How to bend objects in Blender with the simple deform modifier without going insane

Bending things with the simple deform modifier in Blender is confusing. In this video I'll show you my go-to trick that pretty much works every time.

00:00 Bending is confusing
00:49 Bending a cube
01:45 Bending a long object around Z axis
02:59 Bending around X or Y axis
06:27 Moving the bend origin
06:59 Setting the bend limits
07:36 Bend angles explained

[Valzack]

I'm losing my mind with this, good thing I had nothing else to do today because after like 8 videos I still can't do it.

[TijgerPapa]

Never expected that bending objects would be so un-intuitive and it's called "simple deform" 😂. Thanks for the clear explanation, saved me a lot of frustration.

[DreyzieArt]

Thanks so much for this workaround! I was shocked to see how overcomplicated this modifier was when every other modeling package handles bending so easily.

[Swarley-bumt]

Awesome little trick... I'm new to blender and this has been by far the frustrating tool I've used, I don't know why this work, I don't pretend to understand it, but thankyou for showing it.

[RosellaDesignWorks]

Still relevent thank you so much! I have 3d relief sculpts for printing and I wanted to turn them into cylinders and this method of adding the empty sphere and bending around it works perfectly without any distortion and it was so easy!

[jackbauer]

You saved me! I would have never figured this out. Thank you very much!

[galvanizeddreamer]

Something else is that it is tied to the object's local axies. So in object mode, if it is how you want it, you can move it with impunity; it is only in edit mode that you start running into issues. You can also resolve this by altering the actual object's rotation relative to global rotation to get what you want, rather than using an empty sphere.

[kenwincel]

I found this very helpful. Definitely demystified how this deform works. I'm no longer in the dark about bending.

[heckensteiner]

In Maya, geometry modifiers give you a preview of what the modifier is doing happening by drawing a curve that represents the modifier which you can move, rotate and scale by default. If Blender added something like that it would make it much less confusing, but this is a great workaround to give you control of those attributes. Thanks so much!

[tiramika]

thank you so much, i wish every blender demo video was this simple to understand

[Swarley-bumt]

I'm only a month into my blender life and bending stuff has been a real issue. I see there is a paid tool you can add on that appears to be a good options (but to be fair I have no clue) but I want to learn and develop skills before I start paying for stuff that I may never use. This tricks seems a little inconvenient to be fair, but it works and my morning is better for it, so thanks heaps.

[colinboyle]

Thanks Aaron - I have been trying to bend objects for a frustratingly long time. Two watches of your very helpful video and I now have leaf springs that bend! Thanks so much it is really appreciated.

[busyman]

how many times i thank you for this great tutorial... bless you God

[HeinerS]

Thanks, was about to go insane. I tried the empty but without the 90° trick without success, though I did find out that it seems to always work when bending around the z-axis. In any case when I looked for an explanation I found this video and now I know how to work around the problem. Thanks again for sharing this.

[TouchofDepth]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! After a long night of frustration your video finally made things make sense!

[faisalrahman]

The most helpful & clean instructions on simply deform on internet, Thanks!
You earned a new sub!

[joachimderavenbel]

Thank you for such an enlightening video 🥰! To add something, you can also take the angle between the radiuses at the endpoints of the curve (at the centerpoint of the curve).

[vrmsali]

Not sure how to thank you for this video. I have been trying to bend an object since last few hours.

Cheers 😊

[vrmsali]

Finally get some idea on how it works. Always used other methods to achieve the bending goals.

[alanpwilk]

Thank you! Been banging my head against the wall with this.