blender tips that speed up how you work

if you are a blender user no matter what stage you are, a beginner, a hobbyist or a professional with years of experience, there is aways a few things you could do to speed up your workflow and improve it, in this list i am compiling a number of tips and tricks to help you speed up your workflow.

working in object mode tips

if you are working in object mode here are some tips to take advantage of.

Quick favorites

if you find your self reusing the same tool over and over but its burried deep in menus, right click it and add to quick favourites, next time just press Q to access it.

Quick effects

if you want to add, smoke, water, fur or a quick exploding effect, use the F3 shortcut and search quick effects, then choose what you want

Randomize transform

in the same search box, you can search random transform, to randomly scale, rotate or translate selected objects in your scene, you can also tick the scale even option to scale the objects evenly

Cursor to selected.

if you want to move any object to the location of the 3d cursor, just select the object and use the shortcut Shift+S then select, selection to cursor. or do the reverse by using cursor to selected, to move the cursor in 3d space, hold down shift and right click in the 3d view.

if you are moving multiple objects, they will be moved to the same place on top of each other, to keep there relative position to each other, turn on offset.

this trick also works in edit mode, you can move vertices, edges, faces and even curve control points to the location of the cursor with the shift + S shortcut. again make sure to turn on offset so that faces, edges and control points don’t collapse into one point.

repeat action

repeat any action you make using shift + R

transform from cursor.

all objects have a pivot point at which they are rotated and scale, but you can also use your 3d cursor as the pivot point. use the period key or full stop to access the pivot point menu. to use the object pivot point again, use the period key again and and select median point. this shortcut also works in edit mode for faces, vertices, edges and control points.XC

objects as pivot points.

using the 3d cursor as a pivot point is great, but it does not work for animation, to achieve a similar effect, add an empty object and parent what ever you want to animate to the empty, now the empty will be the pivot for scaling and rotation of the objects.

this trick is great for animating cameras, parent the camera onto a circle object, animate the circle rotating to get a smooth camera rotation around an object, or scale the circle to get a smooth camera moving forward or backwards.

Hooks

if you liked using other objects as a pivot point, you should know that a similar effect can be achieved for meshes and curves in edit mode, this is called hooking, just select the faces, vertices, edges or control points of a curve that you want to parent and use Ctrl+ H to parent them to an empty you can control in object mode. if you want to hook the vertices to an existing object, select the that object first then the mesh or curve and tab to edit mode, make the selection of points you want to parent then use Ctrl + H, this time select hook to selected Object option.

this trick is great for controlling cloth simulations or making a super hero cape, just make sure to use the hooked vertices as a pin group in your simulation.

Modifier tips

working with linked objects and modifiers.

when working with modifiers it can be pretty annoying when objects snap from one state to the other every time you try to edit them, what you can do is make a linked copy with shift + D, and remove the modifiers, and on the original object with modifiers make sure to turn on edit mode and Oncage options..

working with the curve deform modifier

a quick way to add deformation based on a curve to any object is, create the curve deformer make sure its in the same location as the object you want to deform, select the object then the curve and use Ctrl + P and select curve deform from the options. then select the deform axis you want in the modifiers.

bend modifer helper object

when working with the bend modifier it can be trick to find the right bend axis, you can use an empty as the origin and it will be more easier and you get more control too.

displacement textures

if you want extra details, use the displacement modifier and height maps, i recommend using uv coordinates and turning on the edit and cageOn options of the modifier to work quick.

Texture detailing using Ambient occlusion

if you want to add material detail to your mesh easily, use the ambient occlusion node, you can use it to blend two textures, here i use it to add moss detail to the rock cracks, add a color ramp for more control. if you are using eevee , this trick will only work if you have ambient occlusion turned on.

Swap node inputs.

if you want to swap the input connections of any node, drag the input while holding ALT to swap them.

hardsurfaces modifier stuck

when working with hardsurfaces, try adding these three modifiers in this order, Edge split with edge Angle turned off, Solidify with only rim option checked, and bevel with harden normals on, make sure to turn on auto smooth for the mesh for the bevel harden normal option to work. just right click on the mesh to get the auto smooth option.

this modifier stuck makes it easy to add surface details like cracks, just use a knife tool and select a few edges and give them the sharp edge option. to mark sharp edges use the Ctrl E shortcut.

Geometry Nodes Edge Mask

if you want to add wear and tear detail to your objects, add a subdivision surfaces with level 2, and geometry nodes modifier, store the edge angle into an attribute named sharp and use it as a mask in your shader.

Mesh to curves

if you are trying to draw curves, start with meshes its much easier, extrude vertices using E, add a subdivision surface for smooth curves or select edge loops, and if you want round corners just bevel the vertex using ctrl + SHirt + B, then in object mode right click and convert to curves, you can add thickness with the bevel option. if you have my quick functions addon this is done for you with one click in the shift + Q menu.

Trace Vector Images to curves

if you are tracing images with curves, set the curve handle type to vector and extrude the curve points to the sharp corners of the image, then start moving control points to follow the smooth parts of the image.

copy all to selected

you can copy a single value or multiple values of one object to other objects, by right clicking the values and using the copy all to selected option. the last object you select is the where you will copy from.

smooth camera movements using track to.

if you want smooth camera movement, use the track to constraint. you can set it up, in the constraints panel, but this is a quick tricks tutorial, so just select the camera first then the object you want to track and press F3 and search track to.

Knife intersect

you can use the knife intersect tool to make cuts of one mesh from another in edit mode.

Quick booleans in edit mode

did you know you can do booleans in edit mode, this option is under the face menu in edit mode, the selected mesh will be the cutter object, but you can swap it, in the popup menu that show up. you will also find more options like difference, intersect and union.

faces to wire frame

you can turn selected faces into wire frames under the face menu in edit mode.

animation tips

offset animation

if you want to make copies of objects that have keyframe animation and move them around, parent them to an object and move that, otherwise they will snap back to there animation positions. the parent can act as an offset.

delete position key frames

another thing you could do, if the only thing you are animating is rotation and scale of the object or other properties that are not location, you can delete the location channels and you can freely move the object around.

tab between timelines

switch between keyframe timeline to the graph editor with ctrl tab key to look at your animation as a graph

isolate channels

if you are in the graph editor you can isolate any channel you want by using shift+H or show all by using Alt + H

Animation modifiers

did you know that the graph editor has modifiers for animations, you can access them in side panel, by pressing N, you need to have atleast one channel selected, you can add noise, cycle you animations as a loop, set limits and more

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