# Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Mesh Edit Mode

A  is one of the most important
and frequently-used object types in Blender. While there are other types
of objects that can be used to model parts of a model or scene (text,
NURBS patches, etc.), they often get converted to meshes at some point
anyway, because it is the object type that offers the greatest amount of
detailed control. And as it happens, Blender offers more functions, both
built-in and available as addons, for dealing with meshes than for any
other object type.

is the mode in which you make changes to the internals of the *active*
object. Not every object has an Edit mode (e.g. cameras), and the
details of what you can do in Edit mode vary between the object types
where it is available. This module specifically covers Edit mode for
mesh objects.

## What Is a Mesh?

A *mesh* is made up of one or more *vertices*; each *vertex* is just a
point in space. A pair of vertices can be joined by a straight line
called an *edge*, and a complete loop of edges can be filled in to form
a *face*.

It is the faces that make up the visible surface of the object. The
edges and vertices are essentially geometrical \"scaffolding\" necessary
to hold the object together.

A face must have three or more sides (edges). Prior to version 2.63,
only three or four sides were allowed, so faces had to be *triangles* or
*quadrilaterals* (usually abbreviated to *quads*) respectively. Starting
with v2.63, and the introduction of the BMesh architecture, that
restriction has been lifted. You can have faces with 5 or more sides,
but you will usually find that things work best if all faces, as far as
possible, are quads. Particularly when constructing a model for
animation purposes.

![](Blender263AddMeshSubmenu.png "Blender263AddMeshSubmenu.png")
Blender's Object-mode "Add" menu
() contains a Mesh submenu with a
collection of pre-made mesh objects. Think of these as starting points.
They make building your own objects easier by enabling you to modify an
object that is an approximation of the form you want instead of having
to construct a mesh entirely from scratch.

## Introduction to Edit Mode

Start a new model. Hide the manipulator if it is visible
(). You should be in Object mode.
Click with  on the default cube to
ensure it is selected and the active object.

framed\|right\|The default cube in Edit
mode You can switch
modes using the mode menu, as you previously learned. However, because
switching between Object mode and Edit mode is such a frequent
operation, it has a keyboard shortcut: .
Do this now, and you should see the appearance of the cube change, as
shown at right. The mode menu should also update. Press
 again, and you should be back in Object
mode. Press  once more before
continuing, to ensure you are in Edit mode.

Note the following features of the cube, and how they relate to the
description of a mesh above:

-   The dots at the corners are the vertices.
-   The lines joining them are the edges.
-   The filled areas bordered by the lines are the faces.

## Selection Modes

!Select mode buttons in a 3D View header, showing Vertex select mode
active. (Found below the edit
area.)")
In Edit mode, the header (it\'s at the top) of the 3D View window
changes to show the selection-mode controls. If you hover over each of
the buttons in the group of three, you will see they represent
vertex-select, edge-select and face-select respectively. You can
shift-click to enable more than one at a time.

In vertex-select mode, you select a single vertex by clicking on it with
, and select more than one by
shift-clicking on additional vertices with
. Shift-clicking with
 on an already-selected vertex will
deselect it.

Pressing  will select *all* vertices if
none are currently selected, otherwise it will *unselect* all vertices.

Edge-select mode works in a similar way, except with edges instead of
vertices. Similarly, face-select mode will allow you to select and
unselect faces.

The single button immediately to the right of these three is titled
"limit selection to visible". When it is active (the default), the mesh
object being edited is displayed as *opaque* which means that vertices,
edges or faces on the side away from you are hidden and cannot be
selected. Click this button, and the object becomes translucent,
allowing clicking *through* front faces to select parts of the mesh
behind them.

Another useful display mode for working in the 3D view is
, which can be selected from
the Viewport Shading menu or toggled with the
 key. In this mode, the faces become
transparent, almost invisible, and the edges and vertices are displayed
more prominently.

![](Blender263EditSelections.png "Blender263EditSelections.png") Here is
what these various selection and display modes look like in combination:
in the first row, a single vertex is selected. In the second row, a
single edge, and in the third row, a single face. In the first column,
limit-selection-to-visible is enabled. In the second column, it is
disabled, and in the third column, wireframe mode is enabled.

