10 Blender Tricks that Will Save You Time

Blender has so many features that you probably don't know all of them. Some are hidden away in menus that you rarely click, and others you can only access by searching the commands.


The following are some useful things I've found:

Edit Mode

1) Remove Doubles
I'm sure you've used this before, but you probably never looked in the toolbar to see what settings there are. The default setting usually works for doubled up vertices, but you can also use it to merge vertices that are close together:

Before

(press F6) After

2) Separate
Most of us have separated object an single object into multiple objects by selection. Not many people use the other two options. Separate by material and separate by loose parts. Separate by material will split objects up based upon which material they have. Separate by loose parts will separate all parts that are not connected to anything into there own individual objects. For example:

A simple array

In edit mode after applying the modifier

After separation by loose parts

3) Select Nth
Select every nth number of (i.e every other). Useful for saving time when doing repetitive selecting.


4) Select loose Vertices/Edges
Selects vertices/edges that are not connected to anything. Good for deleting hard to find (and non-usable) geometry


5) Select More/Less
Shortcut key is CTRL-+(for selecting more) and CTRL-- (for selecting less).
Selecting more will grow the selection by one vertex. Likewise select less, will shrink the selection by one vertex.

Object Mode

1) ALT-RIGHTCLICK
Few people know of this hidden tool. When you press ALT-RIGHTCLICK, a menu will pop up naming all the objects near the cursor.

This tool is immensely useful in highly populated scenes or scenes with tiny objects.
























2) Randomize Transform
This one is in the menu (Object > Transform > Randomize Transform), it's the next best thing after the grease scatter. As it's name suggests, it randomly places the selected objects throughout the scene.


You have to set the (location/rotation/scale) limits using F6, otherwise nothing will change.


3) Select Random
Another great randomization tool. It's position is Select > Random.


4) Zoom Border
Helpful when you run out of zooming with your scroll wheel. Shift-B.


5) Quad View
Pressing CTRL-ALT-Q will toggle quad view:

Notice that quid view will lock all of its views, except for the camera view. This is sometimes useful if you find yourself setting up side and front views, and continually changing them the angle views, out of habit.


Quad view also helps save space, you only need one toolbar or properties bar, instead of one per view.




Do you know of any good hidden shortcuts? Post them in the comments below!

Holograph VFX Tutorial

This tutorial is way overdue, sorry :( The recording software I was using is not very good so halfway through the tutorial, the screen went black. I had to rerecord four times! I figured out that you have to make separate sections. Sorry again. Here's the tutorial:

I hope it was worth the wait!

Happy New Year!

Happy new year! In this tutorial you will make the text, the champagne and the flares.

Rules of Thumb For 3D Work

Here are a couple of rules that you should usually follow, not in just Blender, but in any 3d program.

Modeling:

1. Make all of the polygons roughly the same shape and size.
2. Make sure that you do not have doubled up verticies or polygons.
3. Try not to make a triangles(This applies to Blender - I'm not sure if this applies to other programs. Please comment if I am wrong).
4. Keep good topography.
5. USE A REFERENCE IMAGE!!! This is a must!

Texture:

1. If you are using an image, make sure you are not stretching it. If if is stretching try to UV unwrap it.
2. DO NOT MAKE ANYTHING BLACK!!! This one isn't very obvious but its one that a lot of people mess up on.
3. Don't allow specularity if you have a shiny material.
4. Don't make a busy texture.
5. Look at a reference image.