Uploaded by
lynda on 07.06.2012
When you work with multiple objects in the scene, a lot of times you will want to see
a list of everything that's in the scene. You know, clicking on one object and seeing
its name is not the same as seeing a list of everything in the scene. So we can do this
by using what's called the Outliner. So we go into Window > Outliner and an Outliner
window should pop up. We can also use this as a panel within a viewport. But let's just
go ahead and keep this as a floating window. I am going to go ahead and just move my objects
over, so we can see the scene a little bit better. And you'll notice here that we have
every object in the scene. So in this case I have Chair_01, 02, 03, I also have the Bowl
in the scene, oranges, and so on. So this window allows us to select and manipulate
objects in the scene. So if I want to select multiple objects, it's very similar to selecting
from a list in any operating system. So if I hold down the Shift key, I can select all
of these. If I just click on one, I'll select that one. And again, hold down the Shift key,
I can select all of them. If I hold down the Ctrl or Command key, I can select individual
ones as well. So if I want to I can select whichever ones I want by holding down Ctrl
or Command. Or if I hold down Shift, it will select everything in between where I click.
Now in addition to the objects in the scene, you can also see a lot of other things in
the Outliner. We can see each one of our perspective, top, front and side cameras are in the scene,
we also have lights. If we have default lights in the scene, we can see those as well. Now
along the top of the Outliner window, we have a Display object here, we can Display our
objects or the Objects and the Shapes. So notice how this changes a little bit. So we
have our Objects here. But if we Display Objects and Shapes, it's basically like going into
the Attribute Editor, where we have the object, which is basically just the positioning data
of the object, but also the shape attached to that, which is in this case the shape of
the chair. So if I highlight this here, you can see we have what's called the Chair Shape.
And you can actually see how when I select this, it's selecting it in the Attribute Editor.
So we can also go ahead and turn this off here, but we also can see all the attributes
for an object, so if I highlight this, I can actually go through and see every single attribute
for this object. So basically everything you would see in the Attribute Editor, I can see
that. And typically, we don't want to see that because that gets really messy, but we
also can see which objects are connected to each other in terms of hierarchies, and so
on. We can also show Types of objects. So if I only want to show Polygonal objects,
it will only show those objects. So stuff like the oranges in the bowl on the table,
which are surfaces or NURBS objects, those don't show up. So if I were to display NURBS
objects, those would show up, but if I turn off Polygon objects, only the bowl and the
oranges show up. It doesn't mean I can't select those things, they just don't show up in the
Outliner. Now this can be really handy if you have a big scene, and you just want to
see certain types of objects. We can just go through and turn on everything by doing
Show All. And as with most windows, we do have a Help option. So those are some of the
basics of how to use the Outliner. Now the Outliner again is a great way to see everything
in your scene and to select objects by Name or by Type.
