Selecting objects by name?

# 1 13-11-2007 , 12:31 PM

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Join Date: May 2007

Posts: 5

Hey Yall,
I have a simple question, and I'm hoping it has a simple answer. Is there a way to select multiple objects that have the same name, or even better, a similar name with minor variation. For example, say I am making a scene with a bunch of cars. I want to select the tires. The problem is that they are all grouped to their respective cars and I dont want to have to waste time digging into each group to find the tires. The good thing is that I know I named them all "Tire_01." So is there a way to just type in "Tire_01" and have it select all the objects with that name? Even better for me would be if I could type in "tire" and it would select all the objects with "tire" in the name. For example, "Tire_01", "Tire_LFT", "RT_Tire", etc.

So is there a way to do this? I know I can use the filter thing in the outliner but it still makes me drill down through the groups to find the filtered objects. And I still need to actually select the things too. I would like to just be able to type in for selection. If I thought ahead I would have set up some selection sets, but alas I did not.

Thanks in advance! (sorry if this is unclear as I am tired and been trying to solve major issues in Maya for way too long today, let me know if I can make this clearer in any way)

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# 2 13-11-2007 , 12:45 PM

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Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

if you go to the script editor then type in

select -r "object Name" "object Name" ;

Changing the "object name" to what ever you need say pCube1 then execute the command it will select what yove listed.

Hope it helps.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 3 13-11-2007 , 12:53 PM

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Re: Selecting objects by name?

that seems very useful but the only issue seems to be that i have multiple things named the same and it gives me and error saying "more than one object matches name..."

Last edited by timmons64; 13-11-2007 at 01:13 PM.

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# 4 13-11-2007 , 01:40 PM

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i guess the simple question is, can I select multiple objects with the same word in their name (tire for example), and this includes some that are named the exact same name.

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# 5 13-11-2007 , 02:09 PM

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I got an answer from another forum that makes the problem seem silly. Thought I would share. In the top right of the main window of maya you can set different selection things to be typed in, for example, absolute transform, relative transform, etc. If you select "select by name" you can then type *tire* and it will select every object with "tire" in the name. This worked like a charm and I will be using this heavely from now on. Thanks for all your help!

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# 6 13-11-2007 , 02:16 PM

Jr.Who

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Hmm, that sounds interesting. I always thought that if you had objects that are the same, you should name them differently (like tire1, tire2, etc.).

Thanks for the tip.
user added image

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# 7 13-11-2007 , 02:20 PM

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Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

I would have suggested that but I thought it only selected actual names.

I thought that you couldent name things the same??

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 8 13-11-2007 , 02:22 PM

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Join Date: May 2007

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I guess that you should always name things different but my issue was that I duplicated groups and all the children retained the same names in every duplicate group. So I'm not sure what the solution to that is but the method above worked amazing and I will certainly be using it a lot.

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# 9 18-11-2007 , 01:10 AM

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Location: India

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Hi Dude,

Thats really very simple as u told.

just go to select by name on status line and just type ur object name first and then type * then hit enter. it will work.

For example:

if you have 10 object which has same name like Car_01, Car_02, Car_03......so

then just type in select by name field "Car*" and hit enter your all car object will select after that.

Regards,
Jatin Soni

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# 10 12-11-2018 , 11:52 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2010

Posts: 4

Hi, could you tell me where is this text input in Maya 2018? Is it the MEL input?
It does not work for me.
For example, in my scene, I have an object called "Skeleton"
In the MEL input, if I type Skeleton or Skeleton*, it returns an error message : Syntax error.
Thanks for the help.
Gz

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Selecting objects by name?

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