Five Blender Hacks In Three Minutes | Time-saving tips and tricks for Blender

Blender comes stocked with so many little features that even the seasoned pros don't know all of them. In this video, I'll demonstrate five of my favourite Blender hacks to speed up your modeling process and make your life just a little bit easier.

[sjonjones]

Here's a few:
ALT+D for a linked copy of a mesh. Linked copies are changed in sync with each other. (**game changer**)
ALT+G, S or R to reset the location, scale and rotation of an object
Single tap "a" to select all and double tap "a" to deselect all
Press "L" (in edit mode) while hovering over a vert., edge, face to select all connected to it.

[erwinlommer]

In edit mode press shift-1 or 3 or 7 to change the view to make it normal to selected object. For example if you have randomly rotated cube select one face and press shift-7 and the view moves normal to it. Sometimes useful for getting a perfect top down view on a face for example.


/ key on numpad to focus on single object and hide others (doesn't work in wireframe view for example).


The biggest issue with blender is that you need to memorize huge amount of keyboard shortcuts. Except you don't need to memorize all of them. By switching the space key to search you can activate all kinds of tools if you remember the name. Super useful

[BlenderparaArquitetura]

You can tap ctrl C/Ctrl V in any value without click. This allows to copy and past any color or value easily

[AlimayoArango]

Amazing video. I have been using Blender for around 7 years now and you taught me ssd's ome features that I didnt know about. Thanks :D

[LUchesi]

I've been trying to find a good shortcuts list so I don't have to look at every menu while learning and you've turned this comment section into a valuable resource. Thanks.

[marekmedien]

A generel recommendation:
Check out the different Select options in Edit mode in the Select Tab.
Stuff like "Checker Deselect", "Select Similar -> Co-Planar", "Select Outer Loop" etc. helped me soo much saving hours of time!

[jMcWill]

Most useful and probably obvious thing I learned recently is holding shift while adjusting (almost) any value such as moving on an axis will move by Very small degrees. Super useful for very precise work or working with a tablet.

[cmdrterrorfirma]

I hadn't heard of any of those except the false color check... very useful thanks!

[valenciasainz]

My recommendations

*For importing PBR materials*
(Go to edit- preferences- search 'node wrangler' - press ✓)
• Select principled BDSF
• Press CTRL+Shift+T
• Locate PBR material file and select textures
• Press *import*

*To preview specific node*
• CTRL+Shift+(select node)

*To delete unwanted Shader materials completely*
• Go to Outliner
• Select display mode menu (besides editor type)
• Select Blender file
• Go to materials tab
• Select textures you wanna delete
• Right click press delete

[marekmedien]

Under "View" in the 3D window there's a function called "local view". You can apply that to a shortcut of your choice. It's an amazing thing to just solo an object when you're editing it, instead of using the H/Alt-H shortcut

[davidoulton]

My fav short cut is from node wrangler. When you have multiple maps coming from a texturing program such as Substance select your Principal shader and hit all the maps for that object and hit enter. Node wrangler will hook all the maps up to the shader INCLUDING changing everything other than the base colour to none colour and inserting normal and displacement nodes as like magic and saves so much

[sforzz]

Cut tip is cool, always forgot about it

[AsafSnapiri]

I really like your videos. I am a game designer that just learning how to design in Blender and you really helps me.

[nzredwolf]

here's one not many people know about,


if you go Ctrl+A for the apply menu (say you want to apply the scale, rotation, or location of an object), down at the bottom, there is a button that says: "Visual Geometry to Mesh".


If you click that, Blender will apply all modifiers, rigs or simulations or anything like that, and the visual look of the mesh will become the permanent mesh. This is useful if you have loads of modifiers and you want to apply them all quickly.

[DanielKrafft]

Nice video! Plenty of good tips. What are you thinking of creating next?

[kendarr]

The number 1? Yes oh my god I just learned that I'll never forget it

[Fxnarji]

shift + H
hides everything but the selection

Ctrl + J
joins two objects

Ctrl + T
triangulates the Mesh

Alt + J
Tris to quads

numpad slash
isolates selection

numpad,
focuses on selection

[UnrealEngine_Master]

you can quickly switch to aligned view by pressing Alt during the orbiting. it will switch to the closest orthographic view. works only if the Auto Perspective option turned on.

[phoenix.]

Saving render time: First in render settings, go to light paths and set all values to 1.
Scroll down to caustics and untick both of them.
Increase tile size to 256 if youre using a gpu and 32 if on cpu.
If rendering animation, in the scene settings, increase frame step to 3 ( this reduces the frames by 3 times which renders 120 frames in about 40 frames) then you can use after effects, time remapping to make the video smoother and saves a lot of time.

[JohnSmith-rnvl]

In edit mode press 1, 2 or 3 to jump between verts, edgs and faces