Working Blender Reference

BlenderReference_v049
A rough, working reference document to consolidate my own Blender notes.
By Brett Leeper, 2026

Outline

• Disclaimers
• Window System
• Areas, Regions, Headers
• New Windows
• Workspaces
• Scene Units
• Camera clipping
• Rendering
• Color Management
  • Original Colors for Flat Images and Grease Pencil
  • Unlit Image Textures
  • Unlit Grease Pencil
• Rendering with Transparent Backdrop
• 3D Viewport Navigation
• Navigate Gizmo
• Walk (Default)
  • 3 Button Mouse Emulation
• Fly
• Interaction Modes
• Objects
• Outliner
• Active Object
• Parenting
• Object Origin
• Object Mode Actions & Hotkeys
• Edit Mode Selection
• Mesh Geometry
• Grease Pencil
• Selection Hot Keys
• Tools
• Tool & Alternate Tool Version Selection
• Adjust Last Operation
• N Menu
• Repeat Action
• Precision Modifiers
  • Mouse Pointer Dragging
  • Snapping Options
• Transforms
• Transform Hot Keys & Constraints
• Transform Orientations
• Transform Pivot Point
• Flattening Non-Planars
• 3D cursor
• Surface Project
• Reference Images
• Mesh Geometry
• Geometry Selection in Edit Mode
• Assorted Modeling Hotkeys
• Loop Cut
• Mirroring
• Knife Tool
• Extrude
  • Clean Up
• Smoothing & Co-Planar Artifacts
• Mesh Materials
• Assigning Mesh Materials
• Unsharing Materials Between Duplicated Objects
• Importing Brushes and Assets
• Blender Version Changes
• Asset System
• Asset Shelf & Asset File Management
• Wacom Pen Tablet
• Stylus Button Control
• Proportional Screen Mapping
• Xsetwacom Tablet Area
  • Single Monitor Proportional Area
  • Multiple Monitor Proportional Area
• Texture Painting
• Brush Key Controls
• Color Eye Dropper Tool
• Original Colors for Flat Images & Grease Pencil
• Loading Textures
• Layering Textures with Transparencies
• Spherical Panoramas / Skyboxes
  • Spherical Generated Projection
  • Environmental Texture
  • UV Texture Mapped Sphere
  • Disambiguation – UV Mapping vs UV Sphere
  • Texture Coordinates
  • UV Pole Artifacts
    • Smoothing
    • Tri Geometry Poles
    • Quad Geometry Poles
  • UV Unwrapping a UV Sphere
• Grease Pencil
• Workspace and Scene Configuration
• Brush Key Controls
• Drawing Plane
• Drawing on Mesh Geometry
  • Surface Stroke Placement
  • Editing Along Surfaces
  • Offset
  • Non-Zero Offsets, & Consistency Workarounds
  • Zero-Value Offsets & Z-Fighting Workarounds
  • Stroke Reprojection
  • Stroke Depth Order
  • Stroke Shading
  • Self Overlap
  • Vertex Colors
• Frame Display Settings & Frame Rate
• Key Frames
  • Creation
  • Timeline Manipulation
  • Interpolation
    • Single Frame
    • Multi-Frame
  • Key Frame Types
• Onionskinning
• Animation Loops

Disclaimers

• * in the contents section means I haven’t populated that information but plan to.
• Descriptions of UI paradigms with the location of various settings, tabs, and buttons may or may not reflect official UI nomenclature and topology.
• The creation of this document spans Blender versions 3.0.1 to 5.0.1, and may require updates.
• Document organization may be odd, there’s some tension between organizing information conceptually like the manual vs by tasks as in a topical tutorial.
• I intend to use default settings, configurations, and hotkeys for my own learning, and to document as such. Deviations will be noted. For Example:

Window System

Areas, Regions, Headers

Blender Window has a mean header called the Topbar, it has an application menu (App Menu) and a workspace tab selector. Beneath this are 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). Region describes any of the subdivisions of these areas like tabs, panels, toolbars, headers, footers and the main region of the viewport.

Resize areas by dragging borders with the left mouse button, a dual arrow icon appears when the cursor hovers in the correct place. Split or join areas by right clicking over the border and choosing the desired option.

Hovering the cursor over the the upper left of an area shows a reticule / cross icon. This spot can be dragged over another area to swap their places. This spot can also be single clicked for the split join options as well as further options such as maximizing or closing it. This same popup menu can be opened by right-clicking anywhere on the header bar.

An Area Header when right-clicked allows the 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 dragged with LeftMouseButton off the bottom of the application window.

New Windows

In the App menu, Window > New Window and New Main Window creates a new blender window into the same instance of blender, in the same scene / file, extending your working space.

Go to your operating system in the dock, task bar, or application list and request a new window there to launch a blender window that is its own proper instance, with a different scene / file, or functionally creating a different copy if you opened the same file.

Workspaces

In the Topbar, to the right of the app menu and a workspace tab selector with a selection of workspaces. The full list of pre-configued workspaces is populated by clicking the plus button on the workspace tab selector to add a workspace to this list. 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.

Scene Units

Properties Editor > Scene Properties > Units > Unit System to set up units in Metric or Imperial

Camera Clipping

Sometimes the camera physically clips into nearby objects, changing the scene’s scale to smaller units seems to fix this mostly.

