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Current revision as of 12:52, 20 November 2009

Manual - Blender 2.4x

[edit] Edit Mode

[edit] How to enter Edit mode

You can work with geometric objects in two modes.

Object mode

Operations in Object mode affect whole object.

Object mode is recognisable if you see the following header in the 3D view:

Object mode header.

Edit mode

Operations in Edit mode affect only the geometry of an object, but not its global properties such as location or rotation.

Edit mode is recognisable if you see the following header in the 3D view:

Edit mode header.

You switch between these two modes with the ⇆ Tab key or by selecting Edit mode from the Mode menu in the 3d view header.

After creating an object you may be immediately placed in Edit mode – this depends whether the Switch to Edit Mode button is toggled, in the User Preferences window, Edit Methods “tab”, Add new objects: group. Edit mode only works on one object at a time, the active object.

[edit] Visualization

An object outside Edit mode (i.e. Object mode) is drawn in purple in the 3D View windows (in wireframe mode) when selected; it is (generally!) black otherwise.

One cube selected.

In Edit mode each vertex is drawn in purple, each edge is drawn in black and each face is drawn in translucent dark-blue. In image (One cube selected) the cube on the right is in Edit mode. The cube on the left is in Object mode and not selected. Each selected vertex or edge is highlighted in yellow.

Two cubes selected prior to Edit mode.

If multiple objects are selected and Edit mode is entered then the last object selected (the active object) enters Edit mode. The other objects remain purple and in Object mode. As shown in image (Two cubes selected prior to Edit mode), both cubes were selected prior to Edit mode and now the left cube is still purple and the right cube (the active one) is in Edit mode.

If enough vertices are selected to form a face then that face is highlighted in translucent purple while the remaining faces are highlighted in translucent dark-blue. This helps give you a frame of reference when selecting vertices, edges or faces. The translucent effect indicates that you have selected enough vertices to imply one or more faces. See “Edge and Face Tools” for further details on implicit selections.

[edit] Mesh panels

If the Buttons window is visible and Editing context button (F9) is activated, then two panels appear while in Edit mode (see images Mesh Tools and Mesh Tools 1):

Mesh Tools.

Mesh Tools 1.

By default the buttons Draw Faces and Draw Edges are pre-selected and any selected edges and faces are highlighted.

In addition, panels (see images Link and Materials and Mesh) are updated.

Mesh.

Link and Materials.

The Link and Materials panel gains the Vertex Groups buttons group (New, Delete, Assign, Remove, Select and Desel.). The Mesh panel loses the Decimator, Apply and Cancel group of buttons.

[edit] Basic Editing

Most simple operations from Object mode (like selecting, moving, rotating, and scaling) work the same way on vertices as they do on objects. Thus, you can learn how to handle basic Edit mode operations very quickly. The only notable difference is a new scaling option, AltS, which scales the selected vertices along the direction of the normals (shrinks-fattens). The truncated pyramid in image (Chopped-off pyramid), for example, was created with the following steps:

Chopped-off pyramid.

1. Add a cube to an empty scene. If not in Edit mode then use ⇆ Tab to enter Edit mode.
2. Make sure all vertices are deselected (purple). Use Border select to select the upper four vertices.
3. Check that the scaling center is set to anything but the 3D Cursor (you do not want to see as the selected pivot point), then switch to scale mode (S), reduce the size, and confirm with LMB .
4. Exit Edit mode by pressing ⇆ Tab.

All operations in Edit mode are ultimately performed on the vertices; the connected edges and faces automatically adapt, as they depend on the vertices’ positions. To select an edge, you must select the two endpoints or place the mouse on the edge and press AltRMB . To select a face, each corner must be selected.

Edit mode operations are many, and most are summarised in the Editing context of the Buttons window, accessed via the () header button or via F9.

[edit] Mirror Axis and Modifier

Mirror Axis.

One extra feature for Edit mode is the mirroring tool. If you have some vertices selected and you press M you will be presented with a menu containing nine options (Mirror Axis). You can select from these to mirror the selected vertices with respect to any of the X, Y or Z axes of the Global, Local, or View space reference. If you need to select groups of vertices use the handy Loop to Region tool.