### Selection Mode Hotkeys

You can also switch selection modes with
. In the menu that appears, you can
switch to a single selection mode by selecting it with the mouse or
up/down-arrow keys and pressing  or
. But if you press
 or
 that toggles the enabling of only
that selection mode, without affecting the state of the others, as does
shift-clicking on the icons above.

In common with other Blender popup menus, you can quickly select an item
from the  menu and immediately
confirm by pressing one of ,
 or 
to select the first (vertex), second (edge) or third (face) item in the
menu. Or, ,
 and
 while the menu is up, will
toggle the enabling of vertex, edge, and face-select modes respectively.

## Multiple Selections

You can use  to select multiple
items, and  to invert the
selection, just like in Object mode. Only here, the "items" are
vertices, edges or faces, depending on the selection mode in effect. The
active (last-selected) part is shown in white, while the rest of the
selection (if any) is drawn in the usual orange-yellow colour.

As mentioned above,  works similar to
the way it works in Object mode, only instead of applying to everything,
it applies to all parts of the object being edited.

## Hiding Things

,  and
 work in a way analogous to their
behaviour in Object mode. Again, instead of applying to everything, they
apply to all parts of the object being edited.

**Remembering What\'s Hidden:** If you switch out of Edit mode with some
parts hidden, they will reappear, then disappear again when you re-enter
Edit mode, i.e. each object remembers what was hidden when you last
edited it.

## Local Versus Global View

You can toggle local/global view in Edit mode, as you can in Object
mode. However, instead of narrowing the view to one or more selected
objects, it narrows it to just the object being edited.

## Border Select (Box Selection) & Circle Select (Brush Selection)

and  work analogously to the way they
do in Object mode, i.e. you select multiple items by drawing a box or by
"painting" over them.

## Select More, Select Less

Edit mode has some additional selection capabilities. To demonstrate
them, let's use something other than the default cube, for a change.
 back to Object mode, and delete the
cube. Now add () a Grid object.
 into Edit mode, and you will see that
the grid is made up of 9×9 faces, or 10×10 vertices. Initially they will
all be selected. Use  to unselect them
then  to brush-select a few vertices in
the middle. End brush-select mode with 
or . Now watch what happens to the
selection when you press  (select
more). Additional vertices adjacent to those already selected are added
to the selection. Now try  (select
less), and you will see the vertices on the edge of the selection are
removed from it.

## Manipulator, Transformation Hotkeys, Pivot Point

All of these are available for use in Edit mode as they are in Object
mode, except for the "Manipulate center points" button.

Note that scaling vertices scales the distances between them. The
vertices themselves have no size, so they do not get larger or smaller.
Similarly, rotating vertices only changes their direction relative to
the pivot point, since a featureless point itself has no orientation.

### Transform Orientations

The Global, Local and View options in the Transform Orientation menu
apply in Mesh Edit mode as they do in Object mode. In addition there is
Normal mode, where the transformation axes are aligned relative to the
selection:

-   If a single face is selected, the X and Y axes are aligned along the
    face, while the Z axis is aligned perpendicular (normal) to the
    face.
-   If a single edge is selected, the Z axis is aligned along the edge,
    with the X and Y axes perpendicular to it.

Other selections are also possible. Feel free to investigate their
behaviour for yourself.

Thus, with a single face selected, 
  will move
the face along its normal.

In addition, it is possible to define the current Normal transformation
orientation as a custom orientation for use in transforming other
vertices and even other objects. To do this, you need to go to the
Properties Shelf, which is made visible on the right of the 3D view with
. Near the bottom is the Transform
Orientations panel which contains a Transform Orientation menu which
looks the same as the one in the header of the 3D View window, except it
also has a "+" button next to it. Click the \"+\" and the current Normal
transformation orientation will be added to the menu initially labeled
"Vertex", "Edge" or "Face", depending on what is currently selected (and
with a unique numeric suffix added if there is already a custom
orientation defined with that name). Now if you look in either Transform
Orientation menu, you will see a new selectable item, in a separate
section above the five standard items.