The N Menu, synonymous with the viewport sidebar, N ** > View** contains near and far clipping parameters, based on the scene units.

Rendering

Color management

In the Properies Manager Area under the Render tab, under the Color Management Dropdown are Color Management Options, including View which greatly affects how colors are viewed and rendered.

Original Colors for Flat Images and Grease Pencil

• Filmic or AgX options under View helps with photorealism, but Standard option for View is required for true reproduction production in plain material image textures and grease pencil materials, both onscreen and in the color eye dropper samples.
• Delete lights

Additionally:

Unlit Image Textures

• In the Shader Editor with your object’s material selected, zoom in
• Delete the Principled BSDF shader attached to the Material Output.
• Add > Texture > Image Texture
• Connect the image node’s color output to the material input on the Output Node.

Unlit Grease Pencil

• Turn off lights specifically for Grease Pencil at either the object level or at the layer level:
• Object Level: With the grease pencil object selected in the Outliner, in Properties Editor > Object Properties > Visibility > Grease Pencil, uncheck Use Lights.
• Layer Level: With the grease pencil object selected in the Outliner, in Properties Editor > Grease Pencil Object Data Properties > Layers, uncheck the box next to Lights.
  • That same Layers submenu is also visible on the Dope Sheet Editor’s grease pencil editing context.

Rendering with Transparent Backdrop

Under Properties Editor > Render > Film, check the box for Transparent.

3D Viewport Navigation

Navigate Gizmo

Navigation gizmo in the upper right of the viewport to accomplishes varying view manipulation in the default Walk Mode as well as toggling the camera view.

Hide or unhide the Gizmos including the Navigation Gizmo with the gizmo visibility button and dropdown menu at the upper right of the viewport area.

Walk (Default)

Hold and Drag Middle Mouse Button rotates the view
Hold and Drag Ctrl + Middle Mouse Button zooms/dollies in and out
Scroll Middle Mouse Wheel zooms/dollies in and out
Hold and Drag Shift + Middle Mouse Button pans the view up down left right

3 Button Mouse Emulation

App Menu > Edit > Preferences > Input > Mouse > Emulate 3 Button Mouse

– Alt+Left Mouse Button is now equivalent to using the middle button, and this will apply on stylus, 2 button mouse, and yes a 3 button mouse.

Hold and Drag Alt + Left Mouse Button rotates the view
Hold and Drag Ctrl + Alt + Left Mouse Button zooms/dollies in and out
Hold and Drag Shift + Alt + Left Mouse Button pans the view up down left right

Fly

Shift + ` (GRAVE ACCENT U+0060 key) toggles this navigation to Fly Mode.
Left Mouse Button exits Fly Mode at the new destination and orientation.
Right Mouse Button exits Fly Mode reverts to the old destination and orientation.

↑ Move Forward
↓ Move Backward
← Strafe Left
→ Strafe Right
The mouse aims.
Middle Mouse Scroll Wheel up and down speeds and slows the rate of travel.
Middle Mouse Button advances the location forward towards the clicked object.

In Fly Mode Ctrl + Middle Mouse Button doesn’t seem to equate to the scroll wheel. I suspect 3 Button Mouse Emulation similarly lacks the scroll wheel speed functionality.

This mouse aim can be used from a fixed position such as the camera to rotate and tilt the camera up and down without canting the camera as free rotating the camera seems to want to do.

Aiming with the Wacom graphics tablet stylus works here on Pop!_OS on version 5.0.1 but on Windows 10 in 3.1.0 it didn’t seem to engage until the stylus is first raised out of the tablets’s sensor field, as tested with a Wacom Intuos3 9×12.

Interaction Modes

On each editor area immediately next to the Editor dropdown selector is the Interaction Mode dropdown selector.

In the viewport specifically there’s a hotkey shortcut to choose an interaction mode.

• Hold Ctrl + Tab
• gesture the cursor in the labeled direction on the popup pie menu,
• either release the keys or type the labeled number key

Tab cycles between Edit Mode and the most recently used interaction mode.

Available interaction modes are highly contextual depending on the type of Active Object and on the Editor Type. Available interaction modes include Object Mode and Edit Mode, and may include Draw Mode, Vertex Paint, or Texture Paint for example.

The Active Object is noted in the Outliner Editor Area by a rounded box around the object type icon next to its name. The Active Object can only be changed while in Object Mode.

Objects

Outliner

The Outliner Editor, referring to which I almost always mean its Viewer Display Mode, handily displays all the objects of a scene alongside their name, their visibility settings, and their parent child relationships.

Active Object

The Active Object is noted in the Outliner Editor Area by a rounded box around the object type icon next to its name. The Active Object can only be changed while in Object Mode. Tool Operations apply only to the Active Object.

Parenting

Hold and Drag Shift + Left Mouse Button objects in the Outliner 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 choose these actions from the Parent submenu in the RightClick Object Context Menu.

Object Origin

Each object has an origin, the default point of transforms for objects.

Toggle its visibility in the viewport header Overlays dropdown menu.

In Object Mode, the tool settings in the Sidebar and in Properties Editor > Tool have optional transform settings, Affect Only origins, locations, and parents. Affect Only Origin specifically has a toggle hotkey, Ctrl + .

