The parts of the 3D Viewport that stay the same in every mode and for every object.

Header

Introduction

The 3D View editor is the editor where you edit your 3D data. Here you can display and modify all the scene data like meshes, curves, metalballs, etc.

It has by default a grid in the middle. And you can navigate around in this view.

The 3D View has several areas. In this chapter we will cover the header area. Blue color, at the top, the area with the menus.

Header

The Header contains various menus, navigation elements and tools for the 3d view. This content vary, dependent of mode and object type. The Mesh menu just exists with a mesh object in Edit mode. The Object menu exists just in Object mode and so on.

The header is divided into three areas. Left is the mode drop down box. At the right of it is the text menus. And at the right side you will find some scene related settings.

The text menus will be explained one by one and mode by mode in their own chapters.

Header right click menus

The general right click menu functionality is explained in chapter 6 Editors introduction.

Editortype Menu

Bforartists is made of several editor types. Headers can display a menu where you can switch to other editor types.

This menu is hidden by default. It is meant to edit the layouts, and should not be necessary for regular work. You can reveal it in the header right click menu. Or by splitting the view. The new window will then have the editor type menu again.

To split the view, move the mouse up right until it turns into a cross, then click and drag.

Header tools and Options

Introduction

The header in the 3D view contains various menus and tools. This chapter here is about the tools, modes and options elements in the header.

The text menus are covered in a own chapter each. They vary too much, dependent of mode and object type.

Mode Drop-down Box

The Mode drop-down box allows you to switch between the different modes.

Modes are object states that allows you to edit and manipulate objects at different levels with different tool sets and goals. The sculpt mode for example allows you to sculpt a mesh object. Edit Mode allows to manipulate the mesh of the object, and so on.

The available modes can differ from object to object. An armature for example has an additional pose mode. And when you work with a grease pencil object, then several grease pencil modes becomes available.

Mesh Object Sub Modes

The different modes can have some sub modes. For example different selection methods in mesh edit mode. Or a mask mode for texture painting. The sub mode settings can be found right from the Modes drop down box.

Edit Mode - Mesh Select Modes

When you enter the edit mode with a mesh object then you will see the mesh select modes. They allows you to switch between the three available selection modes Vertice select, Edge Select and Face Select.

Vertex Select allows you to select vertices.

Edge Select allows you to select edges.

Face select allows you to select faces.

The mesh display changes, dependent of the mode. When you have for example select vertices active, then the vertices highlights at the mesh.

You can have more than one mode active by shift clicking at the other mesh select modes.

The standard Bforartists has hotkeys to switch between the modes. X, C and V. You cannot see or edit them at the header element. There is however a sub menu in the mesh menu, called Mesh Select Mode. Here you can see and edit the hotkeys.

Vertex Paint - Mask and Vertex Selection

Paint Mask

When you activate this tool then you reveal a Select menu in the header. And you can select the mesh parts that you want to manipulate. Note that you may first want to deselect all. By default everything is selected ...

The select menu is explained in the chapter Vertex Paint modes. The menu items should be pretty self explaining though.

When you have selected a part of the mesh, then you can just paint the faces at this selected part. The edges are the border.

Vertex Selection

When you activate this tool then you reveal a Select menu in the header. And you can select the mesh parts that you want to manipulate. This tool is meant for Weight Painting. And so the mesh displays the vertices too.

Note that you may first want to deselect all. By default everything is selected ...

The select menu is explained in the chapter Vertex Paint modes. The menu items should be pretty self explaining though.

When you have selected a part of the mesh, then you can just paint the vertices at this selected part. The difference to the Paint mask method is that here the edges are not the border of the color. But there is a gradient between the vertices.

Weight Paint - Mask and Vertex Selection

Paint Mask

Mesh Object.

When you activate this tool then you reveal a Select menu in the header. And you can select the mesh parts that you want to manipulate. Note that you may first want to deselect all. By default everything is selected ...

The select menu is explained in the chapter Vertex Paint modes. The menu items should be pretty self explaining though.

When you have selected a part of the mesh, then you can just paint the faces at this selected part. The edges are the border.

Vertex Selection

Mesh Object.

When you activate this tool then you reveal a Select menu in the header. And you can select the mesh parts that you want to manipulate. This tool is meant for Weight Painting. And so the mesh displays the vertices too.

Note that you may first want to deselect all. By default everything is selected ...

The select menu is explained in the chapter Vertex Paint modes. The menu items should be pretty self explaining though.

When you have selected a part of the mesh, then you can just paint the vertices at this selected part. There is no real difference to the faces method. The selection is the same.

Texture Paint - Mask Selection

Paint Mask

Mesh Object.

When you activate this tool then you reveal a Select menu in the header. And you can select the mesh parts that you want to manipulate. Note that you may first want to deselect all. By default everything is selected ...

The select menu is explained in the chapter Vertex Paint modes. The menu items should be pretty self explaining though.

When you have selected a part of the mesh, then you can just paint the faces at this selected part. The edges are the border.

Particle Edit - Select Modes

Mesh Object with a particle system. You can just have one method active at a time.

