Blender

Here's my notes on blender. I'll keep adding to it as I learn more.

Resources

• https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-3d-from-zero-to-hero

Conventions

Rationale

• Always render the front towards -Y (create Monkey object to see the default orientation).
• A material should ideally be used to represent a material in the real world.
• Use Linked Objects (simple) or Collection Instances (advanced) to reuse objects. The latter allows you to edit your mesh in one place and have the changes reflected in all instances.

Non default settings

Status bar

Right click the status bar to enable Scene statistics.

Interface

• Set Color Picker Type to Square (SV + H). This will make it easier to pick more granular colours.

Navigation

• Enable Orbit around selection
• Enable Auto depth
• Enable Zoom to mouse position

Vocabulary

Interface

Term	Description
Manipulator	The manipulator is the tool that allows you to move, rotate and scale objects in the 3d viewport.

Objects

Term	Description
Vertex	A vertex is a point in 3d space. It is the most basic element of a 3d object.
Edge	An edge is a line between two vertices.
Face	A face is a flat surface between three or more vertices. Sometimes called Polygon.
Mesh	A mesh is a collection of vertices, edges and faces, that create a shape.
Object	An object is the combination of a mesh, the material and the texture. Two objects can share the same mesh.

Visuals

Term	Type	Description
Material	parameters	A material is a set of properties that define what an object looks like when rendered. It contains 1 or more shaders and 0 or more textures.
Shader	logic	A shader is a program that consists of rules and logic and runs on the GPU to determine the color of each pixel of an object based on different conditions.
Texture	image	A texture is an image that is placedon the surface of an object to give it a move realistic look.

Gotchas

• The camera with the solid triangle is the active camera.

Important hotkeys

note

Blender shortcuts depend on the mouse cursor position.

TL;DR

Use these often for a smooth experience

• Tab to switch between object and edit mode
• Shift + Space to switch to move/rotate/scale manipulator
• Numpad . to focus viewport on selected object

Mouse navigation

• MMB to rotate view
• Shift + MMB to pan view
• Ctrl + MMB to zoom view
• Alt + drag MMB to rotate view (90-degree snap) in orthographic mode

Keyboard navigation

• Numpad 2, 4, 6, 8 to rotate view
• Shift + Numpad 2, 4, 6, 8 to pan view
• Numpad +, - to zoom view
• Numpad 1, 3, 7 to view from front, right, top
• Numpad 9 to rotate view 180 degrees
• Numpad 5 to toggle orthographic/perspective view

User interface

• Hover a field and Ctrl + C to copy the value. Can be a text or a number or even things like colours. Hover another field and Ctrl + V to paste the value.
• Ctrl + PgUp and Ctrl + PgDn to switch between workspaces (Layout, Modeling, Sculpting etc.)
• Ctrl + Space to toggle editor fullscreen mode
• Tab to toggle edit mode
• 1, 2, 3 to switch between vertex, edge and face selection mode
• F9 to open last operation settings
• N to toggle right panel
• Shift + S snap menu

Viewport

• Home to focus on scene
• Numpad . to focus on selected object
• Alt + Z to toggle X-ray mode
• Z to open shading overlay

Camera

note

The camera with the solid triangle is the active camera.

• Numpad 0 to toggle Camera view
• Ctrl + Numpad 0 to set active camera
• Ctrl + Alt + Numpad 0 to align active camera to current view
• G pan camera
• G, Z, Z to pan camera along Z axis

Adding an object

• Shift + RMB to set the 3d cursor position
• Shift + A to add object
• Shift + C to reset 3d cursor position

Transformations

• G to move selected (Alt + G to reset)
• R to rotate selected (Alt + R to reset)
• S to scale selected (Alt + S to reset)

Selection

• A to select all
• A, A or Alt + A to deselect all
• Ctrl + I to invert selection
• X to delete selected
• H to hide selected
• Shift + H to hide unselected
• Alt + H to reveal hidden objects
• / to isolate selected objects
• L to select linked sub-objects (vertices, edges, faces)
• Shift + L to deselect linked sub-objects