Hi everyone, welcome to today’s tutorial on creating and using selection sets, to make selecting, freezing, unfreezing, hiding and unhiding objects (eg. planes or boxes showing reference images) easier and faster.

1. select objects to be added to a selection set (draw a selection marquee around the objects to be selected, or click and Ctrl+click on each individual objects, or use selection by name by pressing H, and select the objects based on their names (eg. ref_front and ref_side) (Ctrl+click on the names, to select multiple objects in the select by name dialog box) and click select)

note:

• if the objects are not frozen or hidden, they can be directly selected, or selected by name
• if objects to be made into a selection set are already frozen, you can unfreeze these objects (and all other frozen objects) by right-clicking the viewport and selecting Unfreeze All
• if objects to be made into a selection set are already hidden, you can unhide these objects (and all other hidden objects) by right-clicking the viewport and selecting Unhide All

note:

• you can change the name of current selected object, by selecting that object, select the modify tab from the command panel, and entering a new name for it in the name field at the top right hand corner, beside the color box for the current object

2. click inside selection set dropdown box, and enter the name for the new selection set, eg. ref_images, and click Enter (a new selection set is now created)

3. right-click viewport, and select Hide Selection, to hide current selected objects

4. select the desired selection set (eg. ref_images) from selection set dropdown box

5. click Yes (when prog prompts you if you want these objects to be unhidden and unfrozen) (the objects in the selection set will then be unhidden and unfrozen, and also selected)

6. right-click viewport, and select Freeze Selection, to freeze current selected objects

7. select the desired selection set (eg. ref_images) from selection set dropdown box

8. click Yes (when prog prompts you if you want these objects to be unhidden and unfrozen) (the objects in the selection set will then be unhidden and unfrozen, and also selected)

Try checking out 3D Studio Max Setup Reference Images, 3D Studio Max Model a Tank, to learn how to setup reference images, and use them to help guide you in your modeling, it should make it easier for you to create models based on photos you can take yourself or find on the internet

note: 3D Studio Max Model a Tank is a multi part tutorial, showing how to make use of reference images to model a tank, the other parts of this tutorial will be posted soon, so stay tuned. If you want to know how to create a tank model now, you can also check out the book called Introducing 3ds Max 9: 3D for Beginners, which my tank tutorials are be based on.