from BlenderLearningConciseLessons_v031.txt 2023
sorry the formatting is garbage/nonexistent, this ought be remedied eventually
BlenderLearningConciseLessons
Purpose, Progress, and Methods
This document is to consolidate my ongoing, personal notes for my own benefit and to provide instructional reference for using Blender and performing various tasks. Hopefully it’ll be less tedious than the Blender online manual. There’s some tension between organizing information conceptually like the manual vs by tasks which suits human memory better but has some redundancy. Presently this is written for plain text, but hyperlinking and formatting heirarchy have some appeal even if they complicate editing, publishing, and distribution. Future versions and variations may add gifs for illustration.
Descriptions of UI paradigms with the location of various settings, tabs, and buttons will need to be updated to reflect official UI nomenclature and topology.
I intend to use default configurations and hotkeys for my own learning, and to document as such. Deviations will be noted. For Example under App Menu > Edit > Preferences > Input under the 3D Viewport category I have “emulate 3 button mouse” enabled which by default would be off. This let’s you duplicate some middle mouse button functionality on a 2 button mouse or a stylus by holding down the Alt key while using the left button instead. Should it come up I’ll endeavor to mention default middle mouse button terminology, or else additionally specify the the middle mouse button emulation method. I may well decide it’s annoying and turn it off, or I might decide to ditch the doubleclick setting for the rear shaft button on the stylus and instead assign MiddleClick.
This is written while studying (now)Blender 3.1.0 on Windows 10 on a 2017 Lenovo workstation.
Scope
WindowScreenLayout w/ Areas, Regions, Headers
3D Viewport walk/fly navigation
Interaction Mode Select
Poly Selection Modes
Tool Selection
Adjust Last Operation
Mouse dragging modifiers for precision
3D tool hotkeys and some expanded tool notes
3D cursor
Reference Images
Mirroring for modeling
orientation, snapping, pivot points
flattening non-planars
notes on smoothing
Outliner and parenting
Scene Units
camera clipping too close
Materials and Image Textures
Grease Pencil Blender Setup
Pen Tablet settings and viewport manipulation
Onionskinning
Consistent Drawing Plane
Drawing on Mesh Geometry
Stroke Placement, Offsets, Workarounds
Stroke Reprojection
Live Stroke Render Glitching
Stroke Depth Order in Layers vs 3D space
Brush controls + hotkey combos
Frame display settings and Framerate
Keyframes (Greasepencil)
keyframe Creation
manipulation and operations on timeline
Interpolation
keyframe type labeling
Animation Loops (Greasepencil)
Texture Painting
Window System
Areas, Regions, Headers
Blender Window has a main header with a menu (App Menu) and a workspace tab selector, and subsequent Areas with Editor Types chosen from the dropdown menu in each respective Header which may then contain its own subsequent Editing Context or Interaction Mode header dropdown menu (which is itself contextual depending on the Active Object type for instance). An Area Header when rightclicked allow visibility options for menus and tool settings. These options include visibility and top/bottom placement of the window. Unhide a hidden header using the dropdown arrow presented at the top right of the area. A viewport Area’s right Sidebar has tabs for item, tool, and view settings. The sidebar may be dragged off the right side or dragged back in to visibility from a similar arrow. Likewise an area’s left toolbar may be dragged off to the left or dragged back in from its small arrow. The Status Bar below all has its visibility toggle in App Menu > Window > Show Status Bar, or it can be LeftClickDragged off the bottom of the application window.
Functionality and Right Sidebar settings options may vary in otherwise identical editor type areas if the workspace selection is different. This writer notes that UV editing does not function properly until UV Editing Workspace is selected.
3D Viewport Area view navigation
Walk (Default)
MiddleClickDrag rotates the view
Ctrl + MiddleClickDrag zooms/dollies in and out
so does MiddleMouseWheel
Shift + MiddleClickDrag pans the view up down left right
Or you can use the Navigate gizmo in the upper right of the viewport to accomplish these three tasks
Fly
Shift + ` (accent grave key) toggles this navigation to Fly Mode. The up down left right arrow keys move forward/back and strafe left/right while the mouse aims.