With your new orientation option selected, an editable text field will
appear in the Transform Orientations panel, allowing you to change the
name if you wish, and there is also a "X" button allowing you to delete
the orientation item when you no longer need it.

With your new orientation option selected, you can now select a
different part of the object, or even 
into Object mode and select some other object. The manipulator and the
doubled axis hotkeys will now align their transformations along this
custom orientation. This is handy, for example, for aligning objects to
a sloping plane.

## Proportional Editing

When trying to produce natural, organic shapes, moving vertices one by
one gets tedious. To produce smoother looking shapes, you need a mode
where unselected vertices close to the selection also get some movement.
In contrast to the sharp distinction between selected vertices which are
moved and unselected ones that remain in place, there is a gradual
transition from one to the other.

This is where 
comes in. If you select "Mesh" in the header and examine the pop-up
menu, you will see two submenus, titled "Proportional Editing" and
"Proportional Editing Falloff". The former toggles the mode on and off,
the latter controls the falloff function choice. There is also an icon
for "Proportional Editing" in the header of the default 3D view. Look to
the right of the \"Limit Selection to Visible\" (on edit mode). The hot
key is the letter O. Pressing  will
toggle between Enable and Disable. Pressing
+
will change the Falloff type.

The "Proportional Editing" submenu has 4 options: "Disable", "Enable",
"Projected (2D)", and "Connected". Do you still have the Grid object you
created in the "Select More, Select Less" section above? If not, add a
fresh Grid object. Switch to Edit mode, and ensure that just a few
vertices in the middle are selected. Enable proportional editing, and
now use  to move the selected vertices.
You should notice 2 things:

-   unselected vertices near the selected ones also move, and
-   there is a white circle enclosing all the vertices that undergo any
    movement.

Try using the mouse wheel while moving the vertices, and you will see
the white circle grow or shrink, and the proportional region of
influence will grow or shrink correspondingly.

Try different falloff functions in the "Proportional Editing Falloff"
submenu. Some ensure the mesh stays smooth and curvy, others give a more
angular effect, etc.

The third option to \"Disable\" and \"Enable\" proportional editing is
\"Projected (2D)\". This view is similar to enabled, except depth is
ignored. The radius of the influence region is applied to the mesh two
dimensionally.

The fourth option to "Disable" and "Enable" proportional editing is
"Connected". This one makes a difference in more complicated meshes,
which might have folds or concavities in them. In this situation,
"Enable" affects all vertices within a particular distance of the
selected ones, while "Connected" only measures the distance *via
connected edges*, rather than directly through space. This lets you move
one part of the mesh without affecting another part which might be
located nearby purely as a result of a fold.

Of course, proportional editing works with scale
 and rotate
 operations as well.

## Deleting Things

![](Blender263MeshDeleteMenu.png "Blender263MeshDeleteMenu.png") Now
let's try deleting parts of a mesh. This is the menu that comes up when
you press  or
 when editing a mesh. For now, we will
concentrate on the first three items.

![](Blender263MeshFaceDeleteBefore.png "Blender263MeshFaceDeleteBefore.png"){width="120"}
![](Blender263MeshFaceDeleteAfter.png "Blender263MeshFaceDeleteAfter.png"){width="120"}
First, go into face-select mode. Select one face of the default cube,
press the delete key, and select "Faces". As shown in the screenshots,
the selected face should disappear.

![](Blender263MeshEdgeDeleteBefore.png "Blender263MeshEdgeDeleteBefore.png"){width="120"}
![](Blender263MeshEdgeDeleteAfter.png "Blender263MeshEdgeDeleteAfter.png"){width="120"}
Use  to undo your previous deletion.
Now go into edge-select mode. Select one edge this time. Press delete
again, this time select "Edges". As the screenshots show, the selected
edge disappears, but *the faces bordering that edge also disappear*.
Faces cannot exist without their bordering edges!

