Blender usage notes

I came back to use Blender after a while and had forgotten some basic things

Keyboard shortcuts

N.B. both 'mouse' (i.e. trackpad) buttons on my laptop = middle mouse button on a mouse

• see this big list of hotkeys

Toolbars and Menus

• Note that the View, Select and Object menus are below the view pane
• The Python console can be toggled with Shift + F4

View

• tips on views

• to rotate the view, hold both mouse buttons and drag the view
• to zoom the view, scroll (pad/wheel)
• to pan the view left/right, Ctrl + scroll (pad/wheel)
• to pan the view up/down, Ctrl + scroll (pad/wheel)
• to pan the view nearer/farther, rotate the view then pan the view left/right [then rotate it back]
• numpad5 toggles between perspective and ortho
• numpad7 enters top view (bird's eye view)
• front ortho = numpad1
• Ctrl + numpad4/6,2/8 pans scene left/right, up/down
• numpad+ (numpad-) zooms in (out)
• Home/numpad. centres the scene/selection

Camera

• Docs: Camera View, Axis Locking

• numpad0 enters 'camera view' (but if you selected an object you'll see "object as camera"
• to get out of camera view, go to the third 'context' view (the little squares on the RHS pane), Scene
  • icon looks like a sphere and cylinder, first settings menu in it is Scene, with an item Camera
  • select the Camera as "Camera" and hit numpad0 again to exit camera view

When rotating, you probably want the local axis (i.e. hit X/Y twice)

• To select the camera, right mouse button click it
• To move the camera in XYZ, drag the coloured arrows, as for any object
• To dolly the camera, hit G then both mouse buttons
• To rotate the camera [once selected]
  • hit R to enter rotation mode, defaulting to rotating the camera in its local Z-axis - 'roll' (rotate orthogonal to its view)
  • hit R then X once/twice to rotate along global/local X-axis
  • hit R then Y once/twice to rotate along global/local Y-axis

Scene

• Z toggles wireframes of objects in the scene