Select & Move

After reading this page you will know how to select vertices, edges, and faces, how the gizmo differs from the Blender-style G/R/S transform, how to pick an edge loop with Alt+click, how to clean up painted regions, and how hide, pivot, normals, merge, and separate work on this tab.

Element mode

Button	Key
Vertex	1
Edge	2
Face	3

Selection

Operation	Result
Click	Replace the selection
Shift or Ctrl + click	Add or remove (toggle)
Double-click or L	Select the whole connected element under the cursor
Shift+L	Deselect the connected element
B or drag on empty space	Box select (Shift adds, Ctrl removes)
A / Alt+A	Select all / clear the selection
Ctrl+I	Invert the selection
Esc	Clear the selection

UV seam vertices are selected together

A Unity mesh splits vertices at UV borders, so several vertices share one position. Selection takes the whole group at that position together. You click one point on screen, but two to four vertices move together. → Weld group

When X-Ray (Alt+Z) is off, hidden elements are neither shown nor selectable. When it is on, selection goes through to the back side.

Edge loops and edge rings

• Alt+click (click without moving the pointer, then release): edge loop
• Ctrl+Alt+click: edge ring
• Hold Shift with either one to add to the current selection

caution

Alt+drag still rotates the Scene view

So that Unity's Scene view rotation is not taken away, the loop selection happens only on a click that moved less than 3 px. If you hold Alt and drag further than that, the camera rotates as usual.

Growing and shrinking the selection

• Ctrl + +: grow the selection
• Ctrl + -: shrink the selection

The numpad + and - work the same way.

Gizmo

Tool	Key
View	Q
Move	W
Rotate	E
Scale	R

These match Unity's default tool layout. On a skinned mesh that has bones, the drag is applied with the pose you see, so you drag what you see on screen.

If you selected elements in several meshes, one shared world-space gizmo moves them together. → Multiple meshes

Modal transform (G / R / S)

These are the Blender-style G (move), R (rotate), and S (scale). With a selection in place, press the key while the cursor is in the Scene view, and the transform starts with the mouse alone.

While the modal is active:

• X / Y / Z: constrain to an axis. Press the same key again to switch from the local axis to the world axis.
• Shift + axis: constrain to the plane that excludes that axis.
• Number keys: type an exact value. Rotation is in degrees.
• Enter or left click: confirm
• Esc or right click: cancel

One modal transform is one undo step. When several meshes are edited together, there is no single local axis, so the world axis is used.

note

R does two things

R opens the rotate modal only when something is selected and the cursor is over the Scene view. Otherwise R is Unity's scale gizmo.

Proportional editing

Press O to turn on proportional editing. Unselected vertices around the selection follow smoothly within the radius.

• Connected Only on: the distance is measured along the topology. Other parts that overlap do not come along.
• Connected Only off: the distance is measured in space.

Adjust the radius with [ and ]. The Connected Only setting is also in the Scene view overlay and under Detailed settings in Easy start.

Vertices masked in mask mode are left out of proportional influence.

Symmetry

Turn on X / Y / Z in Symmetry. The Scene view shortcuts are Alt+Shift+X, Alt+Shift+Y, and Alt+Shift+Z.

Symmetry on this tab does not add to the selection. It applies the result of transforming the selected elements to the opposite side of the local axis. Center vertices on the mirror plane stay fixed on that plane.

Pivot

Choose the reference point for rotation and scale. It applies to both the gizmo and the G / R / S modal.

Mode	Reference
Median point	The average position of the selected elements
Individual origins	Each element uses its own position
Active element	The element you selected last
Bounding box center	The center of the box that encloses the selection

When several meshes are edited together, turn on Equal weight per mesh to compute the shared pivot with the same weight for each mesh instead of by vertex count.

Hide

Button	Key
Hide selected	H
Hide unselected	Shift+H
Show all	Alt+H

Hiding is not an undo step

Hiding is a display state of the editing session, not mesh data. It is not part of Ctrl+Z. It clears automatically when the structure changes (delete, separate, or merge).

