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Manual - Blender 2.4x

[edit] Moving (translating) objects

There are two ways to move or translate an object: moving it by itself, or moving it relative to something else.

[edit] Moving Object(s) Individually

[edit] Description

Grab mode.

To translate an object is to place an object in Grab mode. The selected objects will be displayed as white wireframes and can be moved with the mouse (without pressing any mouse buttons); see (Grab mode) or keyboard arrow keys.

To confirm the new position, click LMB or press ↵ Enter; to cancel Grab mode, click RMB or press Esc. The header of the 3D Window displays the distance you are moving.

[edit] Options

If you keep Ctrl pressed while moving the object you will activate Snap mode, and the object will move by steps (grid squares). Snap mode ends when you release Ctrl so be sure to confirm the position before releasing it. For finer snapping (tenth a grid square) you can hold both Ctrl and ⇧ Shift.

You can control positioning to a finer degree by holding ⇧ Shift while you move. Large mouse movements will translate into very small object movements (tenth the normal amplitude), which allows for finer positioning.

The location of selected objects can be reset to the default value by pressing AltG. The default location is the origin of the global coordinate system.

[edit] Axis constraint

Global axes.

Movement can be constrained to an axis that is aligned with one of the axes of the global coordinate system, centered on the object’s original world location. The cube “B”’s original world location is labeled “C”. The center of the global coordinate system is labeled “W”; the Z axis is not visible.

By constraining movement to a global axis you are, in effect, restricting movement to one dimension.

The global aligned axes are color coded as follows:

• X axis is dark red, labeled “X axis”.
• Y axis is dark green, labeled “W-Y axis” (for “world-Y axis”).
• Z axis is dark blue, labeled “Z axis”.

The restricted axis is always highlighted in a lighter shade of color.

For example, the Y axis is drawn in light green if movement is constrained to the Y axis; labeled “Y axis”.

There are two ways to constrain movement: using the mouse or using the keyboard.

[edit] Using the mouse

To lock or constrain movement using the mouse, enter Grab mode and move the object while pressing MMB . While in Grab mode you can use the gesture system to pre-select an axis by moving the mouse in a direction roughly inline with a world axis and then clicking and releasing MMB . For example, if you move the mouse along what visually appears to be the X axis and then click and release MMB the object’s movement will be restricted to the world X axis.

Alternately, you can interactively choose the constraining axis by dragging with the MMB while in Grab mode. All three axes become visible with a guide line that emanates from the object’s original location; labeled “C”. This guide is drawn in white dotted line labeled “S”. As the guide line nears an axis that axis becomes highlighted in a lighter shade and the object snaps to that axis. In this example the guide line is near the Y axis and the cube, labeled “B”, snaps to it.

[edit] Using the keyboard

No Constraint.

Local Constraint.

Global Constraint.

You can constrain movement to a given axis by pressing either X, Y or Z. A single key press constrains movement to the corresponding global axis (Global Constraint), as MMB does. A second keypress of the same key constrains movement to the corresponding object local axis (Local Constraint) and a third keypress of the same key removes constraints, (No Constraint). The constrained axis is drawn in a lighter color to better visualize the constraint. (Local Constraint) and (Global Constraint) are all examples of constraints on the X axis using the X key.

Manual entry.

Once grabbing is activated you can enter the Object translation manually by simply typing in a number. This will change the 3D window header as shown in (Manual entry).

The number entered is a distance number (i.e. how far from the object’s current location). Think of the “D” as in “Displacement”, “Delta” or “Distance”. The number entered is not a world coordinate. To change the object’s world coordinates, use the Transform Properties panel.

By default the X component field is where entry initially goes; see field labeled “Dx” in (Manual entry). You can change the default by using the ⇆ Tab prior to entering any numbers. For example, to translate 4.4 units along the Y axis you would:

• Enter Grab mode.
• ⇆ Tab once.
• Type 4.4.

To translate 3.14 units on the Z axis you would use the ⇆ Tab key twice prior to entering the number.

