# Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Object Mode

|nextText=Meshes and Edit Mode
|previous=3D View Windows
|subcat=Basics
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## Introduction

In this module, you will learn some basics about operating in
. This is normally the
default mode Blender is in when you open a new document. It is the mode
where you operate on whole objects, rather than on their parts.

Many of the conventions involving selection and manipulation of objects
or parts of objects apply to other modes as well, so this is a good
place to become familiar with those conventions.

![](Blender-2.5_mode_menu.png "Blender-2.5_mode_menu.png")

!Cube selected in Object
mode.{width="200"}

Open a new document, then confirm you are in Object mode by checking the
mode menu.

Select the default cube by clicking on it with
. You will see it framed in an orange
outline.

## Object Origin

When you select an object, you will notice a round dot appears, normally
in the middle of the object, the same orange-yellow as the rest of the
selection.

This is the object's *origin*. It is the reference point for the
object's local coordinate system. Certain kinds of edits to the object
can cause this origin to end up at a position well outside the object.
If that happens, operations like transformations applied with reference
to the origin may not behave as expected. However, Blender has
capabilities to deal with this. They will be explained when you need
them.

## Multiple Selections

You can select more than one object at a time. With the cube still
selected, change your view until you can see both the cube and the
default lamp. Select the lamp by clicking on it with
 (
 for versions after 2.8), so both
the lamp and the cube are selected. You will notice that the lamp takes
on the orange-yellow colour, but the cube now has a more reddish
highlight.

The  object is the last one
selected. Other objects can be part of the selection, but the
reddish-orange highlight indicates that they are not active. The
Properties window shows properties for the active object, not the entire
selection, although operations in the 3D view like moving and deleting
objects will affect the entire selection. Some operations (like
parenting, which you will learn about later) set up a special
relationship between the active object and the rest of the selection, so
for these, the order of selection of objects becomes important.

You can remove the active object from the selection with
; the small spot indicating the
origin of the object's geometry stays highlighted in the yellow-orange
colour, even though the rest of the object loses the selection
highlight. If you do this to an inactive object, it will make that
object active.

Pressing  *inverts* the selection.
i.e. it deselects what was previously selected, and selects everything
else instead. It does not change the active object.

## Selecting Obscured Objects

If multiple objects lie under the mouse, you can choose which one to
select by clicking : this will bring
up a menu listing the names of the selectable objects.

Alternatively, you can add an object to the current selection, or remove
it from the current selection, by clicking
 and selecting it from the
menu.

On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, it appears that
 has the same effect as
 on a Window\'s title bar. But
 does the trick of **Selecting
Obscured Objects**.

## Selecting Everything and Nothing

Pressing  does one of two things: if
*anything* is selected, it clears the selection (i.e. selected objects
are no longer selected). But if *nothing* is selected, then it selects
*everything*. You will often see instructions to press
 either once or twice, to ensure that
either nothing is selected, or everything is selected.

## Hiding Things

When working on a complex model or scene, things are likely to get
cluttered, making it hard to see the specific part you're working on. It
is possible to *hide* objects, so they no longer appear in the 3D view.
Select the object(s) you wish to hide, and press
. This is purely a convenience for
working in the 3D view, i.e. hidden objects remain unchanged when you
render them.

Pressing  hides everything
*except* the current selection. This is a quick way to remove the
clutter and narrow the view to the objects of interest.

Pressing  brings back all hidden
objects and selects them. If you lose track of what is hidden and what
is visible, press this to bring everything back.

## Local Versus Global View

is another way of selectively hiding parts of the scene. Pressing
 ( for
emulated numpad) hides everything that is not selected, and
automatically zooms in or out as necessary so the selected objects fill
the 3D view. Pressing  again, restores
the items to the normal .

This differs from simple hiding with 
in that a render done in local view only shows the objects currently
visible in that view. In particular, if your lights are excluded from
the local view, you are liable to see black blobs in place of your
objects.

**How do I determine the viewing mode?** Look at the words in the
upper-left corner of the 3D view. They indicate your current view
orientation and perspective settings (e.g. "User Persp"). If the word
"(Local)" appears at the end of the string, you are in local view.
Otherwise, you are in global view.

## Border Select (Box Selection)

A quick way to select many objects at once is with the
. Press
 to activate it. You will see a pair of
dotted crosshairs appear centred at the current mouse position. Drag
diagonally with  to mark a selection
rectangle, then release the . Everything
within the rectangle will be added to the selection. If you didn\'t mean
to engage box-selection mode, pressing 
exits border select mode.

