9.5.2

160 • CHAPTER 6
EDIT MENU • 161
Selection
Select All
Selects all objects in the scene.
Deselect All
Deselects all objects or elements. If the Points tool is active when you invoke Deselect All, all the
points of the selected object will be deselected. Similarly, if the Polygon tool or Edge tool is active, all
polygons or edges of the selected object will be deselected.
Select Children
Adds the children of the selected object(s) to the selection. This is especially useful when you want to
record keyframes for the selected objects and their children.
The drawing pipeline
Should you encounter unexpected results in CINEMA 4D, check the drawing
pipeline rst.
One of CINEMA 4D’s prime features is its realtime preview, e.g. realtime deformation editing in the
viewports. To facilitate this feature, the various actions involved must take place in a predened order.
Suppose you’ve created a Cube object. You then assign an expression tag that distorts the cube in
a particular way. Next, you assign a Bend deformation object to the cube. Which action should take
place rst? Should the cube be bent rst, then distorted, or should the cube be distorted and then
bent? Two entirely different outcomes are possible depending on which action takes place rst.
Suppose you’ve animated an object moving from point A to point B, yet at the same time you have
given it an expression tag that tells it to move to point C. The object cannot be in both places at the
same time, so who wins? The winner is whichever one is evaluated last of all – if the expression is
evaluated rst, the animation overwrites the expression and the object comes to rest at point B; if the
animation is evaluated rst, the expression overwrites it and the object ends up at point C.
CINEMA 4D enables you to assign priority levels to expression tags to control exactly when the
expression is evaluated.