Origins are alas, not animate-able properties. Move it to the center of gravity of your object before animating.

Object Mode Actions & Hotkeys

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.

X to delete the active object

Shift + D to duplicate the active object.

Edit Mode Selection

Mesh Geometry

Use GUI icons to choose between vertex, edge, and face selection, next to interaction mode selector. 0r use the following hotkeys while in edit mode.

1 for vertex selection
2 for edge selection
3 for face selection mode in edit mode.

Loop Selection is based on the selection mode

Grease Pencil

1 for point selection
2 for stroke selection
3 for segment selection

Selection Hot Keys

L to select to add contiguous mesh or grease pencils spline to current selection.

Tools

Tool & Alternate Tool Version Selection

The list of tools available in the Toolbar depends on the editor type as well as the object interaction mode or editing context.

Click Left Mouse Button to select an Active Tool from the left Toolbar.
Hold Left Mouse Button over a tool icon with an arrow in the lower right to see a popup menu of alternate tool versions. Drag the cursor over the desired tool and release to select an alternate tool.

For example, the Lasso Select is an option in the alternate popup menu for Box Select.

Shift + Spacebar from anywhere in the viewport to then select an Active Tool from a popup context menu, excluding alternate tools. In some editing contexts this popup menu shows options from the Asset Shelf, for example Draw Mode with an Active Grease Pencil Object shows brush assets.

Adjust Last Operation

The Adjust Last Operation region is located in the lower left of the 3D viewport. It is available after initially confirming aj transform or tool action by clicking Left Mouse Button or Enter key. Its expanded view is toggled by clicking the arrow next to the tool/operation name. It presents options sometimes different from the right sidebar tool options, including Numerical Values for tool operation.

The Adjust Last Operation area can be hidden or unhidden in the viewport View dropdown options.

N Menu

N Menu is synonymous with the sidebar menu on the right between the viewport border and the navigation widget.

N toggles Hide / Unhide for this menu.

It contains tabs for tool settings, numerical properties of the object convenient for dialing in transforms, viewing parameters, and other useful settings and interfaces.

Blender extensions often populate an interface here in the N menu.

Repeat Action

Shift + R repeats the last action

Precision Modifiers

Mouse Pointer Dragging

Dragging Ctrl + Left Mouse Button snaps to discrete steps. Unit Grid?
Dragging Shift + Left Mouse Button moves slowly/more precisely
Dragging Ctrl + Shift + Left Mouse Button does both

Snapping Options

The Viewport header has a toggle on/off Magnet icon for snapping, with settings in the dropdown menu next to it.

This offers opportunities to line up objects and vertices etc with lines, vertices, faces, or the unit grid.

Snap > Face during transforms gracefully moves a point along a surface.

Transforms

Transform Hot Keys & Constraints

G key to grab and then move the selection along with the mouse cursor. Left Mouse Button or Enter to confirm the movement.

With a selection grab active, you can then Hold X, Y, or Z to constrain movement to the x, y, or z 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.

Transform Orientations

In the Edit Mode, at the middle of the viewport header is a Transform Orientations menu dropdown with a prepopulated list of options. Use the plus (+) icon to create an orientation from a selection, such as a particular face. This respects the face orientation as of the time the orientation is created, and doesn’t update with the transformations of the face it was generated from unlike Normal orientation which would update.

Some operations like Scale default to Global orientation but after Enter/Confirmation of the tool action you can zero out the last operation, and then change the orientation before performing your task.

Transform Pivot Point

In the Edit Mode, at the middle of the viewport header is a Transform Pivot Point menu dropdown with a list including the default Median Point as well as Bounding Box Center, 3D Cursor, Individual Origins, and Active Element.

Active Element is the most recently selected vertice/edge/face, it’ll be highlighted differently from the whole selection, white on gold by default. You can select a particular one after the fact by shift-left-clicking the element twice to remove and readd it to a selection.

Some tasks such may want the transformation pivot point to be from a corner vertice, or a particlar polygon. This can be achieved by selecting that element last and setting the pivot point to active element, or you select the element first and move the 3D cursor to that element (Shift+S, Move Cursor to Selection).

Flattening Non-Planars

Setting both the Transform Orientation and the Transform Pivot Point is necessary when flattening Mesh or Grease Pencil objects to a particular reference plane. When both of those parameters are correct, then scale / resize the z axis to zero.

The Reproject feature of Grease Pencil may be more straightforward for flattening rogue drawing elements.

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 opens a context menu to specify the 3D Cursor’s rotation and positions, as well as a selection/s relation to the 3D Cursor.

Shift + Right Mouse Button summons the 3D cursor to the screencursor’s position regardless of tool selection.

Drag Shift + Right Mouse Button to move the 3D cursor.

While the 3D cursor makes a handy bookmark, for something more durable I might suggest adding an Empty / Null object.

Surface Project

With the 3D Cursor tool selected, Check the surface Project box in the Tool Settings header or the Sidebar to allow you to place the cursor at an object surface by checking the Surface Project box. Orient the cursor to the face normal by selecting Geometry from the viewport header Orientation dropdown options, then clicking Left Mouse Button on the desired face normal.