Path

No key points are visible, you can select/deselect only all particles.

Point

You can see, select and edit all key points of the particle paths.

Tip

You can only see, select and edit the tip of the particles. This includes the brushes. The comb brush is a special case here. The other pat key points bends of course still in this mode. But affected by the brush is just the tip key.

Grease Pencil Sub Modes

The different modes can have some sub modes. For example different selection methods in mesh edit mode. Or a mask mode for texture painting. The sub mode settings can be found right from the Modes drop down box.

Edit Mode

The edit mode allows you to edit the grease pencil strokes.

Select Modes

You can only have one method active at a time.

Select Only Points

When you for example border select some points of the stroke, then just this points gets selected.

Select all Stroke Points

When you for example border select some points of the stroke, then the whole stroke gets selected.

Select all Stroke Points between other strokes

When you for example border select some points of the stroke, and this stroke crosses another stroke, then the part of the stroke up to the crossing point gets selected.

Multi-frame

When this mode is active, then you can edit strokes from multiple grease pencil frames at once. The key frames must be selected to be included.

Use Falloff

Multi frame has a setting, which becomes visible when the mode is active.

Use Falloff when edit in Multi frame mode to compute brush effect by frame.

Sculpt Mode

The sculpt mode allows you to sculpt the grease pencil strokes.

Multi-frame

When this mode is active, then you can edit strokes from multiple grease pencil frames at once. The key frames must be selected to be included.

Use Falloff

Multi frame has a setting, which becomes visible when the mode is active.

Use Falloff when edit in Multi frame mode to compute brush effect by frame.

View

Relative to which plane to draw the strokes. Default orientation is view.

Draw Mode

The draw mode is the mode in which you draw the grease pencil strokes.

Origin

Where the stroke is placed.

View

Relative to which plane to draw the strokes. Default orientation is view.

Multi-frame

When this mode is active, then you can edit strokes from multiple grease pencil frames at once. The key frames must be selected to be included.

Weight Paint Mode

Multi frame

When this mode is active, then you can edit strokes from multiple grease pencil frames at once. The key frames must be selected to be included.

Use Falloff

Multi frame has a setting, which becomes visible when the mode is active.

Use Falloff when edit in Multi frame mode to compute brush effect by frame.

Vertex Paint Mode

Select Modes

You can only have one method active at a time.

Select Only Points

When you for example border select some points of the stroke, then just this points gets selected.

Select all Stroke Points

When you for example border select some points of the stroke, then the whole stroke gets selected.

Select all Stroke Points between other strokes

When you for example border select some points of the stroke, and this stroke crosses another stroke, then the part of the stroke up to the crossing point gets selected.

Multi frame

When this mode is active, then you can edit strokes from multiple grease pencil frames at once. The key frames must be selected to be included.

Use Falloff

Multi frame has a setting, which becomes visible when the mode is active.

Use Falloff when edit in Multi frame mode to compute brush effect by frame.

Geometry Node Group Tools

This header button menu with the tool icon is a container for Geometry Node Groups that have been set as “Tools” in the Geometry Nodes editor. These are act-once operators that now can be placed in the Geometry Node Group Tools or in custom entries in the 3D View header entries.

Example: here the Geometry Nodes has be switched to the Tool mode, and the node group Properites have been set to Tool. This node group will now show in the Geometry Node Group Tools header menu.

Marked Assets

A marked Geometry Nodes node group set as an asset and a tool will display here. To mark, right click on the geometry node selector in the Geometry Nodes editor, and mark as asset.

Unmarked Assets

A local unmarked Geometry Nodes node group set as a tool will display under the “Unmarked Assets:” label.

Marked Assets with assigned Asset Browser Category

A marked node group set as a tool and as an asset and assigned to an Asset Browser category with the same category structure as the menu entry names will display as nested act-once operators.

Example: This is a marked-as-asset geometry node group with the name “A Marked Tool Asset” in the category “Object” then sub-category “Quick Effects”.

Object settings

The object settings just appears when the Tool Settings are hidden. This can be done in the View menu.

Transform Orientations

You can display Transform Manipulators at your object or selection by activating them in the tool shelf. They allow you to scale, rotate or move objects by grabbing their controls, and moving your mouse in the corresponding axis. The widget can be oriented in different ways by using another method in this drop down box. The names should be self explaining.

Create Orientation

The create orientation button at the right adds a new orientation from the current mode and view. You can rename it.

This view is scene specific only. It does save and load with the current scene. But you cannot transfer it into another scene. When you create a new scene then this custom orientation is gone.

You can create more than one user orientation.

Last Operator Create Orientation

Create Orientation has some settings.

Transform Pivot Point

The Pivot Point is the center of your object or your selection. When you rotate or scale an object, or a group of vertices/edges/faces, you may want to shift the pivot point in 3D space. The names should be self explaining.

Snapping

Activate snapping when transforming an element.

Snapping can be temporarily activated by holding Ctrl key. So no need to turn snapping on and off all the time.

You can snap to various scene elements in Object, Edit and Pose mode. And you can activate more than one snapping method by holding down Ctrl and clicking at the next snapping element.

