9

Merge 463
Alternately, you could use the Selection Floater,
accessed from the Tools menu. While similar to
the Select Objects dialog, the Selection Floater
is modeless and can remain on-screen while
you ’re working.
2. While holding down the Ct rl key , select
objectsorcomponentswithcommonnames.
You can also en ter the object or component
nameinthenamefieldatthetopofthedialog.
3. Click Select.
All objects or components that share the
specified name are selected.
To se l ect object s o r compo ne nt s by la y e r:
1.
Choose Ed it menu > Selec t By > Layer.
2. Select an object in the scene.
All objects or components that share that layer
are selected.
To is olate selected obj ects:
1.
Using one of the previous selection methods,
select some objects.
2. Choose Tools menu > Isolate Selected.
All objects are hidden except for the selec ted
objectsorcomponents. Adialogappears
indicating that isolation mode is active.
Merge
File menu > Merge
Merge allows you to bring objects from other
scene files into the current scene. You can also use
merge if you want to combine an entire scene with
another. This behaves similarly to the XRef Merge
dialog (page 3–406). Controlsinthisdialogare
similar to those in the Select Objects dialog (page
1–78).
The Merge dialog lets you load and save
influences with or without their dependents. In
many cases, objects should b e referenced with
their influences, but the display only makes you
aware of the relationships, it does not force you to
externally reference them.
When you select an item in the list window
and click Influences, the object’s influences are
selected in the list window. When you select an
item in the list window and Display Influences is
on, the object’s influences are shown in blue in the
list window. When you select an item in the list
window and Select Influences is on, the object’s
influences are also s elected in the list window.
Automatic Uni t Conver sion
When Respect System Units in Files is tur ned on in
the Units Setup dialog (page 3–848),intheSystem
Unit Scale group, merged objects from a file with
a different scene unit sca le are scaled to maintain
their correct size in the new scene. No conversion
is done when merging files created in 3ds Max 1.x.
Note: If Respect System Units is off (which is not
recommended), a 100-foot radius sphere that
was created in a 1 unit = 1 foot scene becomes a
100-inch sphere in a 1 unit = 1 inch scene.
Resolving Name Conf licts
Object Name Conflicts
When one or more incoming objects ha v e the
same name as objects in the scene, an aler t gives
you the following options:
Merge—Merges the incoming object using the
nameinthefieldattheright.Toavoidhavingtwo
objects with the same name, type a new name
before proceeding.
Sk ip—Does not merge the incoming object.
Delete Old—Deletes the existing object before
merging the incoming one.