Reference Images

Object Mode > Add > Image > Reference or drag an image from elsewhere on desktop to viewport to import a reference image as an object. Rename it in the scene collection otherwise it’s “empty”

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.

Mesh Geometry

Geometry Selection in Edit Mode

Use GUI icons to choose between vertex, edge, and face selection, next to interaction mode selector. 0r use the following hotkeys while in edit mode.

1 for vertex selection
2 for edge selection
3 for face selection mode in edit mode.

Assorted Modeling Hotkeys

P to separate selected mesh into a new separate object.

Y separates the selected mesh from contiguous mesh and keeps the selected mesh within the same object

F to form a polygon or face between vertices or edges selected.

Loop Cut

Ctrl + R for Loop Tool

The Adjust Last Operation area in the lower left of the viewport allows entry of necessary values.
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 solidifies (?), as does left-clicking again though you risk accidentally sliding it with the mouse instead of just letting it operate in place.

Mirroring

So you’re only working one side:
model base box of your object, then loop cut through the center.

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 apply the modifier and bake its 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

Click E and move mouse pointer
while this is active and unconfirmed, click X, Y, or Z to constrain movement to the x, y, or z axis. Like in Lightwave 3D, you can extrude multiple times and not notice if you don’t move it immediately.

Activating Extrude from the Toolbar gives you a convenient handle with which to pull your extension from its source, and it doesn’t seem to confirm without actually pulling the object out.

Clean Up

It may be handy to see if you have committed duplicate extrusions to turn on Statistics in the Overlays dropdown menu at the right of the viewport header. Clicking the Left Mouse Button will select just one point or edge. So too will the selection tool Lasso or Rectangle to surround the object unless you do so in Wireframe mode with X-Ray toggled on in the viewport’s visibility options at the right of the header, taking care to not select anything behind, or removing visible strays from the selection.

PLEASE update this when you figure out a tidy way to merge multiple co-located extrusions without going point group by point group.

Smoothing and Co-planar Artifacts

Didn’t work exactly but directions were as follows, investigate more later:
Add modifier, Weighted Mormal. 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.

Mesh Materials

Assigning Mesh Materials

Select relevant faces in the 3D viewport. In Properties > Material Properties, select the desired material slot from that object’s list, + New to add a texture, or search/ browse and link another material from the scene list.

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.

Importing Brushes and Assets

The following applies to Texture Painting Brushes, Grease Pencil Brushes, and Sculpting Brushes. It probably also extends to other assets in Blender’s newer Asset / Asset Shelf system.

Blender Version Changes

Blender Version Blender changed how brushes as of version 4.3 with their Asset System. Brush import backwards compatibility ended with version 5. It’ll still import but thumbnails are no longer attached. If you can find the original image that belongs to a particular brush out of a pack you’re welcome to manually add each one by one.

This can be solved by installing a 4.3+ <5 version, such as 4.5.7 LTS / Stable, and marking the older brush as Assets that’ll then behave correctly and exhibit correct thumbnails under the new paradigm.

I imported my old brushes by adding yet another install of Blender to my system using Snap. A default sudo snap install blender command would install the most current version and update it per system settings, however one can use the snapcraft team’s tool at https://snapcraft.io/blender to specify a command for installing a particular build. In my case,

sudo snap install blender --channel=4.5lts/stable --classic

This snap install is in addition to the older OS repository binary version on Pop!_OS 22.04 which is version 3.0.1 as well as the always updated-per-system-settings Flatpak 5.0.1. (Note: Manage any Flatpak system file permissions or hardware access screwups by installing Flatseal). The only problem is knowing which identical Blender application icon is which.

Asset System

Brushes and other resources can be managed and curated both attached internally in a file and outside in a working environment library.

• Select or multi-select items in Outliner > Blender File
• Mark or unmark items as Assets in the Right Mouse Button context menu.

Assets present in the Asset Shelf as well as the Tool Settings, Tool Sidebar and Properties Editor > Tool tab. Non-Assets in the file remain until they are manually removed.

Assets can be located:

1. Saved / appended inside the current .blend file
2. Inside another .blend file inside an assigned Asset Library file directory.
3. Saved individually as a .asset.blend file in an assigned Asset Library file directory.

Blender loads all three. Assign any Asset Libraries in Application Menu > Edit > Preferences > File Paths > Asset Libraries. Without attention to file management, brushes can be cluttered and have redundancies.

Assigning and un-assigning libraries pertains to the blender installation, not to the current .blend file.

.Asset.blender brush files live in the relevant asset library folder under Assets > Saved > Brushes. The precise location within the directory of whole .blend files sharing a library with saved .asset.blend files apparently doesn’t matter, but I suggest it should be placed at the same file directory tier as the “Saved” folder.

File > Append can bring in .asset.blend files directly or it can append selected aspects of another .blend file, such as non-asset brushes, textures, scene objects, and more.

Asset Shelf & Asset File Management

Hold the cursor over a brush asset and a popup will list its name and the file it lives in.

Click Right Mouse Button over assets in the asset shelf to pop up a context menu with options such as:

• Save As Asset
• Library dropdown options include the current file as well as any assigned libraries.
• Duplicate
• Edit Preview Image
• Delete
• Delete actually deletes the file from the folder directory.

