In Scene Outliner: renaming group without renaming its children

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1

Hi,

Maybe I didn’t get the way the Scene in Rocket is structured (inner workings etc), but: Can we have a way of renaming a Group (GroupActor?) without renaming its child objects?

Also: can we have a way of collapsing the viewing of the child objects under its parent, maybe with a small clickable icon? As we have in Maya for example.

2

Ops. I just discovered that “Attach to” does just that. :slight_smile:
Should I close/delete this question?

3

Well, collapsing works with Attach To. But the question about renaming the parent group remains. My idea is to have a way of adding empty groups to the scene, to parent stuff under them, organize things for better viewing, moving bunches of objects together etc.

4

Hi Athos,

Glad you figured out that you can use “Attach To” to set up relationships. No need to delete this, it can be useful for other people.

For some more info, there are two ways to attach… either via the Right-Click > Attach To… or you can drag actors onto other actors in the Scene Outliner.

Cheers!

5

I just noticed you posted a second comment. The layout of actors in the Scene Outliner is still undergoing consideration for improvements, and I imagine Groups falls under that. But I have gone ahead and made a feature request for more control over Groups.

Thanks!

6

Thanks for the reply.
What about renaming a GroupActor (also without renaming its children) or some way of creating an empty group? Is it possible?

7

At the moment, Groups cannot be renamed.

It actually sounds like what you want to use is Layers

Click in Window > Layers. This will open a new Tab (which you can dock anywhere if you like). You can create new empty Layers, add actors into them, rename them, and view the contents of them. Layers are purely for organizational purposes though, and cannot be adjusted in level. They serve as a quick way to select all contained actors at once though.

8

No, we want to have the ability to rename Groups.

9

I will second this. I ABSOLUTELY want the ability to rename Groups.

10

I’ve finally figured this out and I remember coming across this question before, so I hope this is helpful to someone in the future.
http://williamgs.com/blog/?p=1053

Select Group Actor / Renaming Groups (without selecting Group Members)

  • Verify “Allow Group Selection” is enabled
  • R-Click group actor or any member: Groups > Unlock
  • Select group actor
  • CTRL+SHIFT+G (disable “Allow Group Selection”)
  • Deselect all group members individually. This will leave only the group itself selected
  • Rename the group actor
  • [Optional] CTRL+SHIFT+G (re-enable “Allow Group Selection”)
  • [Optional] R-Click group: Groups > Lock

Select Group Members (without selecting Group Actor)

  • Verify “Allow Group Selection” is enabled
  • Verify group is Locked
  • Select any group member (but not the Group Actor)

Add Group Members

  • Verify “Allow Group Selection” is enabled
  • Group Locked/Unlocked doesn’t matter
  • Select existing group actor or any member
  • CTRL+Select: Add new members to selection
  • R-Click on new member: Groups > Add to Group

Remove Group Members

Do NOT R-Click the member: Groups > Remove from Group. This will destroy your group because everything is still selected

  • Verify “Allow Group Selection” is enabled
  • R-Click group actor or any member: Groups > Unlock Group
  • Select members for removal only
  • R-Click any selected: Groups > Remove from Group
  • [Optional] R-Click group: Groups > Lock
11

It seems like this functionality has changed in UE5. When you do the process of unlocking disable “Allow Group Selection” and deselecting it will deselect the group actor as well.