Alternatively, to remove things from the current selection, after
pressing , drag the selection rectangle
with . When you release the mouse
button, everything in the drawn box will be deselected.

## Circle Select (Brush Selection)

Another way to select several objects at once is with the
,
engaged by pressing . In this mode,
clicking or dragging on objects with 
adds them to the selection, while 
*removes* them from the selection. Thus the mouse becomes a brush that
you can use to "paint" objects in or out of the selection.

The circle showing the size of the brush can be adjusted with the mouse
wheel. This allows you to use a broad brush for selection of lots of
objects at once, or a finer one for better control.

Clicking  or pressing
 terminates Circle Select mode.

## The Manipulator

right\|framed\|Manipulator transformation buttons & orientation
menu
left\|framed\|Manipulator---translation
right\|framed\|Manipulator---rotation
left\|framed\|Manipulator---scaling

The manipulator appears in the middle of the selection. There are three
kinds of manipulator as shown in the illustrations. It can be used to
apply translation (position changes), rotation, and scaling (size
changes) to objects. Its appearance changes according to which of these
functions are enabled. You can click on the menu transformation buttons
that appear when the manipulator is visible, to choose a single
transformation, or shift-click to enable more than one simultaneously.
You can toggle the visibility of the manipulator with
, or by clicking the menu button
with the red, green and blue arrows.

If you have troubles selecting the red arcs of the rotation manipulator
select File→ User Preferences\... System → Selection and change it to
\"OpenGL Select\" or \"OpenGL Occlusion Queries\".

**Transform orientations:** the "Orientation" menu governs how the axes
of the manipulator are aligned, with the default "Global" corresponding
to the global coordinate system. Other useful options are "Local", which
corresponds to the local coordinates system of *each object*, and
"View", which is always aligned to your view.

To demonstrate this, click on the camera with
 so that it is the only object selected.
Set the manipulator to do only translations (blue arrow button is
selected in menu), and ensure the orientation is set to "Global". Drag
any of the manipulator\'s coloured arrows with
 to move the camera in the corresponding
direction.

Now switch the orientation to "Local". You will see the manipulator
arrows re-orient themselves. Note that the Z-direction (blue arrow) is
now in the direction of the camera view. The local co-ordinates of the
camera have the optical axis of the camera running along the Z axis. By
default, that is pointing towards the cube object.

The cube, by default, has its own local Z-direction running vertically.

With the manipulator orientation still set to Local, add the cube to the
selection with . You will see the
manipulator move so it is in the centre of the selected objects. It is
now between the camera and the cube. Now if you drag the manipulator Z
axis arrow with , each object will move
along its *own* version of that axis. The camera moves towards or away
from the cube and the cube rises or falls.

Switch the orientation to "Global", and try dragging a manipulator arrow
again. This time, both objects will appear locked together and will move
in the same direction, along the same (global) axis.

## Transformation Hotkeys

The manipulator is not the only way to apply transformations to objects.
That can also be done via keyboard shortcuts.

Hide the manipulator to reduce clutter. Select the cube, and only the
cube, with . Now press
 to `<b>`{=html}G`</b>`{=html}rab the
object. The selection outline around the object turns white, as it did
when you were dragging with the manipulator, except this time, you
didn\'t press any mouse buttons. Now move the mouse without pressing any
buttons, and you will see the object move along with it. Press
 or 
to terminate the movement and leave the selected object at the new
position, or  or
 to cancel the operation and leave the
object at its original location.

Similarly, use  to
`<b>`{=html}R`</b>`{=html}otate the object, and
 to `<b>`{=html}S`</b>`{=html}cale it.

You can *constrain* the movement to particular axes by pressing the
appropriate axis key. For example, press
 to start moving the cube again, then
press  and you will see a bright
colored line appear parallel to the global X-axis. Now when you move the
mouse, the cube will move along only that colored line. Similarly
 and 
constrain movement to the Y and Z axes respectively. The colored lines
that appear are a brighter reddish, green or blue that correspond to the
red, green or blue lines for the X, Y or Z axes, respectively.

**Transform orientations:** to constrain the transformation to a
different set of axes, press the constraint key twice. The coordinate
system used depends on the selection in the Transform Orientation menu:

-   Local or Global --- the transformation happens in the object's local
    coordinate system.
-   View --- the transformation is aligned to view coordinates.

For example, with the default "Global" selection from this menu, select
the camera with , press
 to move it, then press
 twice, and you will see the coloured
line orient itself along the direction of view of the camera.

The axis constraints also work with scaling, and rotation (which only
happens *around* the specified axis).