Currently you can’t delete an incorrect number. You must restart by returning to the original numbers. The ← Backspace key will reset to the original values. Hit ↵ Enter or Space to finalize and Esc to exit. If you want more flexibility with manual entry use the Transform Properties panel.

It is also possible to enter a value followed by an axis letter to indicate that the value that is entered should be made along the specified axis letter. For example if you wanted to move an object along the Y axis by 3 Blender units you would type GY3↵ Enter or G3Y↵ Enter. You can also enter negative values to move in the opposite direction.

3 Axis Coordinate/Displacement Entry using ⇆ Tab:

In entering X/Y/Z axis numbers at the keyboard, you can use the ⇆ Tab to cycle through the X/Y/Z fields that will be altered when a number is entered from the keyboard. It is important to realize that in cycling through the fields you can fill in each field with a different value as you cycle through them, you do not just have to fill in only one field. For example if you wanted to move an object by X:2, Y:3, Z:4, you would type G2 ⇆ Tab3 ⇆ Tab4 ↵ Enter.

As well as being able to constrain along a single specified axis, it is also possible to prevent axis translation/scaling along one axis, but allow translation/scaling along the other two axis. This is achieved by pressing either ⇧ ShiftX, ⇧ ShiftY or ⇧ ShiftZ to prevent translation/scaling along the specified axis. So if you wished to scale an object on the X and Z axis, but not the Y axis, you could type S ⇧ ShiftY.

[edit] Hints

You can use the keyboard’s . and the numeric keypad’s . NumPad for decimals entry. Be aware that older versions of Blender may not allow the use of the numeric keypad’s . NumPad for entering decimals.

[edit] Moving/Translating Object(s) by Changing Attributes

[edit] Description

Blender has a general purpose way of copying any active object’s attributes to any number of other selected objects. If you copy one object’s location attribute to another object, that second object will be “moved”.

[edit] Options

The attributes that can be copied include:

• Location
• Rotation
• Size
• Drawtype
• Time Offset
• Dupli
• Mass
• Damping
• Properties
• Logic Bricks
• Protected Transform
• Object Constraints
• NLA Strips
• Texture Space
• Subsurf Settings
• Modifiers
• Object Pass Index

So, if you ⇧ ShiftRMB -select a cube and a cone, and then ⇧ ShiftRMB -select a lamp last (the lamp thus being the active object), and choose CtrlC 1, the cube and the cone will be “moved” to the same location as the lamp.

[edit] Rotating objects

There are two ways of changing an object’s rotation; individually, and by copying the rotation attribute from another object as described above.

[edit] Description

Change the rotation by moving the mouse and confirming with LMB or ↵ Enter. You can cancel with RMB or Esc.

Rotation in 3D space occurs around an axis, and there are several ways to define this axis. But in general an axis is defined by a direction line and a point that the line passes through. By default the axis is orthogonal to your screen (i.e. it is going into or out of your screen). If you are viewing the scene from the front, side, or top 3D view windows, the rotation axis will be parallel to one of the global coordinate system axes. If you are viewing the scene from an angle, the rotation axis is angled too, which can easily lead to a very odd rotation of your object. In this case, you may want to keep the rotation axis parallel to the coordinate system axes.

Rotation in header.

As you rotate the object the angle of rotation is displayed in the 3D window header (Rotation in header).

[edit] Options

As with translation, for finer control or precision, use Ctrl and/or ⇧ Shift. Pressing Ctrl switches to Snap mode, and rotations are constrained to 5 degree increments. Pressing ⇧ Shift at the same time constraints the rotation to 1 degree increments. Pressing ⇧ Shift alone while rotating allows finer degrees of rotation as precise as 1/100th of a degree.

The rotation of selected objects can be reset to the default value by pressing AltR.

[edit] Axis of rotation Constraint

Just like Grab mode you can constrain the axis of rotation by using either the mouse or the keyboard. The only difference is that you only enter an angle. See Grab mode’s axis constraint description for exact details.