Multiple Snap Targets

When you move the mouse with snapping on and the element to snap selected (This does not work with holding Ctrl), then you can press hotkey A to mark the current snapping point, then proceed to mark as many other snapping points as you wish. And the element that you want to snap will then be in the center of these marked snapping points. Marked snapping points will have a circle around.

Marking a point more than once will give it more weight in the averaged location.

Snap Target

Which part to snap onto the target.

Snap to

To which part of the target to snap.

Snap Target for Individual Elements

Type of element for individual transformed elements to snap to.

Snap Peel Object

Only available with the Snap to Method Volume. Consider objects as whole when finding a volume center.

Snap to Same Target

Only available with the Snap Face Nearest. Snap only to target that the source was initially near.

Absolute Increment Snap

Only available with Increment Snap mode, this will allow an absolute grid alignment while translating (based on the pivot center)

Align Rotation to Target

Align rotation with the snapping target.

Back face Culling

Exclude back facing geometry from snapping.

Target Selection

Align rotation with the snapping target.

Exclude Non-Selectable

Snap only onto objects that are selectable. This will ignore any objects that have been marked as un-selectable from the Outliner Editor.

Proportional Editing

Enables proportional editing.

Proportional Editing is a way of transforming selected elements (such as vertices) while having that transformation affect other nearby elements with a falloff. For example, moving a single vertex will move unselected vertices within a given range. And the falloff means that selected vertices that are closer to the selected vertex will move more than those farther from it.

Settings

The settings appears when you activate Proportional Editing. Choose between different falloff methods for the proportional editing.

Proportional Size

The influence of the proportional editing is defined by a radius. It is by default one standard unit.

You can change the influence radius for proportional editing with the mouse wheel or the Page up Page down arrows while keeping the mouse button pressed down and do the translation.

The exact radius value can be read in the header while transformation.

And it can also be read and edited at the Proportional Size slider in the Proportional Editing panel.

Last Operator Proportional Editing

When you translate an object, move it around or rotate or scale it, then the last operator contains also proportional editing settings.

Selectability & Visibility

In this drop down box you can set specific elements in the scene to either not selectable or invisible.

When the elements are invisible then they are also not selectable.

When you have set some objects to not selectable or invisible, then the icon in the menu header changes.

Viewport Gizmo

This menu allows you to adjust what gizmos shows. The button at the left turns them all off or on.

Show Gizmo

Shows or hides all available gizmos at once.

Gizmo Options

Turn on or off specific widgets.

Viewport Gizmos

Navigate

Turn on or off the navigate widget. The navigate gizmo is the block of buttons and the widget up right.

Active Tools

Turn on or off the active tool widget. When you activate one of the transformation buttons in the tool shelf, then a gizmo will appear at the object.

Active Modifier

Toggles the gizmos for the active Geometry Nodes modifier assets.

Active Object

Turn on or off the Object Gizmos. The Object Gizmos is an extra set of translate gizmos, similar to the active tool widget that shows when you activate one of the transform buttons in the tool shelf. These alternatively show the transform gizmos as permanent gizmos as long as you don't have another tool selected that overrides this widget.

Object Gizmos

Transformation Orientation

Adjust the orientation of the widget. By default it uses the transform orientation from the viewport. This set can override the transform orientation.

You can have all transform methods on at once.

Move

Shows the move part of the widget.

Empty

Image

Shows the transform gizmo at an empty of type Image. You need to hover with the mouse over the object to reveal the yellow gizmo.

Force Field

Some force field types have a gizmo. Shows the transform gizmo at a force field.

Light

Camera

Lens

Show the gizmo to adjust the lens and orthographic size. The yellow square.

Focus Distance

Shows the gizmo to adjust the focus distance.

You first need to turn on the Limits gizmo in the camera settings in the Viewport Display panel. Then you can turn off the focus distance gizmo part with Focus Distance.

Mesh Object - Sculpt mode

Color attributes panel

This panel also exists in the properties editor.

Currently this panel is greyed out and dysfunctional in Sculpt mode. It is WIP.

Global Auto Masking

These override all brush settings, but you can also set these auto masking features per brush.

Mesh Boundary

Do not affect non manifold boundary edges.

The setting that appears on activation and is valid for both, Mesh Boundary and Face Sets Boundary.

Face Sets Boundary

Do not affect vertices that belong to a face set boundary.

The setting that appears on activation and is valid for both, Mesh Boundary and Face Sets Boundary.

Steps

Distance where boundary edge automasking is going to protect vertices from the fully masked edge.

Cavity

Do not affect vertices on peaks. This feature is based on the surface curvature.

The setting that appears on activation and is valid for both, Cavity, and Cavity (Inverted).

Cavity (Inverted)

Do not affect vertices in valleys. This feature is based on the surface curvature.

The setting that appears on activation and is valid for both, Cavity, and Cavity (Inverted).

Custom Curve

Use a custom falloff curve for the cavity mask.

Selecting Points

You can select curve points. This reveals two edit boxes for the x and y coordinate of this point.

