🎬 Blender
Use the interactive keyboard database below to learn my recommended set of keyboard shortcuts. Priority indicates how essential they are to know (1 being highest priority). The table will default to sort by 1st priority shortcuts, but feel free to use the search feature to find a specific shortcut or filter the table in any way you’d like. You can print the results (or save them to an eco-friendly PDF) as well.
⌃Control ⇧Shift ⌥Alt ⌘Cmd ⇕Scroll MMB (Middle Mouse Button) *Fenn Custom Key
Type | Operation | Keys | Notes | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nav | Move along 'local' Z axis | ZZ | Very useful for moving the camera 'back' when moving in camera view (g). Press X/Y/Z twice to transform along the LOCAL vs GLOBAL axis. | |
| Constrain to axis key | X, Y or Z | (e.g "X" to lock to x-axis) Also press ⇧ to exclude an axis from movement) ⌥ pressing any of these will reset that axis | ||
| "Spotlight" global search | F3 | instead of spacebar (space now plays) | 1 | |
| Quick Menu Access | ⇧ Space | Quick Menu (menu on the right) | ||
| Toggle Overlays | ⌥⇧Z | |||
| Fill | F | Will also link nodes (M will "mute" the node) Ctrl+RMB Drag to cut links | ||
| Select Similar | Shift+G | Select e.g. by similar material | ||
| Ctrl+J | ||||
| Click to move 3D cursor | ⇧RMB | 3D cursor is where new objects are placed. It can also be anchor point for rotating/scaling an object. ⇧S allows you to change the location of the 3D cursor. Left-clicking on an object will snap the 3D cursor to the face of whatever you click on. | ||
| Expands/contracts selection | ⌘+ or ⌘- | |||
| Turn snapping on off | ⇧Tab | Hold CTRL to temporarily toggle snap on/off | ||
| Vertex, edge, face selection! | 1,2,3 | |||
| Snapping Pie | ⌃⇧Tab | Still use Shift+S to move cursor or object | ||
| Pivot pie | . | |||
| Orientation pie | Use to swap between 'global' and 'local' orientation | |||
| Hide | H | ⌥H clears hiding. Ctrl+click the eye icon to hide children. ⇧H solos in object mode. | ||
| Draws a ‘region of interest’ for render. | ⌘B | ⌘⌥B cancels region of interest. If you accidentally ⌥B it's for seeing cross section of models so just hit same keys again to remove. | ||
| Duplicate | ⇧D | |||
| Duplicate Linked (change one and all duplicates follow) | ⌥D | |||
| Cmd+L = link properties (you pick which properties) to another object | ||||
| Shift+L = select by a linked property you specify | ||||
| Change the views (file browser, 3D View, dope sheet, etc.) | ⇧FnKeys | ⌘PgUp and ⌘PgDwn cycles between them | ||
| Render Image | F12 | Esc to exit or F11 to hide | 1 | |
| Render Image Sequence | ⌘F12 | |||
| User Prefs | ⌘, | |||
| New Scene | ⌘N | |||
| Playback | Spacebar | |||
| Add menu | ⇧A | Works from anywhere you are in window | 1 | |
| Global/local view | / Numpad | Local shows only selected object | ||
| Magic Mouse Operations for Navigation | Swipe around for nav; Ctrl+scroll for zoom; Swipe around+Shift for pan; (Alt = middle mouse button when you don’t have one) | |||
| Rotates view | MMB | |||
| Pan view | ⇧MMB | |||
| Zoom | Scroll | |||
| Make panel full screen | ⌃Space | Supposedly adding Alt gives a complete full screen experience | ||
| Zooms in and out | ⌃⌥ | |||
| Shift+C = center cursor and view all | ||||
| Ctrl+Alt+Q = Quad Panel View | ⌃⌥Q | |||
| Set opposite view* | ⌃Numpad | E.g. if you're viewing from "front" it'll show you from "back" | ||
| NUM 0= current camera view | 0 Numpad | ⌘0 will set active object as camera | ||
| Num 5= perspective/orthographic | ||||
| Change view to front, left, top, bottom | Numpad 1,3,7,9 | |||
| Rotate view like a joystick around by degrees | 2,4,6,8 | ~ gives you similar view pie menu | ||
| Zoom to selected | . Numpad | Works to zoom to what's selected in the outliner too | ||
| Soom to fit all | Home | |||
| Switch between modes (wireframe, solid) | Z | 1 | ||
| Video Game Camera | ⇧~ | |||
| Show properties panel (useful for size info) | N | |||
| Show tool shelf | T | |||
| Zoom box | ⇧B | |||
| Border (marquee) select. Middle click and drag will deselect. | B | |||
| Circle select. Scroll wheel to change range size. Right-click to exit, | C | |||
| Invert | ⌘I | |||
| Grab | G | You can type the value of movement directly on the keyboard, just hit backspace delete if you don’t want numbers concatanating | 1 | |
| Rotate | R | 1 | ||
| Scale | S | 1 | ||
| Parent | ⌘P | |||
| Access Customizable Quick Menu | Q | |||
| Refresh | ⌥R | Useful for updating re-saved image textures from another application | ||
| Activate annotation tool | D | Hold this down for drawing on screen. Use RMB to erase (with scroll to change eraser size this can make for quick erasing of everything since there's no keyboard shortcut to disable the annotation). Currently a bug in Mac OS prevents changing of line thickness. | 2 |