a left-click on an object to select it. Then notice when I left-click this gizmo comes up. And that will allow me to move, rotate, and scale. But I can also select multiple objects. So I hold down the control key, I can select multiple objects, and work with them all at once. Now if I want to deselect objects all I have to do is left-click on nothing. Now another way to select objects is in what's called the scene graph. So if I open up this side bar here, you'll see that I have a couple of these planters. And if I want, I can shift select there. And select them by name or basically that way. Now when you select an object, you will get this gizmo. Now this gizmo with change depending on whether you're move, rotate, or scale. So I'm going to go into move mode here. And you'll see we've got a couple of items that highlight. So the first one is this vertical up arrow. If I left-click on it and drag, I can move the object up or down. I can also move it along specific axes by clicking on either one of these. And if I click in the middle, I can move it basically along those two axes. Now if I click here, I can also rotate the object as well. Another nice thing in Twinmotion is that it will try to stick objects to surfaces. So if I click on the middle here, that will allow me to move it basically anywhere I want. But it will snap to surfaces. So if I move it back towards this wall, you'll see how it's trying to snap to that wall. Or basically, the top of that cube. So really, anywhere I go, it's trying to snap when I click in the middle. Now you can also move multiple objects. So if I were to basically control select both of these, if I click in the middle it will also try to stick these two surfaces. Now in addition to move, we also have rotate and scale. So select rotate, and now I can rotate along any axis, as well as move along any axis. So this actually kind of a nice way to work if you're doing a lot of rotations. So all I have to do is highlight this. I can rotate around this axis, this axis, or this one. And if I click on any one of these I can also move. So I can move along any axis. I can move it up or down. And if I click on this area in between the two axes, I can move it perpendicular to that. Now finally, we have scale. And this basically allows me to scale objects. If I click in the middle, it's a uniformed scale. If I click on one of these handles, it basically allows you to scale along one of these axes. Now typically, when I work I tend to stay in move mode because I'm, typically, rotating just along the ground plane. But it just depends on your scene and how you need to work. Basically, go ahead and practice selecting and manipulating objects.

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