You can also constrain movement and scaling to happen along two axes,
but not the third one, by holding down
 when typing the axis constraint. For
example,  followed by
 will constrain movement to the
global X-Y plane (i.e. any direction *except* along the Z-axis). To
constrain movement to the *local* X-Y plane, type the contraint twice:


.

Here\'s a summary of what the transformation hotkeys do, with and
without constraints:

+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
| Key            | without        | followed by    | followed by    |
|                | constraint     | *axis*         | `{{B3D:N2P/Do  |
|                |                |                | |SHIFT}}`{=med |
|                |                |                | iawiki}-*axis* |
+================+================+================+================+
| `              | moves in plane | moves along    | moves in plane |
| ``{=mediawiki} | perpendicular  | *axis*         | perpendicular  |
| {{B3D          | to view        |                | to *axis*      |
| :N2P/Do|GKEY}} | direction      |                |                |
| ```            |                |                |                |
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
| `              | rotates about  | rotates about  |                |
| ``{=mediawiki} | view direction | *axis*         |                |
| {{B3D          |                |                |                |
| :N2P/Do|RKEY}} |                |                |                |
| ```            |                |                |                |
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
| `              | scales         | scales along   | scales         |
| ``{=mediawiki} | uniformly      | *axis*         | uniformly in   |
| {{B3D          | along all axes |                | plane          |
| :N2P/Do|SKEY}} |                |                | perpendicular  |
| ```            |                |                | to *axis*      |
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+

In addition, the hotkey sequence 
 enables *free rotate*, i.e. the object
can rotate around all three axes as you move the mouse.

### Transforming by Numbers

Sometimes you need to position things accurately, using calculated
numbers, instead of estimating by eye. Blender can do that too. Simply
type the number after the transformation hotkeys before pressing
 to confirm the operation. For
example, 
 
 will move the selection by 1 unit in
the positive X direction. 
 
 
will move by 1 unit along negative X. Decimal points are allowed, thus
 
 
 will scale the selection by a factor
of 0.5, or 50%.

Rotation works similarly, using degrees clockwise around the selected X,
Y or Z axis.

### Transformation Menu

![](Blender263TransformPanel.png "Blender263TransformPanel.png") Yet
another way is shown at right, in the Transform panel that appears at
the top of the Properties shelf (press  to
toggle its visibility at the right side of the 3D view). Here you can
see the existing transformations values. You can drag the sliders to
change them, or click on them and enter new values.

## Choosing the Pivot Point

![](Blender263PivotPointMenu.png "Blender263PivotPointMenu.png") When
you do a scaling or rotation operation, you can choose the
, which is the central
origin point that remains unaffected by the operation. By default this
is the "Median Point", or centre point of the selection, but the Pivot
Point menu lets you choose some other options. For example, select both
the cube and the camera, and rotate them
(). By default they will rotate around
their common centre. Now go to the Pivot Point menu and choose
"Individual Origins" and rotate your two selected objects with
 again, and you will see each one now
rotates about its *own* centre, rather than the common one.

Another useful pivot option is "3D Cursor", which places the
transformation origin at the 3D cursor location.

Finally, the button with three dots and a double-headed arrow
immediately to the right of the one that pops up the Pivot Point menu is
titled "Manipulate center points." Selecting this means transformations
do not rotate the actual objects themselves, only their positions. To
see the effect, you need to choose a pivot point that is not the
object's origin. Now try rotating the object. You will see its centre
describes an arc around the pivot point, without changing the object\'s
orientation. Think how the seats in a Ferris Wheel rotate around the
wheel\'s pivot, yet still maintain their orientation.

Similarly scaling will change the distance between the chosen pivot
point and the object's origin, but will not affect the size of the
object itself. A bursting firework scales rapidly in this way.

**Why can\'t I rotate or scale objects?** One pitfall you might
encounter is that you select an object, try rotating with
 or scaling with
, and nothing happens, though moving
with  still works. It\'s quite likely
you have the "Manipulate center points" button active when you didn\'t
mean to. Check if it\'s active, and click it to deactivate if so.

**Hotkeys** --- there are keyboard shortcuts for all the above options:

+---------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Pivot Option                    | Key                      |
+=================================+==========================+
| Active Element                  | ## Basic Camera Technique

The camera view  is very useful for
making adjustments to your camera while getting continuous feedback on
how the render will look. This view shows a framing rectangle covering
the area that will appear in the render, surrounded by a *passepartout*
which gives a darkened view of the surrounding part of the scene. You
can use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out, adjusting how much of your
view is the rendered area and how much is passepartout.