The Asset Shelf can be populated in the viewport window in Draw / Paint mode by checking the box at 3D Viewport > View. It also pops up when clicking the active brush asset in the header Tool Settings, the Sidebar Tool tab, and Properties Editor > Tool.

Wacom Pen Tablet

Stylus Button Control

I don’t use 3 Button Mouse Emulation anymore. The Wacom tablet and pen settings can be modified on the OS. I have Middle Mouse Button set to the lower stylus button and Right Mouse Button set to the upper stylus button. I also mapped Ctrl Alt and Shift to the tablet buttons.

3 Mouse Button Emulation is however optionally available to be enabled for navigation purposes.

I continue to suggest using Fly Mode when in the camera View to rotate the camera in 3D space.

Fly Mode navigation aiming with the Wacom graphics tablet stylus works here on Pop!_OS on version 5.0.1 but on Windows 10 in 3.1.0 it didn’t seem to engage until the stylus is first raised out of the tablets’s sensor field, as tested with a Wacom Intuos3 9×12.

Proportional Screen Mapping

Please force proportions of your wacom tablet area in your operating system’s configuration of your Wacom device, not doing so is a ready way to confuse your hand-eye coordination.

You’ll get more resolution and less hand cramping out of mapping it to a single screen, double widescreen width proportions is a small cross section of the tablet area.

Xsetwacom Tablet Area

The Graphical User Interface (GUI) configuration tool here in Pop!_OS Linux 22.04 system settings doesn’t provide for moving the proportionally mapped, usable area from the top of the tablet area to the bottom, such that I can place the physical keyboard at the top, far end to eat up less physical desk real estate. Neither does it provide for proportional mapping of the tablet to more than one monitor, defaulting to mapping the tablet area over my decidedly wider, side-by-side widescreen monitor.

These tablet area and proportion fixes are however accomplished using Xsetwacom from the command line interface in the terminal. If your Linux operating system desktop environment is using Wayland and not X, ask elsewhere. Xsetwacom has a learning curve, so anything you can do for your tablet the GUI config just do it there. Looking up various manpages was helpful in understanding its various functions.

Importantly, Xsetwacom intentionally does not keep its settings between X server restarts, therefore record your settings / commands to repeat the process. I am informed that keeping the settings requires either doing a startup shell script with the xsetwacom commands to repeat it automatically, or bypassing it and modifying the system configuration file.

xsetwacom --list devices followed by the Enter key returns the following information for me:

Wacom Intuos3 9×12 Pen stylus id: 9 type: STYLUS
Wacom Intuos3 9×12 Pad pad id: 10 type: PAD
Wacom Intuos3 9×12 Pen eraser id: 15 type: ERASER
Wacom Intuos3 9×12 Pen cursor id: 16 type: CURSOR

Turn off force proportion in the GUI config so we can read the full area parameters of the tablet.

xsetwacom get "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen stylus" area

0 0 60960 45720

These coordinates are x1 y1 x2 y2, where 1 is the upper left and 2 is the lower right of the mapped tablet surface. This will return the same information for the eraser and cursor. Area is not a property of the pad.

Single Monitor Proportional Area

With force proportion to a single monitor turned on in the GUI we can read the proportional area:

xsetwacom get "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen stylus" area

0 0 60960 34290

45720 – 34290 = 11430
x1 y1 x2 y2
thus the desired coordinates will be:
0 11430 60960 45720

To modify stylus, eraser, and cursor proportional area down to the bottom of the tablet’s area, run the following in succession,

xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen stylus" area 0 11430 60960 45720
xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen eraser" area 0 11430 60960 45720
xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen cursor" area 0 11430 60960 45720

or

Run it together separated by a semicolon and a single space:

xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen stylus" area 0 11430 60960 45720; xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen eraser" area 0 11430 60960 45720; xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen cursor" area 0 11430 60960 45720

This should do it for a single monitor mapping. Cycling the GUI through force proportions on/off will reset these, as will restarting the user session.

Multiple Monitor Proportional Area

For proportional mapping to multiple monitors, first in the GUI turn off mapping to a single monitor.

Then we’ll do some math to set the new area parameters in xsetwacom. For my setup the monitors are the same pixel dimensions, placed side by side, so I halved single monitor proportional y axis

0 0 60960 17145

xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen stylus" area 0 0 60960 17145; xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen eraser" area 0 0 60960 17145; xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen cursor" area 0 0 60960 17145

Scooted to the very bottom,
45720 – 17145 = 28575, thus
0 28575 60960 45720

xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen stylus" area 0 28575 60960 45720; xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen eraser" area 0 28575 60960 45720; xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen cursor" area 0 28575 60960 45720

Scooted to the middle,
midpoint of 45720 is 22860
midpoint of 17145 is 8572.5
22860 – 8572 = 14288 y1
22860 + 8573 = 31433 y2, thus
0 14288 60960 31433

xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen stylus" area 0 14288 60960 31433; xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen eraser" area 0 14288 60960 31433; xsetwacom set "Wacom Intuos3 9x12 Pen cursor" area 0 14288 60960 31433

Cycling the GUI on/off through mapping to a single monitor and through force proportions will reset these, as will restarting the user session.

