TrenchBroom Help - Selecting Objects

## Selecting Objects

In TrenchBroom, there are three types of objects which can be selected: entities, brushes and faces. In the following sections, you will learn how you can select these objects to edit them. However, it is not possible to select any combination of objects. You can select multiple brushes and entities together because most editing operations can be applied to both these objects. Faces are a different matter though. You cannot combine faces and brushes or faces and entities in the same selection. Selecting a face will therefore deselect any selected brushes and entities and vice versa.

Selected objects in the 3D view.

Selected objects are rendered with red edges and slightly tinted faces to distinguish them visually. The bounding box of the selected objects is rendered in red, with spikes extending from every corner. These spikes are useful to pecisely position objects in relation to other objects. If you hover the mouse cursor over a selection of objects, the spikes are rendered in a brighter color, and information about the bounds and position of the selected objects is displayed.

### Selecting Objects in the 3D View

To select a single brush or entity, you simply left click on it in the 3D view. To select multiple objects, hold
while left clicking. If you click on a selected object while holding
, it will be deselected. You can "paint select" multiple objects. First, select an object, then hold
while dragging over unselected objects. Take care not to begin your dragging over a selection of objects, as this will clone the selection.

Faces can be selected by left clicking while holding
. To select multiple faces, again hold
. To select all faces of a brush, left double click the brush while holding
. To add all faces of a brush to the current selection, additionally hold
. You can also "paint select" multiple brush faces. To begin, select an inital face of a brush, then hold
while dragging over unselected faces.

To deselect everything, simply left click into the void, or choose
from the menu. To deselect faces indivdually,
on each face to select or deselect it.

One selected face.

### Using Selection Brushes

If you need to select many entities and brushes which are close to each other, you can use selection brushes. A selection brush is an ordinary brush which was usually created just for the purpose of selecting other objects. To use a selection brush, create (and select) a new brush that intersects or contains all of the objects that you would like to select. Then choose
and all objects which the selected brush touches are selected. Be aware that the previously selected brush is deleted by this operation.

Using selection brushes.

Look at the above images for an example. Say you wish to select the two columns and the info_player_coop entity. For the sake of the example, you want to use a selection brush. So you quickly draw a brush that touches only the columns and hit
. Voilà - the objects are selected.

### Other Selection Commands

In the Edit menu, there are several other commands that help you to select objects. Choose
to select every visible entity and brush in the map. If you want to select all brushes belonging to a particular brush entity,
any brush in the entity. This selects all brushes of that brush entity. You can also select one brush which belongs to that entity and then choose

You can also select objects by their line numbers in the map file they were loaded from. Choose
and enter a comma- or space-separated list of line numbers into the dialog that pops up. Click Ok to select the objects.

Finally, you can lock selected or unselected objects, so that they cannot be selected or modified. This can be useful when working with certain details. To begin, select some objects, and choose
to lock the selected objects, or
to lock everything except the selected objects. Locked objects are rendered with a blue tint to indicate that they cannot be selected. To unlock objects, choose

Locked objects highlighted in blue