AFMG Network Forum

Lindsay Smith · Member

I have a model that I am trying to look at the effect of changing the surface material of large numbers of faces to different materials.

"Change All Same" is not useful because sometimes I am looking at changing just some of the drywall to something else. Right now I am creating objects so that I can quickly change a group of faces to something else. Is there a quick way to select and change a group of faces to an object? If I use "Show All Same" I can't figure out how to activate the highlighted faces. I haven't found a way in tables to activate faces.

I can't make the "Activate Mode" and "Activate Items" with the mouse do anything useful. Activate Items selects everything the window touches which is far more than I want and Activate Items is extremely tedious. So far the combination of shift-F11 and F8 is the best I can do which is not very good. What am I missing?

Thanks for your help.

Lindsay Smith - Seattle

Bruce · Member

Hi Lindsay,

I usually use Activate Mode in the following way:
Using the Right Mouse Button (RMB) de-selects everything the mouse touches, so I use the various views and combinations of the LMB and RMB to get me close to the selection I need, then use Activate Items to Activate or Deactivate specific faces as needed.

For instance, select all the walls in a side view, then switch to the plan view to deselect a specific wall.

Hard to describe without pictures, I'll try and put together a demonstration of what I mean.

Jim Mobley · Member

Hi Lindsay,

Not directly on topic, but, if you think of this in advance, create a custom wall material by renaming and use it for the material you want to change.

For example, you want to compare a gypsum board wall with and without fiberglass panels. Create a wall material by opening the gypboard58.mat and change the name and description, but not the coefficients--call it "gypbrd_pnl" for example--and save it to your database.

Now, when you build the model, assign the new material to the panels for the existing condition and use change all or Optimize RT, to replace the material with the flavor of fuzz you want to try. Since the wall panels will never be the same material--even though they may have the same acoustic properties--as the normal walls, you can change back and forth to your heart's content.