Texture Painting

While the information within is more broadly applicable, presently the organization of this document is largely based on a particular use case of painting equirectangular panoramas inside a sphere for environmental textures / sky boxes.

Brush Key Controls

Left Mouse Button is synonymous with the stylus point

Hold Ctrl + Left Mouse Button to switch between the Color and the Secondary Color

Hold F while moving the cursor left or right to change the size / radius of the brush.

Hold Ctrl + F while moving the cursor around a dial to rotate the brush texture.

Hold Shift + F while moving the cursor left or rightS to change the strength (opacity) of the brush.

Shift + S in Paint Mode toggles smoothing of brush strokes where the brush mark follows behind the cursor at a length.

Color Eye Dropper Tool

LeftMouseButton while held will average colors being sampled.

Spacebar to reset the mix to current pixel sample.

Original Colors for Flat Images & Grease Pencil

For correct and accurate onscreen depiction and color eye dropper sampling of both grease pencil objects and raw image texture colors (materials already supplied only by an Image texture and not the default Principled BSDF Shader):

• Delete Lights
• Set the Viewport Shading to Material Preview or Rendered (at the right of the viewport header)
• Properies Manager > Render tab > Color Management Dropdown > View > Standard
• Additionally turn off lights for Grease Pencil at either the object level or at the layer level:
• Object Level: With the grease pencil object selected in the Outliner, in Properties Editor > Object Properties > Visibility > Grease Pencil, uncheck Use Lights.
• Layer Level: With the grease pencil object selected in the Outliner, in Properties Editor > Grease Pencil Object Data Properties > Layers, uncheck the box next to Lights.
  • That same Layers submenu is also visible on the Dope Sheet Editor’s grease pencil editing context.

Filmic or AgX options under View helps with photorealism, but Standard option for View is required for true reproduction production in image texture and grease pencil materials.

Loading Textures

• With the object’s texture material selected in Properties Editor > Materials:
• Under material properties select Use Nodes (writing from 5.01, it’s always on, proceed to next step)
• 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.
• If the nodes are wildly out of frame, View > Frame All will return them to view.
• Disconnect the BSDF shader.
• Add > Texture > Image Texture
• Image Texture Nodes are compatible with Texture Painting. Other texture nodes have their uses. For example Environmental Texture nodes, while not directly applicable to the Texture Painting brushes, create superior, smooth projections inside spheres, without pole artifacting, and these can be layered with Image Texture nodes.
• Plug the image node’s color output to surface input into Material on Material Output Node.
• Creating a UV Map before painting is required.

Layering Textures with Transparencies

• With the object’s texture material selected in Properties Editor > Materials:
• Shader Editor > Add > Shader > Mix Shader
• The mix shader’s output goes to Material Output Surface slot.
• Upper Layer’s Image Texture node feeds color output to the Mix Shader node bottom shader slot, and feeds Alpha to the Factor slot.
• The lower texture feeds to the top shader slot.
• The lower texture can the output of another Mix Shader or an Image Texture node, or any number of other nodes.

Spherical Panoramas / Skyboxes

Spherical Generated Projection

Shader Editor > Add > Input > Texture Coordinate

Setting the texture coordinate to Generated and the image node’s projection mode to spherical creates a smooth spherical projection, as correctly viewed from the outside.

Environmental Texture

Shader Editor > Add > Texture > Environmental Texture

Environmental Texture node from the texture nodes list creates a smooth spherical projection. As viewed from the outside this node inverts the x-axis, so as to be viewed from the inside correctly.

UV Texture Mapped Sphere

Disambiguation – UV Mapping vs UV Sphere

• UV Mapping provides a flat conversion of an unwrapped and squashed mesh geometry for the purposes of mapping texture coordinates in a specific way to geometry.
• A UV Sphere refers to the geometry of a sphere that is defined by only horizontal and vertical lines, a la longitude and latitude on a globe of the Earth. The topology is inconsistent, smaller and elongated towards the poles, however the rectilinear polygons better translate to an equirectangular projection texture, 2 wide by 1 tall.

Our process here involves both

Texture Coordinates

The default of an unmapped or UV mapped sphere defaults to settings equivocated by having the texture coordinate node set to UV with the image texture’s projection set to Flat.

As needed for viewing a texture from the inside of a sphere:

UV Editor > UV > Mirror > X Axis to flip the X axis.

or

Resize (S Enter) or use the toolbar but be careful not to move the mouse, and confirm once to activate
– Adjust Last Operation > Resize
– scale x axis to negative one (-1)
– confirm

You might not notice it is mirrored incorrectly if you don’t have text contained in your image.

UV Pole Artifacts

Smoothing

The poles of a UV sphere (horizontal and vertical lines a la longitude and latitude) offer weird puckering with regard to smoothing and lighting for most shaders, but not for purely flat image textures.

Setting the image texture node’s interpolation to smart, or really anything but Linear, seems to make for nicer, less artifacted pole seams when UV Mapping.

Tri Geometry Poles

Equirectangular images implemented in skyboxes and web panorama implementations use spherical pherical projection methods that don’t require UV maps, and that assumes a continuous image without sawtooth polygon tris creating gaps at the top of the texture as a de novo unwrapped UV sphere would unwrap to.