Aiming with the Wacom graphics tablet stylus works but doesn’t seem to engage until the stylus is first raised out of the tablets’s sensor field. (tested with Wacom Intuos3 9×12, Blender 3.1.0, Windows 10, modern 2017 Lenovo workstation)
MiddleScrollWheel up and down speeds and slows the rate of travel.
MiddleClick flies forward to the geometry aimed at.
LeftClick exits to walk mode with the view remaining where fly mode left it off.
RightClick exits to walk mode while reverting the view to before fly mode was engaged.
Note that the current/default? settings for my Wacom grip pen stylus are LeftClick for the nib, RightClick for the forward shaft button, and DoubleLeftClick for the Rear shaft button.
See section on Pen Tablet settings, 3 mouse button emulation for restoring some middle middle mouse functionality to the stylus. Also, the tablet’s touch strip emulates the MiddleScrollWheel.
Interaction Mode Select
Ctrl + Tab to choose interaction modes from a popup pie menu.
Tab key cycles between Edit Mode and the most recently used interaction mode.
GUI dropdown mode selector in the upper left of the 3d viewport on the header, immediately to the right of the Editor Type selector.
1,2,3 for vertex, edge, and face selection mode in edit mode. or use gui icons next to mode selector.
Tool Operations apply to the Active Object, which is noted in the Outliner Editor Area by a rounded box around the object type icon. The Active Object can only be changed while in Object Mode.
Tool Selection
The available tool list depends on the editor type as well as the object interaction mode or editing context.
Shift + Spacebar to then select the Active Tool from a popup context menu, or
LeftClick to select from the left toolbar.
Tools in the toolbar with alternative versions have an arrow in the lower right corner, and these alt tools are accessed by LeftClick hold on the button and drag to the desired tool, then release LeftClick.
The Adjust Last Operation region is located in the lower left of the 3D viewport. It is available after initially confirming (leftclick or Enter key) a transform or tool action. Its expanded view is toggled by clicking the arrow preceeding the tool/operation name. It presents options sometimes different from the right sidebar tool options. These allow numerical specifications instead of simply the a mouse movement or drag to control a tool, or to provide other further options, for example multiple divisions in the loop tool.
Ctrl + Drag snaps to discrete steps (unit grid?)
Shift + Drag moves slowly/more precisely
Ctrl + Shift + Drag does both.
Shift + R repeats the last action
L to select to add contiguous mesh or grease pencils spline to current selection.
g to grab, manipulate cursor with mouse.
press x, y, or z to constrain movement to an axis
r to rotate based on the viewport,
rr to use a free rotate
gg in vertex mode will let you move a vertex along the line of the edge you gesture towards.
x to delete object
P to separate selected mesh into a new separate object.
Y by itself seems to separate the selection from the mesh but staying within the same object?
F to form a polygon between vertices or edges selected.
Ctrl R for loop tool
Shift+D to duplicate objects
Shift + A or click the Add button from the list in the upper left of the viewport window to open a list of objects types to add: mesh primitives, grease pencil objects, lights, images, and more.
3D Cursor
Objects are added at the site of the 3D cursor, and also its position and orientation are options for the grease pencil drawing plane. You may need to turn on the 3D cursor visibility in the Viewport Overlays dropdown menu.
Shift + S to expand a context menu to specify the 3D Cursor’s rotation and positions
Shift +RightClick to summon the 3D cursor to the screencursor’s position regardless of tool selection.
Shift + RightClickDrag to move the 3D cursor.
Surface Project
With the 3D cursor tool selected, both the tool options at the top of the viewport and the expanded tool options at the right allow you to place the cursor at an object surface by checking the Surface Project box, and to match the surface normal orientation by selecting Geometry from the Orientation dropdown options and then LeftClick selecting the desired face normal. This allows you to use a 3D object as a recurring reference object in space.
