Soft Selection Rollout

Note: The keyboard shortcuts listed here require that the Keyboard Shortcut Override Toggle be turned on.

Use Soft Selection—Affects the action of Move, Rotate, and Scale functions within the editable object or Edit modifier, and the action of deformation modifiers applied to the object if they are operating on a sub-object selection (the latter also applies to the Select modifiers). When on, the software applies a spline curve deformation to the unselected sub-objects surrounding the selection that you transform. To take effect, this check box must be on before transforming or modifying the selection.

Edge Distance—This spinner setting limits the region affected by the number of edges between the selection and the affected vertices. The affected region is measured in terms of "edge-distance" space, along the surface, rather than real space.

Affect Backfacing—When on, deselected sub-objects whose normals (or, in the case of vertices and edges, the normals of faces to which they're attached) are facing in the opposite direction to the average normal of the selected sub-objects, are affected by the soft selection influence. Turn off Affect Backfacing when you want to pull faces of a thin object, such as a thin box, but don't want to affect faces on the other side of the object.

Note: Affect Backfacing is not available when editing splines.

Falloff—Distance in current units from the center to the edge of a sphere defining the affected region. Use higher falloff settings to achieve more gradual slopes, depending on the scale of your geometry. Default=20.

Note: The region specified by the Falloff setting is depicted graphically in the viewports as a color gradient in vertices and/or edges (or, with editable polys, optionally in faces) from the selection color (normally red) to the non-selected sub-object color (normally blue). In addition, this gradient is updated in real time as you change the Falloff setting.

Note: If Edge Distance is turned on, the Edge Distance setting limits the maximum falloff amount.

Pinch—Raises and lowers the top point of the curve along the vertical axis. Sets the relative "pointedness" of the region. When negative, a crater is produced instead of a point. At a setting of 0, Pinch produces a smooth transition across this axis. Default=0.

Bubble—Expands and contracts the curve along the vertical axis. Sets the relative "fullness" of the region. Limited by Pinch, which sets a fixed starting point for Bubble. A setting of 0 for Pinch and 1.0 for Bubble produces a maximum smooth bulge. Negative values for Bubble move the bottom of the curve below the surface, creating a "valley" around the base of the region. Default=0.

Soft Selection Curve—Graphically displays how Soft Selection will work. You can experiment with a curve setting, undo it, and try another setting with the same selection.

Soft Selection Rollout — Editable Poly

The user interface of the Soft Selection rollout is different when you are working with Editable Poly objects. All the controls have the same functionality as described above. The key change is the compact layout of the rollout and the addition of Shaded Face Toggle.

Soft Selection Curve—Since the Soft Selection Curve is always symetrical, only the right half of the curve is displayed.

Shaded Face Toggle—Turns on and off the use of vertex colors in displaying shaded faces corresponding to the soft selection weights.

If the Vertex Color properties of an editable poly object are turned off, pressing the Shaded Face Toggle will turn on Soft Selection Color shading. If an editable poly object already has an active Vertex Color setting, pressing the Shaded Face Toggle will override the previous setting and change it to Soft Selection Color.

Note: Use the Undo command if you do not want to change your vertex color shading properties.