Basic Manipulations / Transformations

Nomar Arredondo&

Michael Sexstella

B L E N D 3 R

With

There’s SPARKY!!

Grab (move) elements(G)

Press either the X, Y, or Z keys to select the axis to move the object on. One of the fastest ways

to move things in 3D space is with G. Pressing this hotkey will enter “grab/move” transformation mode where the selected object or data is moved according to the mouse pointer’s location. The distance from the mouse pointer to the manipulated object has no effect.

Rotate elements(R)

Pressing R will enter the “rotate” transformation mode where the selected object or data is rotated according to the mouse pointer’s location. This mode uses the angle from the pivot point to the mouse pointer as the angle for rotation, so moving the mouse further from the object/data will give more fine-grained precision (i.e. the mouse movement will affect the rotation less, for the same mouse distance moved).

Press either the X, Y, or Z keys to select the axis to rotate the object on.

Scale elements(S)

Press either the X, Y, or Z keys to select the axis to scale the object on. Pressing S will enter the “scale” transformation

mode where the selected object or data is scaled inward or outward according to the mouse pointer’s location. The object/data’s scale will increase as the mouse pointer is moved away from the pivot point, and decrease as the pointer is moved towards it. If the mouse pointer crosses from the original side of the pivot point to the opposite side, the scale will continue in the negative direction, making the object/data appear flipped. The precision of the scaling is determined by the distance from the mouse pointer to the object/data when the scaling begins.

Mirror(Ctrl M)

Mirroring objects flips them across an axis, determined by the Pivot Point which is essentially a scaling of -1.

Use the shortcut CtrlM, then press X, Y, or Z, to mirror on that axis. You can alternatively hold the MMB to interactively mirror the object by moving the mouse in the direction of the mirror axis.

Transform properties(N)

The Transform Properties section in the View Properties panel allows you to view and manually/numerically control the position, rotation, and other properties of an object, in Object mode. In Edit mode, it mainly allows to enter precise coordinates for a vertex, or median position for a group of vertices (including an edge/face). As each type of object has a different set of options in its Transform Properties panel in Edit mode, see their respective descriptions in the Modeling chapter.

Manipulators(Ctrl SPACE)

When using the normal Transform commands (G for Grab, R for Rotation, S for Scale), they will work only parallel to the current view.

•immediately after G, R, or S you can press X, Y or Z to constrain the transform to a global axis

•using MMB will do the same but along the nearest axis from the mouse pointer.

You can do the same using manipulators: they provide a visual representation of the transform and allow movement, rotation and scaling along any axis in any mode and any space (orientation) of the 3D window

Manipulator Controls

Holding down Ctrl constrains the action in certain increments

Holding down Shift when you LMB click on one of the handles, the ⇧manipulator action will be performed on the other two axes to the one you clicked on (you can let go of Shift once you have clicked)⇧

LMB on the white circle (largest circle around rotation manipulator) do the same as pressing R.LMB on the grey circle (inner circle around rotation manipulator) do the same as pressing R twice (trackball rotation

Manipulator Preferences

The settings of the manipulator (e.g. its size) can be found in the View & Controls section of the User Preferences window.

Size: Diameter of Widget, in 10 pixel units. Handle: Size of widget Handles, as a percentage of widget radius (Size/2). Hot spot: Hotspot size (in pixels) for clicking Widget Handles

Choosing Transform Orientation(Alt SPACE)

The default (global) transform manipulator is very useful but in some situations it’s not (for example: scale a rotated object along the rotated axis). Luckily Blender can change the

orientation of the Transform Manipulator.

Transform Orientations(Alt SPACE)

Transform orientations selection menu.

A secondary orientation can be selected with AltSpace or through the Orientation menu in a 3D view header. This orientation can then be used as a transformation constraint (like axis locking).

The next couple of slides below will show pictures of different transform orientation types. On every image, compare the position of the manipulator axes (color axes over the object), which materializes the transform orientation, with the global (lower left corner of the 3D window) and local (the object is an empty, so just the local axes of the object are shown) ones.

Custom Orientations(Shift Ctrl C)

You can define custom transform orientations, using object or mesh elements. Custom transform orientations defined from objects use the local orientation of the object whereas those defined from selected mesh elements (vertices, edges, faces) use the normal orientation of the selection.

A name also needs to be assigned to the new orientation.

NoteWhen adding new orientations, if the name corresponds to an already existing custom orientation, the new orientation will replace the old one.

Transform Orientations Panel

(Shift Ctrl C)

The Transform Orientations panel, found in the View Properties Panel, can be used to manage transform orientations: selecting the active orientation, adding and removing custom orientations and clearing all custom orientations.

Transform Orientations panel.

Selecting a custom orientation.

Transform Orientations panel with custom orientation selected.