Blender usage notes - lmmx/devnotes GitHub Wiki

I came back to use Blender after a while and had forgotten some basic things

Keyboard shortcuts

N.B. both 'mouse' (i.e. trackpad) buttons on my laptop = middle mouse button on a mouse

tips on views

to rotate the view, hold both mouse buttons and drag the view
to zoom the view, scroll (pad/wheel)
to pan the view left/right, Ctrl + scroll (pad/wheel)
to pan the view up/down, Ctrl + scroll (pad/wheel)
to pan the view nearer/farther, rotate the view then pan the view left/right [then rotate it back]
numpad5 toggles between perspective and ortho
numpad7 enters top view (bird's eye view)
front ortho = numpad1
Ctrl + numpad4/6,2/8 pans scene left/right, up/down
numpad+ (numpad-) zooms in (out)
Home/numpad. centres the scene/selection

Docs: Camera View, Axis Locking

numpad0 enters 'camera view' (but if you selected an object you'll see "object as camera"
to get out of camera view, go to the third 'context' view (the little squares on the RHS pane), Scene
- icon looks like a sphere and cylinder, first settings menu in it is Scene, with an item Camera
- select the Camera as "Camera" and hit numpad0 again to exit camera view

When rotating, you probably want the local axis (i.e. hit X/Y twice)

To select the camera, right mouse button click it
To move the camera in XYZ, drag the coloured arrows, as for any object
To dolly the camera, hit G then both mouse buttons
To rotate the camera [once selected]
- hit R to enter rotation mode, defaulting to rotating the camera in its local Z-axis - 'roll' (rotate orthogonal to its view)
- hit R then X once/twice to rotate along global/local X-axis
- hit R then Y once/twice to rotate along global/local Y-axis