Selected points can be moved around. Left click at them, hold the mouse button down and move them to a new location.

Adding Points

You can add new curve points by simply left clicking at the curve. Move the mouse to position them where you need it.

Navigation elements

The navigation elements at the top are described from left to right.

Zoom in and out

The two buttons with the magnifying glass at it zooms in and out in the curve window.

Clipping Options

Set up clipping for the stroke.

Use Clipping

Turns clipping on or off.

Handle Types

Sets the handle type for the current selected curve point.

X Y Position

The position of the current active curve point.

Delete Points

Deletes the current active curve point.

View Normal

Affect only vertices with a normal that faces the viewer.

Area Normal

Affect only vertices with a similar normal to where the stroke starts.

Mesh Object - Vertex Paint mode

Color Attributes panel

This panel also exists in the properties editor.

In vertex paint mode and sculpt mode you can paint vertices of a mesh with a color. This will create a vertex color index. You can see and manage this vertex color indexes in the Vertex Colors panel.

Vertex colors can for example be used to mix shaders together. Or also directly render them. In the shader editor color attributes can be used by the Attribute node.

A mesh can have more than one vertex color index and type. But just one index can be the active one.

Active Color Index

A List of the vertex color indexes for this mesh.

Add Color Attribute Popup

Name

The name of the color attribute index.

Domain

The domain of the color attribute.

• Vertex stores the color attribute data in the vertices of the mesh data
• Face Corner stores the color attribute data in the face corners of the mesh data

Data Type

The the color attribute type.

• Color stores RGBA color 32-bit floating point values
• Byte Color stores RGBA color 32-bit positive integer values

Remove -

Delete the selected vertex color index.

Adjust last operator Add Color Attribute

This is basically the same content as above. Minus the OK button.

Specials menu

Duplicate Color Attribute

Duplicates the selected color attribute.

Convert Color Attribute

Convert a color attribute domain and data type. This tool calls a popup where you can choose what to convert.

Mesh Object - Weight Paint mode

Vertex Groups

This panel also exists in the properties editor.

A Vertex group is a group of vertices, a selection of the mesh. It is for example used to weight a specific mesh part to a bone. Or to control the growth of hair particles.

This panel allows you to manage and edit vertex groups. Weight painting creates vertex groups automatically.

In Edit mode this panel shows some further controls.

Vertex groups exists for mesh and lattice objects.

Active Vertex Group list

A List of the vertex groups for this mesh.

Specials menu

Duplicate Vertex Group

Add a copy of the active vertex group as a new group. The new group will be named like the original group with “_copy” appended at the end of its name. And it will contain associations to exactly the same vertices with the exact same weights as in the source vertex group.

Move Vertex Group Up / Down

Moves the selected vertex group up or down in the list.

Mesh Object - Texture Paint mode

Texture Slots

The texture slots panel allows you to manage the textures that you use for texture painting. When the mesh doesn't have a texture yet to paint at, then you get a hint about a missing texture. No Textures. The Add Texture Paint Slot button allows you to add one. Base Color allows you to create a diffuse map.

Mode

Choose in which mode you want to paint. Single Image just works with a single image, without any material.

Material works with a material and a texture. The texture is here part of the material.

Add Texture Paint Slot

Here you can choose what type of texture you want to add for texture painting.

The texture gets added to the shader, and connected to the correct node. A base color is meant for diffuse, and so it connects with the base color slot.

Paint Slot with mode Material

Paint Slot with Mode Single Image

Image List

A list of the available images, which allows you choose one in case one exists.

New/Open

When no image is loaded then you can create a new image here, or load a new image.

Edit Box

See the name of the image, and edit the name.

UV Map

Choose a UV map to work with. Usually there is just one. But there can be more than one UV map. You can add and manage more in the Object data tab in the UV Map panel.

Interpolation

Set the interpolation type. Linear or Closest.

Save all Images

Saves all images. Internal images needs to be saved manually first. They don't have a path yet to which they could be saved. You will get an invalid path warning.

Stencil Mask

Stencil mask allows mask painting with a stencil map. It is a sub menu tab. In expanded state it shows the falloff curve, which can be edited.

Activate Stencil map

Activates the stencil map.

Stencil Image

Choose or load your stencil texture.

Texture browser

Here you will find a list of currently loaded textures.

Edit Box

The currently active stencil texture.

The number right of it, in this case 2, indicates how much number of users ( internally ) this brush uses. This means that this data block (the brush) shares currently settings with at least one other object. Most probably the parent brush where we have created it from. Click at the value to make this brush a single user. The button will vanish then.

The shield icon button set the brush to have a fake user. Zero user data-blocks are normally not saved. But sometimes you want to force the data to be kept even when the data block has no user.

The + button allows you to add a new pencil with the current settings. Note that the brushes are NOT saved when you close Bforartists. You can save them into the current blend file. Or you can save the startup file. But be careful here. This saves everything else of the current state of Bforartists too.

The X button deletes the brush as the active one. It does NOT delete it from the brushes list.

UV Layer

At which UV map the stencil texture is active.

Display Color

The stencil color in the viewport.