[edit] Point of rotation

To select the point of rotation (so-called “pivot point”) that the rotation axis will pass through, use the “rotation/scaling” button accessed in the header of the 3D window, . For a full description of the different pivot points, see their dedicated page.

[edit] Hints

If you’re just getting started with rotation, don’t worry too much about the foregoing details. Just play around with the tool and you’ll get a feeling for how pivot points affect rotation. For example, an easy way to understand how pivot points work is to create two cubes, and then cycle through each pivot point type while in Rotate mode.

For example, to have one cube orbit another cube select the Active Object pivot point. As you rotate, constrained or not, the other object(s) orbit the active object.

[edit] Scaling objects

[edit] Description

Scale the objects by moving the mouse and confirming with LMB or ↵ Enter, and cancel with RMB or Esc.

Scaling in 3D space occurs around a center point; much like a rotation occurs around a pivot point. If you increase the size of the object, all points are moved away from the selected center point; if you decrease it, all points move towards this point.

[edit] Options

Here again the Ctrl key switches to Snap mode, with discrete scaling at 0.1 steps. Press ⇧ Shift for fine tuning.

The scaling of selected objects can be reset to the default value by pressing AltS.

[edit] Axis of scale Constraint

By default, the selected objects are uniformly scaled in all directions. To change the proportions (make the object longer, broader and so on), you can lock the scaling process to one of the global coordinate axes, just as you would with Grab mode and Rotate mode. Again all considerations on constraining to a specific axis, in respect to Grabbing, still hold as well as those on numerical input. See Grab mode’s axis constraint description for exact details.

[edit] Center point of scale

To select the center point of scale (so-called “pivot point”!) use the “rotation/scaling” button accessed in the header of the 3D window, . For a full description of the different pivot points, see their dedicated page.

[edit] Mirroring objects

Mirroring objects is a different application of the scale tool. Mirroring is effectively nothing but scaling with a negative factor in one direction. For example, to mirror in the direction of any single axis:

Mirrored Frustum.

• Enter Scale mode.
• Select an axis using X, Y or Z key.
• Enter “-1” as the scaling factor.

(Mirrored Frustum) is an example of mirroring a frustum object along the Z axis. These are the steps to mirror the frustum:

• Enter Scale mode.
• Select the Z axis using the Z key.
• Enter “-1” as the scaling factor.
• Hit ↵ Enter.

[edit] Skinning and Cloning Objects

Relevant fields highlighted in yellow.

At the very top of the Link and Materials panel, you will find two fields, one in light pink and another right next to it in gray.

The field in gray starts with OB: and is the name of the object itself. It has to be unique within the .blend file across all scenes. The field name on the left starts with a two-letter abbreviation indicating what type of object it is, and the name of its skin, or physical appearance:

• ME: is the physical mesh, made up of vertices.
• CU: is a curve, surface, or text object, made up of control points.
• MB: is a metaball, whose skin is represented as a mathematical function.

Any of these skins can be shared by objects. Imagine a scene with 50 cats, some skinny, some fat. You would have two meshes, ME:Cat.Skinny and ME:Cat.Fat. You would create 50 OB:Cat.001, OB:Cat.002, …, OB:Cat.050, and assign 20 of the OBjects to be fat cats, and the rest skinny.

[edit] Options

Clicking the F will fake a user of the skin, and it will not be deleted when no one uses it. The next time you open the .blend file, it will be in memory and will not have to be re-made. You can then create an object of its type, and use that skin.

At any time you can change the skin of an object by clicking the up-down selector on the left of the field and selecting a different skin for that same object type. When you do, the field will then show the multi-user button, “2” identifying how many other objects share this skin.

Select an object and use the hotkey to create a clone of the original. The two objects will share the same skin. This means that altering either object at the Edit mode level (when in Edit mode), by for example grabbing vertices, will result in the other objects being altered in the same relative way. This linking usually only works when in Edit mode, so scaling/rotating/grabbing an object in Object mode will not result in the other linked object being affected.

For more details on datablocks, duplication and linking, and so on, see the Data System chapter.

Manual