If your painting work doesn’t need to directly modify an extant equirectangular image (tracing can be accomplished with layering different textures using different methods to the material) and your work will only ever appear in a UV map context, you don’t need to mess around with the Quad Geometry solution I outline in the next section.

I suppose one could bake out the texture or texture layers later to an equirectangular projection. I have mixed thoughts on resampling images like this.

Quad Geometry Poles

One can in principle make a UV sphere with quads at the poles, with caveats I’ll get to in a bit.

• Mark the location of the pole point.
• Select the pole point.
• Shift + S and then Cursor to Selected to move the 3D Cursor to that point.
• You can optionally further mark this point in a durable way by adding an Empty object like a Plain Axis.
• Delete the faces of the pole Triangles.
• Select and edge and expand it to the whole loop with Edit Mode > Select > Select Loops > Edge Loops
• Extrude this edge any increment, I recommend engaging this with the toolbar button as it has a nicer interface for some reason.
• Change the selection mode to Vertex

Ordinarily at this point I would say Shift + S and move selected to the 3D Cursor you’ve placed at the pole point, but this causes a stupid problem: Blender would paint here on the image texture as though it were tris, with a sawtooth pattern, cutting off the other half of each quad creating jumps in the texture. Painting it would also create a gapping artifact at the same polygon edges.

I instead scale the aperture to a small point, but not to zero. At some point if the camera is zoomed too far out from the surface that it functionally becomes a triangle in the viewport then brush strokes start applying to the texture in the same sawtooth pattern that creates artifacting in the 3D viewport, a small gap at the polygon edges. Therefore, keep an eye on your texture in an Image Editor area when painting here.

When you’re done you can always apply the texture to a proper sphere using a proper spherical projection, with minor distortions from this painting process.

If you have a fix for this tedious pole problem in Blender, please contact me! I’ve found a reference or two to this problem being addressed with the quad fix but they either didn’t test it or their textures were too subtle at the poles to notice, I’m looking at overhead, spindly tree branches in panoramas, not polar ice on a planetary map.

UV Unwrapping a UV Sphere

• Select a vertical edge on your UV sphere:
• Select > Select Loops > Edge Loops
• this should select a single half circle longitude line
• Switch to the UV Editing Workspace, UV operations seem to require it.
• UV > Mark Seam
• UV > Unwrap > Sphere Projection
• Adjust Last Operation >
• Direction > Align to Object
• Pole > Fan
• ✓ Scale to Bounds
• For Environmental Textures / Sky Boxes viewed from the inside, Flip the UV Horizontally:
• UV Editor > UV > Mirror > X Axis to flip the X axis as needed for viewing from the inside.
  or
• Resize (S Enter) or use the toolbar but be careful not to move the mouse, and confirm once to activate
  • Adjust Last Operation > Resize
  • scale x axis to negative one (-1)
  • confirm

Grease Pencil

Workspace and Scene Configuration

File > New > 2D Animation will create a blender scene with the 2d Animation Workspace Tab selected, a white backdrop, and a grease pencil object created ready to draw on in Draw Mode. Otherwise, add the workspace to the selector with the + workspace button, then Object Mode > Add > Grease Pencil Object > Blank.

The 2D Workspace doesn’t just pre-populate useful editors in the window, it also adds additional, Grease Pencil specific settings to the viewport header such as multi-frame editing. Minus those additions grease pencil does work in other workspaces as well.

The White backdrop of the 2D Animation Workspace overrides theme elements in Edit > Preferences. Rendered Shading from the Viewport Header’s shading selector prioritizes settings from Properties Editor > World > Surface. This setting is expanded upon in Shader Editor > World. 2D Animation workspace also seems to let the world surface setting display in Material Preview viewport shading in addition to Rendered.

Brush Key Controls

The stylus point is synonymous with the Left Mouse Button.

Hold Ctrl + Left Mouse Button with the Brush tool selected to erase while using the pen tool in draw mode. This also works to invert any sculpting tool.

Hold F while moving the cursor left or right to change the size / radius of the brush.

Hold Shift + F while moving the cursor left or right to change the strength (opacity) of the brush.

Alt + Left Mouse Button with the Fill Bucket tool selected creates what’s called a Fill Guide, a special kind of line drawing that is used to bridge gaps in line work to enclose an otherwise open area for the fill tool.

Tool Setting > Advanced > Auto-Remove Fill Guides removes fill guides after a fill operation.

Turn off visibility of extraneous layers for fill tool in draw mode to work more perfectly.

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Drawing Plane

In Draw Mode, the viewport header displays a Stroke Placement dropdown menu and a a Drawing Plane dropdown menu, defaulting to Origin and a Front X-Z plane.

The Drawing Plane can be visualized with the Canvas overlay object, which can be toggled on/off and adjusted in the header’s Draw Grease Pencil visibility options dropdown menu.

As the Stroke Placement and Drawing Plane settings are changed so too will the Canvas reflect this.

Making the drawing plane reference mesh geometry is quite possible.

• Assign both the Stroke Placement and Drawing Plane to the 3D Cursor.
• Choose the 3D cursor as the active tool.
• Check the Surface Project box in the Tool Settings header or the Sidebar.
• Set the Orientation dropdown menu to Geometry.
• Click Left Mouse Button on the desired face of your reference object.