Invert the stencil color

Inverts the stencil color.

Cavity Mask

Cavity mask allows mask painting according to mesh geometry cavity. It is a sub menu tab. In expanded state it shows the falloff curve, which can be edited.

Use Clipping

Clipping options. Set up clipping for the stroke.

Vector Handle

Set handle type to Vector.

Curve Object - Edit Mode

Set Handle Type

Handles defines the type of handle for the control points of the curve. You have the choice between Auto, Vector, Align and Free. And the Last Operator gives you a fifth possibility to toggle between Free and Align.

Free

Set Handle type to Free.

Toggle Free/Aligned

Toggle Free/Aligned.

Last Operator Set Handle Type

Type

Type is a drop-down box where you can set the handle type. You have the choice between Auto, Vector, Align, Free. And the fifth possibility toggles between Free and Align.

Viewport Overlays - all modes

Turn on or off all overlays. This includes the ground grid, things like relationship lines, and several other elements in the viewport. Some content is available in all modes. Some content is changing, dependent of the mode you are in. In Edit mode with a mesh object you will get some normal functionality for example.

Guides

Axes

Show the colored axis lines in the 3d view

( now works in both perspective / orthographic Views).

Scale

Scale the ground grid. This works in perspective and orthographic view.

Subdivisions

Subdivisions just shows with a Unit system of None. It allows you to subdivide the ground grid.

Options

Text Info

In the upper left corner of the 3D view there is a text info string, which can be hidden here. It tells you in what view you are, what is selected, and things like frames per second when you play an animation

Annotations

Show or hide annotations. Annotations can be drawn at the 3D View with the annotation tool in the tool shelf.

Statistics

Displays statistical informations in the upper left corner of the 3d viewport. Object count, vertices, and so on.

3D Cursor

Show or hide the 3D cursor. That's the white red circle in the center of the viewport.

Camera Guides

Just in Camera mode.

Display the dotted line around the inside of the passepartout.

Objects

Extras

Show or hide object details. Including things like empty wires like lights, cameras, and other visual guides.

Light Colors

Displays the light widget in the color of the light.

Relationship Lines

Show or hide relationship lines. When you for example parent one object to another then you will see a dotted line. The relationship line.

Outline Selected

Show the selected object with an outline

Bones

Show or hide bones.

Motion Paths

Show or hide motion paths. Motion paths can be calculated in the Motion Paths panel. You need an animation for that.

Origins

Show or hide the origin of the selected object. The origin is the center point of the object, and represented by an orange dot.

Origins(All)

Show or hide the origin of all objects. Even from hidden ones. The not selected objects shows the center point with a white dot.

Geometry

Geometry related settings.

Wire frame

Show the wire frame in object mode.

Face Orientation

This mode allows to check for faces with flipped normals, which cannot be seen with the defaults. Blue is pointing outwards, red is pointing inwards.

Fade inactive Geometry

Edit mode feature, does not show in other modes. Fades the not active geometry, the not selected scene objects, towards a plain grey. In Object mode this setting has no effect.

Viewer Node

Viewer node related settings.

Color Overlay

Enable color overlay in viewport for geometry attributes that are connected to an enabled Geometry Nodes’ viewer node.

Opacity

The opacity of the color overlay mentioned above.

Text Overlay

Show geometry attribute values that are connected to an enabled Geometry Nodes’ viewer node as text in viewport. This option just shows when you have geometry nodes at the object, and there is a viewer node in the tree. Example with index values:

Motion Tracking

Motion tracking related settings. When you turn it on, then some further options appears. These features just shows before you bake the solution. Not with the resolved solution.

Track display type

How to display the tracks.

Track size

Adjust the display size of the tracks of reconstructed data

Viewport Overlays - Mesh Object - Edit Mode

The Viewport Overlays panel shows different content, dependent of mode and object type. This is with mesh object in edit mode.

Mesh Edit Mode Overlays

Indices

Display the indices of selected vertices, edges and faces at the mesh.

Shading

Retopology

Hides the solid mesh and offset the overlay towards the view to make retopology easier. The selection is occluded by inactive geometry. You have to enable X-ray.

Vertex Groups Weights

Display weights in Edit Mode. When you activate this feature then further options appears.

Zero Weights

None

Don't show the vertices with zero weights with a specific color. They appear blue like vertices with a very low weighting.

Active

Zero weights vertices are shown with a black color in the active vertex group.

All

Zero weights vertices are shown with a black color in all vertex groups of the mesh.

Mesh Analysis

Show the mesh analysis overlay and settings. Note that editing may be slow with mesh analysis tools on. And modifiers can make trouble.

Type

The mesh analysis type.

Overhang

Extrusion 3D printers have a physical limit to the overhang that can be printed. The Overhang type shows the overhang in different ways. Angle and axis can be adjusted.

Thickness

3D Printers have a limited wall-thickness. Too thin areas cannot be printed. This mode displays thin areas as red.

Minimum/Maximum

Minimum/Maximum thickness to display.

Samples

The number of samples to use to calculate the thickness.

