Select polygons by orientation?

[dlparisi]

Is there any way in max to select polygons in a mesh based on there orientation (i.e. normal) I'm trying to seelct the rooftops of some simple box buildings and add a greeble modifier but can't think of a way to select just the rooftops. Manual is out as there are several hundred buildings.

Thanks,
David

[instinct]

That's included in some commercial script packs and if i recall right there's also a free one on scriptspot.

Regards,
Thorsten

P.S. depending on the scene this might also work :

-select all
-change to sideview
-change selection mode to "window"
-Hold Alt and deselect all the sidefaces

That only works if there's not too much subdivs on the sides of the buildings and/or if the roofs are of similar height

[sea2stars]

If you can't find anything, you might try emailing over at Pixelpollen.com to see if they ever added polygon selection by orientation to their Architectural Selection Tools script.

[Pixelab]

If you can't find anything, you might try emailing over at Pixelpollen.com to see if they ever added polygon selection by orientation to their Architectural Selection Tools script.

Great site this pixelpollen ! I've found the "Material ID Dashboard" I was looking for since ages!

[dbuchhofer]

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...?f=98&t=509556

[dlparisi]

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=98&t=509556

Thanks for everyone's replies. That script above seems to be working great for me now that I've hacked into it and fixed a few things (not quite sure what I'm doing with it but I got it working). It was giving me errors (probabaly a Max 9 issue).

[Dynedain]

There is a snow object creation script out there, that, as part of it's process, selects all the faces of an object that point within a defined variance of "up".

[charleyc]

A bit late, but here is a script that, among other things does that.
http://www.charleycarlat.com/MaxScri...Tools_v1.2.zip
-Run it and find it in the Category CTools. It is called Poly Tools.

It is a bit rough still, but the idea is that it generates a selection if nothing is selected, or modifies the current selection. It allows you to select by axis (XYZ) or by a reference object as well as invert the direction. Also it has a tool to select faces by their area. So you can select all edges of similar size. And if has a tool that selects faces based on their edge count (3, 4, 5, or 6-sided)

I hope some may find it useful.