Little Blender Tips

Want to select all the geometry connected to a particular polygon? Like, if you have multiple objects within one, and you need an easy way to select everything to separate it?

Hit L for "Select Linked!" You can also hit SHIFT+L for "Deselect Linked!"

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Selection doesn't need to be singular. Or rectantular. Or even lasso'd. It can be painted!

Try hitting C for "Circle Select"! Use the scrollwheel to increase/decrease selection radius, click+drag to select your stuff, and then right-click to exit the mode!

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You can expand and shrink your selection layer by layer! Just use CTRL+NUMPAD+ and CTRL+NUMPAD- after you select a face!

You may already know about SHIFT+D to Duplicate an object. But do you know about ALT+D, where you can make a LINKED Duplicate? Any changes to either linked object will effect the other!

Note that loop selections will work best with pure quad geometry. Any vertices with 5+ edges or non-quad
polygon will terminate the loop selection, making an incomplete loop.

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You can select loops in your geometry easily! Albeit with limitations...

Simply hold ALT and click an edge! (And, of course, you can hold SHIFT to continue to select more of them!) The result will depend on your current selection mode.

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That's exactly why I wanna try to point out all these small things!

In this age of online tutorials, there are so many knowledge gaps that unknowingly happen! Something that might seem so basic and second-nature to someone now may be foundationally changing to someone else!

Need to change where your scaling origin is or where your rotations are pivoting around?

Blender gives you a few options to change those basis points! 3D cursor is a very useful and common one as you move things around in edit mode.

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The 3D Cursor determines where any new object you add to the scene spawns! The most common way to move it around is with "Shift+S (for Snap) -> Snap Cursor to Selection", but you can also move it via the "view" toolbar in the 3D view.

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Blender can do the math! It even understands the Order of Operations! And it can do it wherever you can insert a value!

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All done setting up your Blender workspace how you like it? Don't wanna keep setting it up for each new project? Never want to delete the default cube again? Saving your startup file tells blender to load up in the same state you're currently in!

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Blender comes with various workspaces pre-configured for you! You can add your own via the "+" option at the end! (which may be recommended instead of changing the default layout). Also, this list is scrollable if your window is too small!

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Your Blender Workspace is highly customizable! Any section can be split and merged into other sections by dragging them by the corners! Any section can be changed into a different type of section as well! Make a layout that works for you!

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Not a fan of the default Blender colors? Other themes exist! (Although I fear the Light Mode Demons...). You can also find even more on the web!

Beyond saving backups, you also have the option to save incremental versions of your file! Forget needing to
manually add all the "v1","v2", and "v33" versions to your filenames! Just Save an incremental version, and blender will increment
that number for you!

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Blender automatically saves backup files!
They are those ".blend1" files you see next to the files your working file. They're no different from regular files, Blender will happily open them if you want to! You can get Blender to save more than just 1 at "Preferences > Save & Load > Save Versions"

Perhaps, but are we talking about 1m+ vertices here? Or 100k+? Do certain modifiers cause large memory strain when undone?

I want to avoid too general/vague warnings because they can cause unneeded paranoia. Perhaps it's easier to instead suggest a limit of like "300mb depending in your system"

Can you give an example of how complex/large you can get before you should start worrying?

A screenshot of the Blender Preferences window that shows you need to navigate to the System section, then the undo steps option is under the "Memory & Limits category"

Blender, for some reason, only starts with 32 undo steps!? Get into those settings and maximize that number to
256!

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Working on a high-resolution monitor? You can change Blender's UI scale in the settings!

I personally like 1.2x on my 32" 4k monitor.

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Switching between vertex, edge, and face mode can be a hassle. Luckily, we have easy hotkeys!

* 1 = vertex mode
* 2 = edge mode
* 3 = face mode

And they align with how they are ordered in the GUI!

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Need to be precise with your transformations? Just start typing numbers!

* S,Z,0 -> Scale on Z to 0x (this is one of my favorites :P)
* G,Y,3.6 - > Grab along Y by 3.6 units
* R,X,-90 -> Rotate on the X axis by -90°

Backspace works too, in case you fumble your numeric input!

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How the heck does Grab work when you don't specify an axis!?

It's based on how your viewport is oriented! If your viewport is at an odd angle, that's how you'll drag things around as well!

(this is the same as changing your transform orientation to "view")

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Just like you can lock transformations ONLY ON axis, you can also lock transformations to ONLY OFF of that axis (a plane)!
* G,Shift+X -> Grab, but don't change the X value!
* S,Shift+Y -> Scale, but don't scale on Y!
* R,Shift+Z ->
Rotate, but don't Rotate around the Z axis!

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Common transformation tools (grab/rotate/scale) can be locked to various axis! Just hit the letter that you want to lock the axis to!

G,X -> Grab only on the X axis!
S,Y -> Scale only on the Y axis!
R,Z -> Rotate only around the Z axis!

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Some additional useful and easy to remember shortcuts!

* Shift+D for Duplicate!
* L for Select Linked!
* I for Inset (edit mode)! or Insert Keyframe! (object/pose mode)!
* H for Hide! (ALT+H for unhide all!)
* Shift+S for Snap!

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Many of Blender's Hotkeys can actually be pretty intuitive!

* G for Grab!
* R for Rotate!
* S for Scale!
* E for Extrude!
* X for Delete! (the close button on a window)

And then just use F3 search for operations you may be missing!
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