Handling objects

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Creating basic objects

New objects are created from the Add-menu (top of the 3d-window) or the tool menu (opens by pressing space).

• Location of the 3D-cursor defines the location of a new object.
• Orientation of the new object is defined by viewing angle. Therefore it is wise to create objects through Front, Top or Side view.
  
• if you did use any other view, you can clear rotations (orientation) by pressing Alt + R in object mode).
  

Basig geometry objects:

Creating a cube:

1. press space
2. selectt Add -> Mesh -> Cube
3. press Tab in order to exit from edit-mode
   

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(re)Naming objects

Blender makes default names for objects but it is a good idea to rename them with more meaningfull names (like Vase instead of Curve.001 or front_door instead of Cube.004)

1. Select an object.
2. Open Editing panel (F9).
   
3. Write a new name to the textfield named OB and press Enter.

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Moving

There three different methods for moving objects:

• directly with mouse (shortcut G)
  
• with 3D-transform gizmo
• by numeric input (relative and absolute).

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directly with mouse

1. Drag with selection button pressed shortly over object and release button (shortcut G).
   
2. Object "sticks" to the mouse.
   
3. Place object by pressing selection button.
   or
4. Cancel operation by pressing non-selection button.
   
• Holding CTRL the movement increments by one grid step.
• you can constraint the movement to global axis by pressing x,y or z once.
  or
• you can constraint the movement to global axis by dragging parallel to that axis with middle mouse button.
  or
  
• you can constraint the movement to local axis by pressing x,y or z twice.

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with 3D-transform widget

3D-tranform widget can be used for moving, rotating and scaling objects. The desired action is select from buttons from the bottom of the 3D-window (shortcut CTRL + Space).

How widget works:

• Arrows constraints the movement to only that axis.
  
• White crircle constraints the movement to the viewport coordinates.
  

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by numeric input

relative movement:

1. Select object.
   
2. Press G (grab).
   
3. Select axis by pressing X, Y or Z
   or
   
4. select axis by dragging parallel to that axis with MMB and release MMB .
   
5. type desired offset like 2.45. Note that decimal separator is dot, not comma.
6. press Enter.
   

absolute movement:

1. Select object.
2. Press N.
3. Write values to LocX, LocY and LocZ
   

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Rotating

There are three methods for rotating objects:

• directly with mouse
• with 3D-transform widget
• by numeric input.
  

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directly with mouse

1. Press R
2. Select axis like when moving objects (default axis is perpendicular to the viewport)
   
3. move mouse around the object to rotate it
4. press selection button
   
• Holding CTRL makes rotation increment of 5 degrees
• SHIFT slowers rotation (fine movement)
  
• CTRL + SHIFT makes rotation incement of 1 degree
  

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With 3D-tranform widget

Green, red and blue circles works like arrows when moving objects with gizmo. With white circle object is rotated around axis perpendicular to the viewport.

1. Grab a circle and drag
2. CTRL and SHIFT works like when moving objects
   

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with numerical input

Relative rotation:

1. Press R
2. Select axis (default axis is perpendicular to the viewport)
3. Type rotation as degrees.

Absolute rotation:

1. see moving objects with numerical input
   

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Clearing rotations

Sometimes it is necessary to reset all rotations that object have.

• Select object in Object-mode.
• Press Alt +R.
• Click Clear Rotation.

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Copying (dublicate)

There are two type of copies in Blender: real copies and linked copies. Real copies are independent clones of the original object. Linked copies uses the same geometry (databclock) than the original object. Therefore any changes made to either of objects are referenced to the other one.

1. Select object
2. Choose Object -> Duplicate (shortcut Shift + D)
   
3. Place object with moving mouse (you can use all the same constraints as when moving objects).
4. Click with selection button to finalize the operation.
   

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Removing

• Select object or objects in OBJECT-MODE!
  
• Press Delete or X.
• Click Erase Selected.
  

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Linking

Linking means that there is a parent - child -relationship between two objects. All transformations parent object have are inherited to child objects, but transformations of child objects doesn't affect to the parent object. This is needed especially in animation.

Adding link:

1. Select objects that are intendend to be child-objects
2. Select the parent object last.
   
3. Choose Object -> Parent -> Make Parent (shortcut CTRL + P).

Removing link:

1. Select child object.
2. Press Alt + P.
3. Choose one of the options.
   

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Copying attributes

In Blender it is possible to copy attributes from one object to another. The most usefull attributes are:

• Location
• Rotation
• Size (scale)
• Drawtype
• Modifiers

Copying rotation:

1. Select objects and make sure that the source object is selected last.
2. Select Object -> Copy Attributes -> Rotation (CTRL + C)