Drawing on Mesh Geometry

Surface Stroke Placement

Draw Mode > Header Menu > Stroke Placement can be set to Surface, wherein lines drawn within the profile of an object onscreen will adhere to visible geometry surfaces (including viewport representations of camera objects if their visibility is not turned off in the outliner).

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.

Drawing outside of the viewport is doing terrible things misplacing strokes, just don’t.

Editing Along Surfaces

Edit Mode > Header > Snap > Face during transforms gracefully moves a point along a surface. Moving entire selections is thornier and yields distortions.

Specific to drawing inside a sphere, setting the 3D cursor as both the Transformation Orientation and as the Transform Pivot Point allows one to move selections around the sphere perfectly. This may still visibly clip through a UV sphere depending on the polygon density and whether or not there was an offset.

Offset

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, not when using reprojection (Edit Mode > Grease Pencil > Cleanup > Reproject)

Non-Zero Offsets & 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 & Z-Fighting Workarounds

An offset value of zero is very consistent at stroke creation and when editing later. Strokes and fills may noticeably clip through mesh objects and will have z-fighting problems the same as co-located geometry does. Results do seem to vary on final render but it’s consistently annoying in the viewport.

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)

To specify a scaling transform for the selected object, add the Geometry Nodes modifier to your object and open up Geometry Nodes Editor from an area’s editor selector dropdown. You’ll probably need to zoom in, Middle scroll wheel. It should be populated with Group Input node feeding a Group Output node. ** Add > Geometry > Transform**. Move the transform node between the input and output and click Left Mouse Button to place it. Or else place it and then Left Mouse Button Drag connectors manually, Group Input Geometry to Transform Geometry input, then Transform Geometry output to Group Output input. Specify the scale x y z values, smaller for the panorama sphere interior, larger for other use cases.

Stroke Reprojection

Errant strokes off of the intended plane or object can sometimes be remedied with Stroke Reprojection. With the relevant strokes, points, or segments selected, Edit Mode > Grease Pencil > Clean Up > Reproject Strokes opens a popup menu with various planes, the 3d cursor, or Surface upon which to flatten one’s strokes.

A sphere interior drawing scenario may require scaling down the assemblage relative towards the origin / sphere center to make sure everything’s inside the sphere and then reprojecting back to the surface.

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.

Stroke Shading

Self Overlap

Properties Editor > Materials > Surface > Stroke has a checkbox for Self Overlap. This feature makes cumulative passes of a stroke overlap each other for non-textured brushes. It behaves unflatteringly on tight corners for flat, untextured brushes. Turning it off can help create smoother stroke shading,

Vertex Colors

The Tool Settings bar, Sidebar, and Tool Properties in Draw Mode has a toggle for vertex paint / material mode. Vertex Paint overrules Material settings.

Frame Display Settings & Frame Rate

Settings for frame stop start and frame rate options are under Properties Editor > Output > Format and Properties Editor > Output > Frame Range. Some of these are available at the right of the Timeline bar at the bottom of the screen.

Keyframes

Creation

Auto Keyingcreate is on by default, drawing on the scene will create a new keyframe where there is none. The toggle on/off for Auto Key is the red record icon at the bottom bar of the Dope Sheet Editor > Grease Pencil area.

I to insert Keyframe for objects

Shift + I in draw mode to insert blank grease pencil keyframe

To manually create a keyframe, under the draw mode viewport menu chose the Draw button > Animate > Insert Keyframe (Active Layer)

Timeline Manipulation

Drag Left Mouse Button the timeline cursor handle along the number bar to move it to different frames,

← and → move the cursor individual frames along the timeline.

↑ and ↓ move the timeline cursor to adjacent keyrames in the selected layer/ object.

G to grab and move keyframes along the timeline.

Left Mouse Button Drag selected keyframes along the timeline.

Drag Shift + D + Left Mouse Button a selected keyframe on the dope sheet to create a duplicate.

S to scale selected keyframes in the dope sheet relative to the timeline cursor.

Interpolation

Single Frame

Ctrl + Alt + E or choose Draw > Interpolate > Interpolate from the viewport menu to interpolate a single frame where the timeline cursor is between two keyframes. 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.

Multi-Frame

Shift + Ctrl + E or choose Draw > Interpolate > Sequence to interpolate on all the frames between two keyframes indicated by the timeline cursor.

Key Frame Types

Keyframe Types are a labeling 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 change keyframe type by first pressing R or selecting Keyframe Type from the Right Mouse Button context menu, and then choosing a type from the dropdown list.

Onionskinning

Onionskinning overlays other keyframes with your current frame.

Properties Editor > Object Data Properties > Onionskinning contains the options for onionskinning when the Active Object is a grease pencil object.

An On/Off visibility checkbox is available in the overlay options on the right side of the viewport’s header menu.

Visibility can also be toggled off and on for each individual Grease Pencil layer in Properties Editor > Data Object Properties> by clicking the Onion Skinning icon next to it.

Animation Loops

Properties Editor > Modifiers > Add Modifier > Edit > Time Offset allows a simple forever loop on its default settings. Select a 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.