Reference Image Import
drag an image from elsewhere on desktop to viewport to import a reference image. It will appear as an object. Rename it in the scene collection otherwise it’s “empty”
Mirroring
So you’re only working one side:
model base box of your object
Loop cut instructions:
Select faces in loop.
Loop gui button left tool menu, or ctrl r, or select it from the popup menu from pressing shift space.
Moving the mouse lets you choose the directionality of the loop cut.
Clicking or enter key confirms that and advances to edge loop slide.
Enter solifies, as does left-clicking again though you risk accidentally sliding it with the mouse instead of just letting it operate on the center where it defaulted.Select half the object, delete faces (I used right click and delete faces from menu)
In the wrench icon modifier properties tab in the properties editor on the right, select add modifier and choose mirror, then select your axis. Mirroring should be good to go.
modifiers can be applied in that same modifier properties menu to convert the change into the mesh.
Knife Tool
consult the text display at the bottom of the viewport and it will indicate if cutting through is ON or OFF, press z to toggle. could get thorny in orthographic view if it’s off.
select points with left click, cap it off with enter
Extrude
press e and move with mouse
similar x y or z before moving mouse to constrain movement to axis so named. Like in Lightwave 3D, you can extrude multiple times and not notice if you don’t move it immediately. instances of whatever you extruded can be selected individually by single clicking or all of them in that same space will be selected if the cursor is clickdragselected.
PLEASE update this when you figure out how to merge them.
Snapping Options
Magnet icon in the middle top of the viewport window. The toggle on/off button and the settings next to it with dropdown menu seem self explanatory for now.
Offers opportunities to line up objectsand vertices with lines, vertices, faces, or grid.
Flattening NonPlanars
To make transformations respect a particular plane or normal such as when flattening a set of poly mesh vertices, edges, and faces to the same plane:
Transformation Orientation
First select the polygon you’d like to reference.
In the middle of the top bar of the 3d Viewport is the Transformation Orientation button and its dropdown arrow, click the arrow and then choose
the + to add a face orientation. This respects the face orientation as of the time the orientation is created, not the orientation as belongs to the face as it changes or not. with this now selected you can select all the poly’s to be flattened, press s to scale. you can drag and confirm, or confirm and then open the resize “N” menu (it should appear lower left of the viewport but you may need to press n to make it appear). change the z dimension to 0. you selection will now be coplanar.
Transformation Pivot Point
Some operations using scaling, or even other operations may want the transformation pivot point to be from a corner vertice, or a particlar poly, and the transformation pivot point button dropdown which is defaulted to selection median point can be changed to active element, the last mesh vertice/edge/face selected.
For example if you want to shrink something into its corner you can choose active elent with all your vertices selected, the corner vertice being selected last before beginning the transform.
Smoothing and coplanar artifacts
Didn’t work exactly but directions were as follows, investigate more later:
add modifier, weighted normal. Enable auto smooth option in object properties, under Normals, you’ll find a checkbox for auto smooth. some geometry errors might be had in the upper menu buttons in the 3d viewport edit mode, mesh, normals, recalculate outside.
Rightclick object and specify Shade Smooth from the popup menu.
Parenting and Unparenting Objects
Shift+LeftClickDrag objects in the Scene Collection Window under other objects to parent them, or drag them to the shared collection to unparent them back to the same hierarchy level.
Ctrl + P in the viewport with the last object selected (the active object) to be the parent.
Alt + P to unparent.
or use the Parent submenu in the RightClick Object Context Menu.
Properties Editor > Scene Properties > Units > Unit System to set up units in Metric or Imperial Sometimes the camera physically clips into nearby objects, changing the scene’s scale to smaller units seems to handle this mostly.
Assigning Mesh Materials
Select relevant faces in the 3D viewport. In Properties > Material Properties, select the desired material slot from that object’s list (you may need to browse and link another material from the scene list). Click the Assign button.