![](Blender263MeshVertexDeleteBefore.png "Blender263MeshVertexDeleteBefore.png"){width="120"}
![](Blender263MeshVertexDeleteAfter.png "Blender263MeshVertexDeleteAfter.png"){width="120"}
Use  to undo your previous deletion
again. Go into vertex-select mode. Select one vertex, make sure it\'s
the one closest to you so you get the best view of the effect. Press
delete, and select "Vertices". Not only does the selected vertex
disappear, but also the edges connected to that vertex. Edges cannot
exist without their endpoint vertices. And since those edges
disappeared, the faces dependent on them for their borders were deleted
as well.

So, to recap: 

## Undo/Redo

You can undo your last Edit-mode operation with
, and undo your undo with
, similarly to Object mode.
However, Edit mode maintains its own undo stack, separate from the
Object-mode stack. To undo/redo an Edit-mode operation, you must be in
Edit mode, not Object mode.

## Adding Things

Back to the default cube and Edit mode. Ensure you are in vertex-select
mode with nothing selected. Do a 
somewhere near the cube. Do you see a little orange-yellow dot appear
where you clicked? You just added a new, unconnected vertex to the mesh.
(If not, you may need to set this hotkey in user preferences -
 and search for \"duplicate or
extrude\".)

Undo your addition (). Select an
existing vertex with . Now
 to add a new vertex again. You
will notice that it is connected to the previously selected vertex by a
newly added edge as well. Since the newly added vertex is now the
selected vertex, doing  again at
another position, and so on repeatedly, lets you construct a whole chain
of new edges. But what good are edges and vertices without faces?

To construct a face, you will need a closed loop of edges. To close a
loop of edges, select all the vertices in the chain, and press
. That will add another edge joining
the first and last vertex into a complete loop of edges and fill in the
loop with a new face.

If you want to close the loop without filling in the face, select only
the first and last vertex in the chain before pressing
. Since only two vertices are selected,
a new face will not be added, i.e. it will only add an edge joining the
two vertices.

You can also *extrude* new sections of mesh with a single click in this
way. Try selecting two adjacent corner vertices of the cube (i.e. two
joined by an edge). Now  near them,
and you will see you've created *two* more vertices, joined to the
previous two by a new face.  again,
and you can construct a whole sheet of new mesh in this way.

![](BlenderCtrlLmbFace.png "BlenderCtrlLmbFace.png"){width="120"} Undo
all your additions, and get back to the pristine cube. Now select all
four vertices of a single face. 
near your selection, and you should have four new vertices
(corresponding to the original four you selected), plus a new face
connecting them, plus *four* new faces connecting them to the original
four. (You may not have noticed it, but the face formed from the
original four vertices has been removed as well.) Another
 does the same thing again. So with
just a few clicks, you started with a cube and ended up with something
(see at right) that is starting to resemble --- who knows? A
square-cross-sectioned piece of some wonky-looking pipe, perhaps?

## Simplifying Things

It is possible to remove vertices without leaving holes behind in the
mesh, by  two or more vertices
into one. Select the vertices you want to merge, and press
; a menu will pop up with some
options, including whether to position the resulting vertex in the
middle of the ones being merged, or at the position of the first or last
one you selected. The resulting vertex inherits all the edges that were
connected to the vertices being merged, as well as the faces connected
between those edges.

Sometimes an operation creates duplicate vertices in exactly the same
positions, or very close together. You can merge these *en masse* by
ensuring you have selected all possible candidate vertices (e.g. the
whole mesh), bringing up the Vertex Specials menu
() and selecting the "Remove Doubles"
item. Look for a message saying "Removed *n* vertices" to show briefly
in the Info window. If *n* is 0, nothing was done. If you look in the
lower left part of the Tool shelf, you will see a "Remove Doubles" panel
has appeared, with a "Merge Distance" slider that governs the maximum
distance allowed between vertices that are merged. Change this value as
appropriate (either by clicking on the left and right arrows, or by
clicking and typing in a new value and pressing
), and the Remove Doubles operation is
immediately redone. A new message will indicate how many vertices were
removed. Simply keep adjusting the value until you are satisfied you
haven\'t removed too many or too few vertices.

