Blender Tips

I have been working on blender for a while now.. well that is not true i have been working on blender almost 24/7 ever since we have started the sword project, and i have learned a lot and picked a lot of handy tricks. So I am going to share my knowledge to you and here is all the things that i have learned plus in the near future i am going to make some tutorials for as a lot of my classmates are asking for help:

be careful when adding vertices as to many vertices can be to much to handle and even tho you can make it look the polygons will be to much when it is transferred to a game or something else, just make it as simple as possible.

when making a model start out with its basic form then start to cave in the detail, just like carving wood

also here are some useful hotkeys:


Tab - switches between the two modes that you have recently used. I usually use it when switching between edit mode and object mode.

Z - will change the mesh into a wire-frame

Ctrl Z - this would be the undo and if you hold in Ctrl + Shift Z it would redo.

X - in object mode it will delete the object. In the edit mode you will be given more options like deleteing an edge, face or vertices it is useful when you want to rearrange the edges of a face or takeing out a vertices that isn't needed.

G - will move the selected object and after pressing G you can also press X, Y or Z to move the object on it's respective axis.

C - it is a select brush, use it to select vertices faster.

S - will scale the object, again you can use the X, Y or Z to scale the respective axis.

F - you have to be in edit mode and have 3 or 4 vertices connected to each other forming a triangle or square  to make a face, you can also loop a lot of vertices and press Alt F to atomaticaly make a faces but it gives less control over the mesh.

E - this is the extrude button and only works in edit mode. This is useful when you want make more faces without having to make individual vertices which will take more time.

R - will rotate the object, face or edge. use the X, Y or Z to rotate it on it's axis.

A - will select objects or all vertices depending on which mode you are in.

Alt M - will merge selected vertices. i found this useful when removing exes vertices or using extrude on two vertices then merging them together to make a new point on the line.

K - will cut the selected edge or face making a new vertices.

Ctrl + Shift R - will cut the  face loop and if you scroll up it will make more devisions.

Ctrl T - will convert square faces to triangle faces.

Alt J - will convert triangle faces to square faces.

V - will separate the merged vertices.

N - will bring up the properties bar where you can place the coordinates on the X, Y and Z  and in object mode you can rotate your object.