Unsharing Materials Between Duplicated Objects
Duplicated Objects share the same data-blocks for materials unless you manually change this.
Properties Editor > Material Properties will show the Material Slots panel, which includes the Slot List and then the Material Data-Block Menu. With the relevant object selected in the scene, with the material slot selected in the material properties slot list, in the data block menu, click the numeral listing the number of users of that data-block to create a single-user copy, thus creating a distinct material that can be changed independently of the material on the other object.
Loading textures for painting
under material properties select Use Nodes
Select Shader Editor from the area editor type selector. zoom in and you should see the default Principled BSDF shader and the Material Output nodes. disconnect the BSDF shader. Add>Texture>ImageTexture and plug it’s color output to surface input into Material on Material Output Node.
To Layer Textures with transparencies
Add>Color>MixRGB
feed MixRGB’s Color to Material Output. Feed Base Image Texture’s Color Output to MixRGB’s Color1. Feed top Image Texture’s Color output to MixRGB’s Color 2. Feed top Image Texture’s Alpha output to MixRGB’s Fac.
When painting panorama spheres with camera inside the sphere, for image map to match left right orientation of how it looks inside the sphere, flip the sphere’s x scale to negative.
Setting up Blender interface for Grease Pencil
File >New >2D Animation will create a blender scene with white backdrop, 2d Animation Workspace Tab, and a grease pencil object created ready to draw on in Draw Mode. Otherwise, use the + workspace button and add a 2D animation option and choose it.
In Object Mode, choose Add> Grease Pencil Object >Blank.
Pen Tablet Settings.
3 Button Mouse Emulation
To optionally enable middle mouse button to pen, e.g. for navigation purposes, AppMenu>Edit>Preferences>Input. Under mouse check “emulate 3d button mouse” Holding Alt+LeftClick is equivalent to using the middle button, and this will apply on stylus, 2 button mouse, and 3 button mouse.
Changing the view with the key and mouse or key and stylus, instead of the Gizmo widgets.
StylusPoint or LeftMouseButton
Alt + LeftClickDrag rotates the view
Alt + Ctrl + LeftClickDrag zooms/dollies in and out
Alt + Shift + LeftClickDrag pans the view
therefore~~
MiddleMouseButton
MiddleClickDrag rotates the view
Ctrl + MiddleClickDrag zooms/dollies in and out
Shift + MiddleClickDrag pans the view
In Object Mode select a grease pencil object in the 3d Viewport or Outliner area and this will enable the selection of Draw Mode
Interaction Mode Select Ctrl + Tab to choose interaction modes from a popup pie menu. Tab key cycles between Edit Mode and the most recently used interaction mode. GUI dropdown mode selector in the upper left of the 3d viewport on the header, immediately to the right of the Editor Type selector.
Suggested going into properties panel and changing your canvas, backdrop color, viewport render style, etc.
Onionskinning
Onionskinning overlays other keyframes with your current frame. The on off checkbox is in the Viewport Overlay Options dropdown menu (top right of viewport) under Grease Pencil.
Onionskin options are available under the Object Data Properties tab of the properties editor (right side of window) when a grease pencil object is selected or has been recently selected.
Individual Layers under the Object Data Properties tab of the properties editor can have onion skinning turned off or on by clicking the little circle / moving ball icon to the right of the visibility eye.
Consistent Drawing Plane
Canvas Overlay object
Depicts the drawing plane if Surface is not specified for stroke placement. Turn its visibility on on by going to Overlay dropdown options top right of viewport window, and checking the box for Canvas under the Draw Grease Pencil category.
Stroke Placement and Drawing Plane Alignment are found in the Overlay options top right of viewport window.
Assign both the Stroke Placement and Drawing Plane to 3D Cursor. To place and orient the 3D Cursor to a reference object, choose the 3D cursor as the Active Tool then check the Surface Project box and chose Geometry from the orientation dropdown in the either the active tool options on the top bar or right dragout menu of the viewport. Now left click the desired face of your reference object.
