I’m teaching myself Blender to improve my 3D Asset Generation skills. I’m using Blender’s own tutorials, and these notes are my record of the various commands and techniques mentioned in the tutorials.
Basics
| Event | Meaning |
|---|---|
Shift s |
Snap menu (e.g. cursor to center) |
Shift a |
Add menu |
Tab |
Toggle: edit Mode / object Mode |
g |
grab |
s |
scale |
r |
rotate |
Ctrl z |
undo |
Shift Ctrl -z |
redo |
Ctrl Alt u |
User preferences |
selection
| Event | Meaning |
|---|---|
RMB |
click select |
Shift RMB |
multiple select |
b |
border select (drag rect) |
a |
toggle: select all / deselect all |
Camera movement
The directions in the following table describe the movement of the camera, not objects in the scene
| Event | Meaning | Ctrl+... |
Shift+... |
|---|---|---|---|
MMB |
rotate cam | zoom | pan freely |
Scroll MMB |
zoom | pan left/right | pan up/down |
Numpad 1 |
front view | back | - |
Numpad 3 |
right view | left view | right view |
Numpad 7 |
top view | bottom view | - |
Numpad 2 |
orbit down | pan down | - |
Numpad 4 |
orbit left | pan left | roll left |
Numpad 6 |
orbit right | pan right | roll right |
Numpad 8 |
orbit up | pan up | - |
Numpad 9 |
orbit right 3.142 | - | - |
Numpad . |
View selected | ?? | ?? |
Numpad 5 |
perspective/orthographic view | - | - |
Numpad 0 |
user/camera view | - | - |
c |
?? | ?? | center |
Home |
view all | ??view all | - |
Other useful view controls
| Event | Meaning |
|---|---|
Shift f |
Fly mode (WASD, arrows, etc) |
Ctrl Alt q |
quad view / single view |
Object visualisation
| Event | Meaning |
|---|---|
z |
solid view / wireframe |
Alt z |
solid view / textured |
Properties sidebar->shading tab has additional controls
- GLSL // GLSL = OpenGL Shading Language
- backface culling
- MatCap (e.g. red, mirrored, etc). // MatCap = material capture
layers
| Event | Meaning |
|---|---|
m |
Move (selected object) to layer |
The object tab of the properties window has a layers control that achieves a similar effect.
Layout customization
| Event | Meaning |
|---|---|
t |
Tool shelf sidebar |
n |
Properties sidebar |
Ctrl MMB |
Cycle through tabs |
Ctrl left/right |
Cycle through windows (up/down) |
LMB and drag in window triangle to split or join RMB on window boundary to split or join
Configuring blender
Here are the non-default configuration settings that I’m currently using.
Interface tab
- Auto Depth
- Auto Perspective
Addons
- Layer management - creates toolshelf tab for giving layers descriptive names
- Rigify
Text editing
To edit the text of a text object, tab to enter edit mode, tab again when