Normals

Item	What it does
Show normals	Draws the normal directions in the Scene view. You can change the length
Flip normals	Reverses the winding of the selected faces
Recalculate normals	Recalculates the normals of the selected vertices

Flip also reverses the normal and tangent deltas of the blend shapes, so inside faces do not come out wrong on a mesh that has shape keys.

Delete

X or Delete removes the selected faces. A vertex used only by those faces stays in the buffer until Save Mesh, when it is cleaned up once. → Cleanup of unused vertices

Separate Selection and Delete buttons

While faces are selected, Separate Selection (P) and Delete (X · N faces) also appear under the selection tools. They run the same commands as the collapsed Mesh Operations section (in Easy start, under Detailed settings), and what a press did is shown under the buttons for a while.

When grow, shrink, linked selection or a group assignment changes nothing, the window says why, for example Everything is already selected. · Nothing to shrink. · The selection is already linked. · These faces are already in G{n}. Nothing changed.

Separate

Operation	Key	Result
Separate selection	P	Splits the selected elements off
Separate islands	Shift+P	Splits the selection into separate connected pieces
Separate by group	Groups G0 to G9	Assign faces to groups, then split them all at once

When you separate by group, G0 stays in the source, and each of G1 to G9 becomes a separate piece.

A separated piece appears in the scene as an unsaved piece, and Save Mesh writes it next to the source as <name>_Part….asset. If you press Discard edits before saving, the source is restored and the unsaved pieces are deleted.

Preserved: vertices, normals, tangents, UV0 to UV3, colors, submesh and material mapping, bindposes, the number of bone influences per vertex with exact weight values (including more than four influences), and all blend shape frames.

The whole separation is one undo step. If it fails partway, the tool restores the original state and deletes the partial _Part.asset.

Bone influences of a separated piece

A separated _Part piece keeps the source's bone influence count and is not cut down to four slots. The source keeps its influences. → Limitations

Combinations that include Ctrl or Cmd (Ctrl+P, Ctrl+R, Ctrl+X, and so on) stay as Unity shortcuts and do not run a Select & Move action. The exceptions are Ctrl+A, Ctrl+I, and Ctrl + + / -.

Merge by Distance

Merge by Distance combines duplicate vertices within the Merge distance. Use it to clean up duplicates left after a delete or a separation.

Vertices with different UVs are not merged

Even at the same position, vertices with different UVs are not merged. This keeps the UV seam intact so the texture does not break. For the same reason, vertices whose blend shape deltas differ noticeably are not merged either.

Bone weights and blend shapes are kept.

Painted region tools

Open Painted region tools under Select & Move to work on the selected targets. The panel lists the targets that will be affected.

1. Paint the area you want to change or protect, or apply a strength to the existing vertex, edge, or face selection.
2. Blue marks the area to change, and green marks the area to protect. In delete mode, orange faces are the ones that will actually be removed.
3. Hold Ctrl to erase, and hold Shift to smooth the strength of the area. Press Esc to cancel the current stroke.

You can do three things with a painted area.

• Delete painted faces: removes the painted triangles and cleans up vertices that are no longer used.
• Hide painted region with Shrink shape: creates a new shape key that moves the area inside the garment or hair. The base vertices stay as they are, and the preview is at 100%.
• Partial reduction: reduces the vertex count using the painted strength and the protect strength. Preview reduction counts calculates the result first, and Apply preview result applies it. You can then make a Shrink key on the same area of the reduced topology.

Keep these points in mind.

• A separate option protects vertices that existing expressions move. It is on by default. Face names and head bones do not protect or exclude a vertex.
• UV seams, material boundaries, open borders, and large bone weight differences are preserved. The reduction can therefore fall short of the target, so check both the target and the actual vertex count.
• Each remaining vertex keeps its original UV8, color, normal, tangent, bone influences, and every shape frame.
• The painted region is session state. It does not overwrite the mesh's color channels. Keep the result with Save Mesh.