[edit] Specials

With W you can call up the Specials menu in Edit mode, see image (Specials menu). With this menu you can quickly access functions which are frequently required for polygon-modeling.

Specials menu.

• Subdivide – Each selected edge is split in two, new vertices are created at middle points, and faces are split too, if necessary.
• Subdivide Multi – This is identical to Subdivide except a dialog pops up asking for the number of cuts or repeated sub-divisioning. The default is “2”.
• Subdivide Multi Fractal – As above, but new vertices are randomly displaced within a user-defined range.
• Subdivide Smooth – Same as Subdivide, but new vertices are displaced towards the barycenter (center of mass) of the connected vertices.
• Merge – Merges selected vertices into a single one, at the barycenter position or at the 3D cursor position.
• Remove Doubles – Merges all of the selected vertices whose relative distance is below a given threshold (0.001 by default).
• Hide – Hides selected vertices (H).
• Reveal – Shows hidden vertices (AltH).
• Select Swap – All selected vertices become unselected and vice-versa (CtrlI).
• Flip Normals – Change the normal directions of the selected faces.
• Smooth – Smooths out a mesh by moving each vertex towards the barycenter of the linked vertices.
• Bevel – Bevels the entire object regardless of the selected vertices, edges or faces. See this page.
• Set Smooth – Changes the selected faces to smoothing shading.
• Set Solid – Changes the selected faces to faceted or flat shading.

	Keyboard Tip:
	You can access the entries in a popup-menu by using the corresponding numberkey. For example, pressing W and then 1 NumPad will subdivide the selected edges without you having to touch the mouse at all.

Mesh Tools panel.

Many of these actions have a button of their own in the Mesh Tools panel of the Buttons window, Editing context, see image (Mesh Tools panel). The Remove doubles threshold can be adjusted on that panel too.

[edit] Mesh Undo/Redo

Blender has a global undo system, giving full multiple level undo capabilities in all areas of Blender. Exceptions are: File Browser, Audio and Outliner windows.

Undo and Redo.

The new global hotkey for undo is CtrlZ, and CtrlY for redo.

Mesh undo works in the background saving copies of your mesh in memory as you make changes. Pressing the CtrlZ in mesh Edit mode reverts to the previously saved mesh, undoing the last edit operation (Undo and Redo).

Mesh “Undo” operations are only stored for one mesh at a time. You can leave and re-enter Edit mode for the same mesh without losing any undo information, but once another mesh is edited, the undo information for the first is lost. Pressing CtrlY (or Ctrl⇧ ShiftZ) re-does the last undo operation (Undo and Redo).

Editmode Undo History menu.

Pressing AltU brings up the Editmode Undo History menu, see image (Editmode Undo History menu). This lists all the undo steps by name so you can quickly find your way back to a known good point in your work. The “undo” menu do not have an option to reload the mesh data as it was at the beginning of your edit session, but you can achieve the same effect by returning in Object mode (⇆ Tab), hit AltU to show the Global Undo History menu, and select the step just before the edit session you want to undo.

User Preferences →Edit Methods.

Mesh “Undo” has the potential to be very memory intensive. A mesh of 64,000 faces and vertices can use over 3MBs of RAM per undo step! If you are on a machine that is strapped for RAM (memory), in the User Preferences window under Edit Methods, there is a NumButton for setting the maximum number of undo steps saved, see image (User Preferences → Edit Methods). The allowable range is between 1 and 64. The default is 32.

Manual

[edit] Subpages

1. Advanced Edge and Face Tools
2. Advanced Tools
3. Basic Tools
4. Booleans
5. Edge Tools
6. Face Tools
7. Mesh Structures
8. Multiresolution Mesh
9. Primitives
10. Remaking the Topology
11. Sculpting
12. Selection
13. Smoothing
14. Snap to Mesh
15. Subdivision Surfaces
16. Vertex Groups
17. Weight Paint

Redirects to fix

• Doc:Manual/Modelling/Meshes/Edge and Face Tools → Doc:Manual/Modelling/Meshes/Edge Tools