Objects such as your reference object can be temporarily hidden in the Outliner with the eye icon, or in the properties panel under the object properties tab, under visibility select checkboxes for showing in viewport and renders.
Alternately, it can be turned off in the outliner so long as its parent collection is rightclicked and then in the popup context menu under visibility render and viewport are both options to select or deselect.
Drawing on Mesh
Surface Stroke Placement and Its Behaviors
Draw Mode > Header Menu > Stroke Placement can be set to Surface, wherein lines drawn within the profile of an object onscreen will adjere to visible geometry surfaces (including viewport representations of camera objects if their visibility is not turned off in the outliner) and not the flat drawing plane. Pathfinding over the surface is such that strokes over sharp corners can clip over sharp corners, and this is more noticeable with thinner rather than thicker lines. Lines exiting or entering an object’s profile in the viewport will be flat to the viewing plane at the depth they contact, but if they loop back onto the object they will have a straight depth travel trajectory to the new contact.
An option to specify an Offset value appears in the Stroke Placement dropdown menu when Surface is enabled. This value is used at stroke creation only.
Non-Zero Offsets, and Distance Consistency Workarounds
Nonzero valuescan be used for specific placement aesthetics or simply to help remove noticeable clipping effects. The values are relative to the screen zoom or camera proximity (but not the focal length as far as I have observed), so can create variability.
A consistency workaround can be achieved by locking the camera’s transform value, and then only creating strokes in the object camera view and not in the viewport free view. Easily control the camera using Fly Mode navigation.
Zero-Value Offsets and Anti-Clipping / Z-Fighting Workarounds
An offset value of zero is very consistent at stroke creation and when editing and inbetweening later. Strokes and fills may noticeably clip through mesh objects and will have z-fighting problems as concurrent geometry does. Results do seem to vary on final render but it’s consistently annoying in the viewport.
A workaround for clipping and z-fighting on display or render exists using modifiers.
Modifiers can alter geometry for edit mode, viewport, or final render purposes and thus allow using zero offset for creation without unsightly renders. With the mesh geometry selected, Properties Editor > Modifier Properties tab, choose add modifier. Whichever modifier you choose, click to toggle their visibility in the viewport or in renders.
The Solidify modifier is a good choice for growing complex shapes consistently.
The Geometry Nodes modifier is a good choice for simple convex shapes, especially if you need an interior view for spherical panoramas (Solidify is not helpful in this case)
Stroke Reprojection
Sometimes due to a moved drawing plane target, frame interpolation. sculpting, or production errors, strokes might not end up on the plane or object desired. This can be remedied with Stroke Reprojection. With the grease pencil object selected, Edit Mode header menu > Grease Pencil > Clean Up > Reproject Strokes. A popup menu allows you to choose various planes, the 3d cursor, or Surface.
A sphere interior drawing scenario may require scaling the assemblage relative to the origin / sphere center to make sure everything’s inside the sphere and then reprojecting back to the surface.
Description of Live Stroke Render Glitching, and Workaround
While completed strokes render onscreen okay, live rendering of strokes before the pen is released experiences artifacting based on the camera’s orientation to the grease pencil object origin, and based on the camera’s proximity to the grease pencil object origin. These are true of both the view from the viewport free camera and from an actual camera object.
A concurrent global location means no live rendering. A camera too far away means thinner live strokes. A camera too close means thicker live strokes. Relative to the proximity stroke tendency, strokes at 0 degrees from the origin live render the thinnest, strokes at 90 degrees away from the origin render the thickest, and strokes past 90 degrees (which is to say those looking away from the grease pencil object origin) do not live render.