Intersections

A mesh can be made of more than one closed sub mesh. Join two spheres and you have one mesh with two closed sub meshes. Such intersections can be a problem with printing. Intersect marks intersecting areas with red.

Distortion

Marks distorted faces.

Distorted geometry, means uneven quads or N-gons, can cause problems with printing. Since the triangulation of a distorted quad or N-gon is undefined. And printing works with tris. With a quad there are already two solutions in which direction the edge to triangulate the face can point.

Minimum/Maximum

Adjust the minimum and maximum values after which a face gets displayed as distorted.

Sharp Edges

Similar to wall-thickness, sharp edges can be too thin to be able to print.

Minimum/Maximum

Adjust the minimum and maximum values after which an edge gets displayed as sharp.

Measurement

Shows measure values at the selected elements. The units are displayed as chosen in the preferences. These values respects global/ local in the transform panel. And so the values can differ when you have scaled the mesh in object mode, and the scaling is not applied yet. Use Global to take the object scale into account.

Edge Length

Shows the length of selected edges.

Edge Angle

Shows the angle of selected edges between two faces.

Normals

Show the normals for the chosen elements. They will be displayed as lines.

Constant Screen Size Normals

Display the normals either in size relative to the object. Or constant to the screen size.

Relative to the object is measured in object units. Absolute to the screen size is measued in pixels.

Size

Adjust the length of the line that represents the normal.

Freestyle

Freestyle is the line renderer integrated into Bforartists. For freestyle you can mark edges and faces.

Viewport Overlays - Mesh Object - Sculpt Mode

Show Mask

Show mask as overlay on object. The opacity of the overlay can be controlled by the slider.

Show Face Sets

Show face sets as overlay on object. The opacity of the overlay can be controlled by the slider.

Viewport Overlays - Mesh Object - Vertex Paint Mode

Opacity

How strong the painted color gets shown.

Show Wire

Display the wire at the mesh. Normally the wire is hidden.

Viewport Overlays - Mesh Object - Weight Paint Mode

Opacity

The opacity of the color overlay.

Zero Weights

None

Don't show the vertices with zero weights with a specific color. They appear blue like vertices with a very low weighting.

Active

Zero weights vertices are shown with a black color in the active vertex group.

All

Zero weights vertices are shown with a black color in all vertex groups of the mesh.

Show Weight Contours

Show contour lines formed by points with the same interpolated weight.

Show Wire

Display the wire at the mesh. Normally the wire is hidden.

Show Bone X Ray

This prop just shows when you have both, the bone and the mesh object selected by holding down shift, and switch to weight paint.

This has in general the same effect than draw in front. It shows the bones on top of the mesh geometry.

Viewport Overlays - Mesh Object - Texture Paint Mode

Stencil Opacity

How strong the painted color gets shown.

Viewport Overlays - Hair Object - Sculpt Mode

Selection Opacity

How solid not selected curves are displayed. Note that you can't make them fully transparent.

Curves Cage

Highlight the selected curves.

Cage Opacity

How strong selected curves are highlighted.

Viewport Overlays - Armature in Pose Mode

Show Bone X Ray

This has in general nearly the same effect than draw in front. It shows the bones on top of the mesh geometry. But you can fade the mesh geometry to black.

Bone Wireframe Opacity

The maximum opacity of bones in wireframe display mode.

Viewport Overlays - Grease Pencil

In Object Mode

Onion Skin

Show ghosts of the key frames before and after the current frame.

Canvas

Display a grid over Grease Pencil drawing plane. The opacity of the grid can be controlled with a slider.

Canvas X Ray

Show the grid in front of the stroke.

Fade Layers

Controls the opacity of the not selected layers in the current grease pencil object.

I have set the fade layers opacity to 1 here. When you select the other layer, then the inner part becomes visible again, and the black outlines hides.

Fade Objects

Fades everything in the viewport but the grease pencil color to black.

Fade Grease Pencil Objects

Fades the not active grease pencil objects to black too.

In Edit Mode

Onion Skin

Show ghosts of the key frames before and after the current frame.

Canvas

Display a grid over Grease Pencil drawing plane. The opacity of the grid can be controlled with a slider.

Canvas X Ray

Show the grid in front of the stroke.

Fade Layers

Control the opacity of the not selected layers in the current grease pencil object.

I have set the fade layers opacity to 1 here. When you select the other layer, then the inner part becomes visible again, and the black outlines hides.

Stroke Direction

Shows a red and a green dot at the end of the stroke. Green dot is start. Red dot is end.

Only in multi frame

Only show edges of the curve while in multi frame edition.

Material Name

Displays the material name at the start of the stroke.

Vertex Opacity

With Curve Editing off. How strong the selected vertices of the stroke shows.

Handles

With Curve Editing on. Limit the display of curve handles in edit mode.

In Sculpt and Weight paint Mode

Onion Skin

Show ghosts of the key frames before and after the current frame.

Canvas

Display a grid over Grease Pencil drawing plane. The opacity of the grid can be controlled with a slider.

Canvas X Ray

Show the grid in front of the stroke.

Fade Layers

Control the opacity of the not selected layers in the current grease pencil object.

