Blender For Dummies. Jason van Gumster

Скачать книгу

sense).

Table 3-1 shows most of the useful hotkey sequences for transforming your objects assuming you’re in the Global transform orientation.

TABLE 3-1 Useful Hotkey Sequences for Transformations

Grab	Scale	Rotate	Orientation
G	S	R	View
G ⇒ Z	S ⇒ Z	R ⇒ Z	Global Z-axis
G ⇒ Y	S ⇒ Y	R ⇒ Y	Global Y-axis
G ⇒ X	S ⇒ X	R ⇒ X	Global X-axis
G ⇒ Z ⇒ Z	S ⇒ Z ⇒ Z	R ⇒ Z ⇒ Z	Local Z-axis
G ⇒ Y ⇒ Y	S ⇒ Y ⇒ Y	R ⇒ Y ⇒ Y	Local Y-axis
G ⇒ X ⇒ X	S ⇒ X ⇒ X	R ⇒ X ⇒ X	Local X-axis
G ⇒ Shift+Z	S ⇒ Shift+Z	N/A	Global XY plane
G ⇒ Shift+Y	S ⇒ Shift+Y	N/A	Global XZ plane
G ⇒ Shift+X	S ⇒ Shift+X	N/A	Global YZ plane
G ⇒ Shift+Z ⇒ Shift+Z	S ⇒ Shift+Z ⇒ Shift+Z	N/A	Local XY plane
G ⇒ Shift+Y ⇒ Shift+Y	S ⇒ Shift+Y ⇒ Shift+Y	N/A	Local XZ plane

An even faster way to constrain to axes involves using the middle mouse button. As an example, select an object and grab (G) it. Now move your mouse in roughly the direction of the X-axis and then middle-click. A red line should appear through your object’s origin, and the object should be locked to moving along that line, constraining you to that axis. The same thing works in both the Y- and Z-axes. For an even more interactive way of constraining axes, hold down your middle mouse button while you’re grabbing. All three axes appear, and your object locks to one of them as you bring your mouse closer to them. I absolutely love this feature.

      

While you’re working with hotkeys to transform your objects in Blender, it’s worth noting that Blender has a tweak mode that allows for making very fast grab adjustments with your mouse. To make use of tweak mode, you first need to have the Select tool active. By default Blender starts with the Box Select tool active. To change to the regular Select tool, left-click and hold on the Box Select tool in the Toolbar (it’s the first one at the top). After about a second, the Toolbar will expand to show you four possible selection tools: Select, Select Box, Select Circle, and Select Lasso. Choose the first one, Select. Once you’ve activated the Select tool, left-click and drag your mouse cursor on any object in your 3D scene. This shortcut takes you right into grabbing as if you’d selected the object and then pressed G, only faster! You can even press the middle mouse button while working to enable axis constraints. The moment you release your mouse button, you’re done grabbing. Now that you know how tweak mode works, you can take full advantage of this time-saving feature.

      Numerical input

      Not only can you use hotkeys to activate the various transform modes, but you can also use the keyboard to explicitly input exactly how much you would like your object to be transformed. Simply type the number of units you want to change after you activate the transform mode.

      As an example, suppose that you want to rotate your object 32 degrees around the global X-axis. To do so, press R ⇒ X ⇒ 32 and confirm by pressing Enter. Translate your object -26.4 units along its local Y-axis by pressing G ⇒ Y ⇒ Y ⇒ -26.4 ⇒ Enter. These steps can be a very quick and effective means of flipping or mirroring an object because mirroring is just scaling by -1 along a particular axis. For example, to flip an object along the global Z-axis, press S ⇒ Z ⇒ -1 ⇒ Enter. For consistency, these numerical input operations are also available when using the 3D manipulator.

      As mentioned briefly in Chapter 2 when covering the Preferences editor, Blender has the ability to use mathematical equations as part of the numerical input system. This system is called the Blender’s advanced numerical input system. To take advantage of this feature, press the Equal (=) key before entering your numerical input. As an example, say you have a model of a car that’s 4.6 meters long; you want to move it along the Y-axis by 6 car lengths. Sure, you could do the math in your head (or with a calculator, if necessary), but it’s even easier to let Blender handle the math for you by pressing G ⇒ Y ⇒ =4.6*6 ⇒ Enter. This advanced numerical input system even allows for simple math functions and constants, such as sine, cosine, and pi (π). So, if you find that you need to rotate an object about its X-axis by the cosine of 2π (that’s 1°, by the way), you could use the following key sequence: R ⇒ X ⇒ =cos(2*pi) ⇒ Enter. If you’re coming from an industrial design or architecture background, this is an immensely useful feature.

      The Sidebar

      One other way to explicitly translate, scale, and rotate your object is through the Sidebar region (see Chapter 2) of the 3D Viewport. To reveal the Sidebar, go to View ⇒ Sidebar in the 3D Viewport’s header, or press N while your mouse cursor is in the 3D Viewport. The Sidebar sits along the right side of the 3D Viewport, and the Item tab of the Sidebar includes a Transform panel that allows you to explicitly enter numerical values (and simple math expressions) for Location, Rotation, Scale, as well as general Dimensions for your selection.

      

When in Object mode, the values in the Sidebar don’t change depending on which coordinate system you’ve selected. Location and Rotation are always in the Global orientation, whereas Scale is always in Local.

Chapter

Скачать книгу