When painting a panoramic grease pencil object such as one painted inside a sphere using surface stroke placement, whose strokes vary relative to the grease pencil origin, this writer suggests a workflow workaround while drawing to update the grease pencil object origin while panning or orbiting around:
While drawing and panning using the viewport widget or Shift + ` (AccentGrave) fly mode while in camera view and needing to update the origin to keep up with your place in the panorama: Switch to object mode. Transform the object origin with Affect Only Origins checked in the transform tool options, this toggle hotkey while mouse cursor is in viewport is Ctrl + Period. Grab the highlighted object origin, and move it, preferably with Snap during transform enabled and set to face ( top of viewport header bar) to gracefully move it along the sphere for consistent behavior. Switch to draw mode and and resume.
Hotkey Shorthand:
while drawing and panning using widget or Shift + `
Ctrl + Tab to choose object mode (doublecheck snap to face is on)
Ctrl + Period
G then LeftClickDrag to move the origin, panning or using Shift + ~ as you go
Ctrl + Period to toggle origin only back off
Ctrl + Tab to choose draw mode
Grease Pencil Object Layers
Stroke Depth Order
under Object Data Properties (green squiggly line in properties menu when grease pencil object is selected) you’ll find under strokes the option to change the stroke depth order from 2D to 3D. 2D Layers allows concise linear layer sorting, but can have strange nonsensical clipping artifacts if wrapping around a mesh object. 3D Location option works as 3D objects generally should, which means coplanar strokes and fills can now have Z-Fighting problems. Separate your strokes and fills in Edit Mode to fix that.
Brush key controls
Ctrl + Brush to erase while using the pen tool in draw mode, or Ctrl + to invert any sculpting tool
Ctrl + Fill Bucket tool creates a draw tool while the button is held, useful to bridge a gap in linework to close in a fill area.
F + move left or right to scale the brush or other tool
Turn off visibility of extraneous layers for fill tool in draw mode to work more perfectly
Frames
Frame stop start and framerate options are under Properties Editor > Output Properties >Dimensions
Some of these are available at the right of the Timeline bar at the bottom of the screen.
Keyframes
Autocreate keyframe is on by default. Drawing on the scene will create a new keyframe where there is none.
I to insert Keyframe
for objects
Shift I in draw mode to insert blank grease pencil keyframe
II
To manually create a keyframe, under the draw mode viewport menu chose the draw button > animate > Insert Keyframe (Active Layer)
LeftClickDrag the timeline cursor handle along the number bar to move it to different frames, or move the cursor with the arrow keys when the given grease pencil layer or object in the dope sheet is highlighted/ clicked. Left and Right arrows move the cursor individual frames, Up and Down Arrows move the timeline cursor to adjacent keyrames in the selected layer/ object.
G to grab and move a keyframe
Shift + D + LeftClickDrag a keyframe on the dope sheet to create a duplicate.
S to scale selected keyframes in the dope sheet relative to the timeline cursor.
Grease Pencil Interpolation
Ctrl + Alt + E or choose Draw>Interpolate>Interpolate from the upper left viewport button menu to interpolate a single frame where the timeline cursor is between two keyframes, and a mouse slider option will present to let you choose the degree between the two (or past the two) you would like. Click or Enter to confirm
Shift + Ctrl + E or choose Draw>Interpolate>Sequence to interpolate on all the frames between two keyframes indicated by the timeline cursor.
Keyframe Types
Keyframe Types are a labelling convenience on the timeline. Keyframes generated with Interpolate Sequence are automatically assigned a smaller, blue “Breakdown” keyframe type to label it on the timeline. Selected keyframes may be changed keyframe type by first pressing R or selecting Keyframe Type from the RightClick context menu, and then choosing a type from the dropdown list.
Animation Loops
Time Offset from the Grease Pencil Modifiers list allows a simple forever loop on its default settings. Do select custom range and specify the beginning and ending of your frames, and any offset you might want. The smaller the frame scale number, the slower. The larger the frame scale number, the faster.
Grease Pencil Modifiers may require being in draw or object mode to see in action properly.
Texture Painting
Color Eye Dropper Tool
LeftMouseButton while held will average colors being sampled.
Spacebar to reset the mix to current pixel sample.