In this view, use  on the framing
rectangle to select the camera, and it will show the usual orange-yellow
highlight. The manipulator will not appear even if enabled, so you must
use the transformation hotkeys to perform camera transformations.

Use  to move the camera around parallel
to the view plane. Since the view stays locked to the camera, you will
see the scene move in the direction *opposite* of what you might expect.

The camera's local Z-axis lies along its direction of view. This allows
useful operations like 
  to
move the camera in or out without affecting the direction in which it\'s
pointing. Also the X axis runs left to right in the camera view so
rotating around X 
  will
adjust the up-and-down *pitch* angle. Rotating around the vertical Y
axis  
 will change the *yaw* (left-right)
angle, and you can rotate around the optical axis of the camera using
 
 to produce an effect of *rolling* the
view around the visual axis.

Another useful technique is to position the 3D cursor at a point of
interest, set the pivot point to the 3D cursor, then rotate the camera
about a global axis, like the global Z-axis
( ),
to adjust the angle of view while keeping the same objects in view, and
without altering the distance of the camera from the point of interest.
In real life you\'d get that effect by walking in a circle around your
subject with your camera mounted on a *Steadicam* rig.

Scaling the camera object changes its size as shown in the 3D view, but
has no effect on the actual render. Regardless of what axis constraints
you try to apply, the camera object will always scale uniformly along
all axes.

You can also use Fly mode  in
camera-view mode to fly around the scene, taking the camera with you.

Another choice for moving your camera in Camera View is to bring up the
Properties panel () and, in the View
section, tick the box next to Lock Camera to View. Now you will be able
to use the  to \"move objects\" just as
you move things around in other views such as the 3D view. Holding down
the  and dragging will rotate,
 will allow you to \"move the
object\" around in the view (panning), and the scroll wheel will allow
you to \"move the object\" closer or farther from the camera. You are
actually moving the camera with these manipulations and not the
object(s) themselves.

## Adding/Removing Objects, Undo/Redo, Repeat

Select the cube with  again. Press
either  or
 and, after confirming the popup, the
cube disappears! It has been deleted from your scene. Unlike mere
hiding, it really has disappeared. Press
 to undo your last operation, and it
reappears.

Click with  to position the 3D cursor
away from the default cube. Press
 to bring up the Add menu, go to
its Mesh submenu, and add another cube to the scene. Again, undo with
, and you are back to a single cube
again.

Now press : this will undo the
undo, and *redo* the last operation you undid, bringing back the second
cube.

Try adding a third cube. Now  should
undo that and take you back to two cubes, and pressing
 again should undo the addition of
the second cube, taking you back to one. Try
 at this point to restore the
second cube, then  again to
restore the third one.

Blender remembers up to the last 32 things you did (depending on the
limit set in your user preferences) in its *undo stack*. You can go
backward and forward through it with 
and .

Sometimes you want to perform an action repeatedly. To repeat the last
action, type .

## Assigning Layers

Earlier, you learned about showing and hiding layers in the 3D view. To
assign layers for selected objects, press
. The same keyboard shortcuts apply
here as when choosing which layers to display, i.e.
 for only the first layer,
 for only the second etc,
 to include/exclude the first
layer and so on.

**After assigning an object to a different layer, it disappears!** If
this happens to you, it\'s because the layer(s) you assigned to the
object, and the layer(s) you currently have visible in the 3D view, have
nothing in common. Simply change the visible layers to include at least
one of those you assigned the object to, and it will reappear. For
example, if currently only layer 1 is visible, and you assign an object
to only layer 2, it will disappear, but reappear when you change the
visible layer to layer 2.

## Object, Action, Settings

Bring up the Add menu again ().
This time, add a new cylinder mesh to the scene. Look to the left of the
3D view, in the Tool Shelf (toggle its visibility with
 if it\'s not visible), at the bottom
you should see a new panel has appeared, titled "Add Cylinder". Near the
top of it is the "Vertices" number, initially defaulting to 32, which
gives a fairly round-looking cylinder. Reduce it to 6, and adjust the
view as necessary to get a good view of your "cylinder", and you will
see it is now a hexagonal prism. Change the number of vertices to 3, and
it becomes a triangular prism.

This is an example of an important user-interface convention that runs
right through Blender: first you select the object you want to perform
an operation on as appropriate (not applicable here because we are
creating a new object), then you perform the specified action with some
default settings, and finally you adjust the settings to give the exact
result you want. This way, instead of getting a popup *before* the
action is performed, into which you have to put the right settings and
hope they will give the right result, you get to interactively adjust
the settings and immediately see the results, without having to
continually redo the operation and deal with popups.