I have set the fade layers opacity to 1 here. When you select the other layer, then the inner part becomes visible again, and the black outlines hides.

In Draw Mode

Onion Skin

Show ghosts of the key frames before and after the current frame.

Canvas

Display a grid over Grease Pencil drawing plane. The opacity of the grid can be controlled with a slider.

Canvas X Ray

Show the grid in front of the stroke.

Fade Layers

Control the opacity of the not selected layers in the current grease pencil object.

I have set the fade layers opacity to 1 here. When you select the other layer, then the inner part becomes visible again, and the black outlines hides.

In Vertex Paint mode

Onion Skin

Show ghosts of the key frames before and after the current frame.

Use Grid

Display a grid over Grease Pencil drawing plane. The opacity of the grid can be controlled with a slider.

Canvas X Ray

Show the grid in front of the stroke.

Fade Layers

Control the opacity of the not selected layers in the current grease pencil object.

I have set the fade layers opacity to 1 here. When you select the other layer, then the inner part becomes visible again, and the black outlines hides.

Viewport Shading

At the very right of the header you can find the viewport shading settings. Here you adjust the display of the viewport. The order goes from left to right.

Show X Ray

This viewport setting is connected with the viewport shading. It allows you to show and edit the back geometry. Or hide it, so that you can just edit the geometry that points forwards.

Viewport Shading

Defines how geometry gets displayed in the viewport.

Viewport Shading Settings

The viewport shading panel. Its settings changes, dependent of which viewport shading mode you have activated. And provides you with further settings for it.

Viewport Shading Settings with Wire frame

Color

Single

The selected object gets highlighted. The wire frame is the color of the selection outline. The not selected objects shows a black wire frame.

Object

The selected object gets highlighted. The wire frame is white. The not selected objects shows a Grey wire frame.

Random

The selected object gets highlighted. The wire frame is a random wire frame color. The not selected objects shows a random wire frame color. You cannot influence this random color. It is random.

Background

Viewport

Defines a custom color for the viewport background color.

Options

Show X Ray

This viewport setting is connected with the viewport shading. It allows you to show and edit the back geometry. Or hide it, so that you can just edit the geometry that points forwards.

Viewport shading Settings with Solid

Lighting

Choose between different lighting methods.

Note that this methods are not for rendering the scene. This lighting methods are meant to light the viewport.

Studio

Uses a studio setup lighting. You can choose between several studio light setups in the library menu below. This library menu is a box with a preview of the currently active light setup.

Show Light Preferences

At the right of the drop down box you will see a tiny button. It will open the preferences, where you can edit the existing studio light setups, or add new Studio light setups. This chapter is explained in the preferences manual part.

Wire Color

Allows you to display the wire color in different colors. Note that you need to have Wireframe display activated in the Viewport Overlays to see this effect.

Theme

Displays the wireframe color as defined in the theme.

Object

Displays the wireframe color object based.

Random

Displays the wireframe color in a random color.

Color

Influence how the objects in the scene are colored. Just one setting can be active at one time.

Single

Define a custom color. A color picker box appears when you activate single.

Background

Define the look of the viewport background

Viewport

Use a custom color. When you activate this setting, then a color picker field appears, adjust a custom color.

Options

Back face Culling

Use back face culling to hide backsides of faces.

Show X Ray

This viewport setting is connected with the viewport shading. It allows you to show and edit the back geometry. Or hide it, so that you can just see and edit the geometry that points forwards.
Note that you can either have Show X Ray active. Or Shadow and Cavity.

X Ray Alpha

Adjust the strength of the transparency effect.

Shadow

Cast a shadow. Note that the shadow casting light is not part of the chosen studio light. It is an independent light.

Shadow Intensity

Here you adjust the strength of the shadow. Higher value means darker shadow.

Light Settings

Adjust some settings of the light.

Cavity

Show Cavity. Cavity highlights ridges and valleys in the scene geometry. When you activate this setting, then further settings appears.

Type

The method how to calculate the cavity. In worlds pace, in screen space. Or in both.

World

Draw the cavity shading in world space.

World Space / Ridge Valley

Factor for the cavity ridges and valleys.

Shading Options

Adjust samples, distance and attenuation for the cavity ridges and valleys.

Screen

Draw the cavity shading in Screen space.

Screen Space / Ridge Valley

Factor for the curvature ridges and valleys.

Both

Draw the cavity shading in both, World Space and Screen space.

Settings see above.

Matcap

Matcap stands for material capture. With Matcap you use a special matcap shader at the mesh. This shader is usually something colorful, which makes for example sculpting easier.

You can choose between several matcap setups in the library menu below. This library menu is a box with a preview of the currently active matcap setup.

Show Light Preferences

At the right of the library menu box you will see a tiny button. It will open the preferences, where you can edit the existing studio light setups, or add new Studio light setups. This chapter is explained in the preferences manual part.

Flip Matcap

Some matcaps have a direction from which the light comes. With Flip Matcap you can flip this direction.

Color

Influence how the objects in the scene are colored. Just one setting can be active at one time.

Single

Define a custom color. A color picker box appears when you activate single.

