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I have a problem with selecting. When I select some objects (for example a camera), then press A (deselect everything), B and select multiple objects, I'm not able to, for example, set the material for this objects, because Blender still thinks that the camera is selected.

I'm new to Blender, so it's very likely that I just clicked something wrong.
Before I selected this two planes, I selected a camera and deselected everything with 'a'

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1 Answer 1

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This is because there are really three selection states:

  • Deselected

    No outline or origin shown:

    enter image description here

  • Selected

    Orange outline and orange origin:

    enter image description here

  • Active

    Yellow outline when also selected, yellow origin:

    enter image description here enter image description here

          Active + Selected                  Active + Deselected

There is only one Active object. This object is the one which will be edited, if any changes are made in the properties region or edit mode etc.
In your screenshot you'll notice that the camera is still active, even though you deselected everything. To fix this,

The Active object is normally the last object clicked with RMB RMB. To set the active object without deselecting all other objects you can use ⇧ ShiftRMB RMB.

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    $\begingroup$ Thank You for the answer! Is there a way to disable keeping objects active when I deselected it? I've used Blender for a few days, but the problem occurred just a half an hour ago. $\endgroup$
    – Ralph
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 23:03
  • $\begingroup$ No, because then there would be no indication of which object should be active instead. And it'd be pretty weird to not have an active object (it's possible, but only ever occurs in strange corner cases, and usually results in confusion of the user when half the options are suddenly disabled). Blender needs to know which object is active in order to display the correct panels and settings that are specific to certain kinds of objects. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 23:08
  • $\begingroup$ Is there a way to set a couple of objects active at the same time? I just want to select a couple of objects and simply set material(or texture, physics etc.) to them. $\endgroup$
    – Ralph
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 23:11
  • $\begingroup$ There can only be one active object (for pretty much the same reasons as above). There are ways to copy attributes from the active object to selected objects though, see blender.stackexchange.com/q/7044/599 $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 23:12
  • $\begingroup$ Ok, so how can I set the material to multiple objects? Just click the first one, then another and so on? This is not very efficient... On the screen you can see a chain. I want it to look like it's made of metal. Also there are some cubes that I want to colour. $\endgroup$
    – Ralph
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 23:18

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