Background

This defines the look of the viewport background

Viewport

Use a custom color. When you activate this setting, then a color picker field appears, adjust a custom color.

Options

Back face Culling

Use back face culling to hide backsides of faces.

Show X Ray

This viewport setting is connected with the viewport shading. It allows you to show and edit the back geometry. Or hide it, so that you can just see and edit the geometry that points forwards.

Note that you can either have Show X Ray active. Or Shadow and Cavity. When activating Show X Ray, the other two options will be hidden.

X Ray Alpha

Adjust the strength of the transparency effect.

Shadow

Cast a shadow. Note that the shadow casting light is not part of the chosen studio light. It is an independent light.

Shadow Intensity

Here you adjust the strength of the shadow. Higher value means darker shadow.

Light Settings

Adjust some settings of the light.

Cavity

Show Cavity. Cavity highlights ridges and valleys in the scene geometry. When you activate this setting, then further settings appears.

Type

The method how to calculate the cavity. In worlds pace, in screen space. Or in both.

World

Draw the cavity shading in world space.

World Space / Ridge Valley

Factor for the cavity ridges and valleys.

Shading Options

Adjust samples, distance and attenuation for the cavity ridges and valleys.

Screen

Draw the cavity shading in Screen space.

Screen Space / Ridge Valley

Factor for the curvature ridges and valleys.

Both

Draw the cavity shading in both, World Space and Screen space.

Settings see above.

Flat

Lights the objects plain white.

Color

Influence how the objects in the scene are colored. Just one setting can be active at one time.

Single

Define a custom color. A color picker box appears when you activate single.

Background

Define the look of the viewport background.

Viewport

Use a custom color. When you activate this setting, then a color picker field appears, adjust a custom color.

Options

Back face Culling

Use back face culling to hide backsides of faces.

Show X Ray

This viewport setting is connected with the viewport shading. It allows you to show and edit the back geometry. Or hide it, so that you can just see and edit the geometry that points forwards.

Note that you can either have Show X Ray active. Or Shadow and Cavity. When activating Show X Ray, the other two options will be hidden.

X Ray Alpha

Adjust the strength of the transparency effect.

Shadow

Cast a shadow. Note that the shadow casting light is not part of the chosen studio light. It is an independent light.

Shadow Intensity

Here you adjust the strength of the shadow. Higher value means darker shadow.

Light Settings

Adjust some settings of the light.

Cavity

Show Cavity. Cavity highlights ridges and valleys in the scene geometry. When you activate this setting, then further settings appears.

Type

The method how to calculate the cavity. In worlds pace, in screen space. Or in both.

World

Draw the cavity shading in world space.

World Space / Ridge Valley

Factor for the cavity ridges and valleys.

Shading Options

Adjust samples, distance and attenuation for the cavity ridges and valleys.

Screen

Draw the cavity shading in Screen space.

Screen Space / Ridge Valley

Factor for the curvature ridges and valleys.

Both

Draw the cavity shading in both, World Space and Screen space.

Settings see above.

Viewport Shading with Material Preview

In this mode you can use a hdr file to light the scene.

This mode is just available with Cycles and Eevee renderer. Workspace renderer does not have this mode.

HDR File Browser

Pick a hdr file to light the world with.

Show light preferences

At the right of the library menu box you will see a tiny button. It will open the preferences, where you can edit the existing studio light setups, or add new Studio light setups. This chapter is explained in the preferences manual part.

Wire Color

Allows you to display the wire color in different colors. Note that you need to have Wireframe display activated in the Viewport Overlays to see this effect.

Theme

Displays the wireframe color as defined in the theme.

Object

Displays the wireframe color object based.

Random

Displays the wireframe color in a random color.

Render Pass

Choose what render passes to calculate.

Compositor

Alllows you to display the compositor result in the viewport. Note that you need to have a active compositor node setup for this to work.

Viewport Shading with Rendered

With rendered shading the viewport uses the renderer settings of the chosen render engine. Workbench has no specific shading settings here. And the panel is empty. Cycles and Eeevee have some further settings.

Lighting

Scene Lights

Render lights and light probes in the scene.

Scene World

Use scene world for lighting. When you turn off Scene World then you reveal further settings.

Wire Color

Allows you to display the wire color in different colors. Note that you need to have Wireframe display activated in the Viewport Overlays to see this effect.

Theme

Displays the wireframe color as defined in the theme.

Object

Displays the wireframe color object based.

Random

Displays the wireframe color in a random color.

Render Pass

Choose what render passes to calculate.

Compositor

Alllows you to display the compositor result in the viewport. Note that you need to have a active compositor node setup for this to work.

Pause Preview

When you choose the Cycles renderer and set the viewport shading mode to rendered, then it reveals one more button at the right. Pause Preview pauses the rendering in the viewport when Cycles is chosen as the viewport renderer.

Align View Buttons

Align View Buttons is an addon. The buttons allows you to align the view to the orthographic views. And brings further functionality from the View menu and other hard to reach locations.

The content is all a double entry by purpose, to have these buttons at the top hierarchical position for quick access. And it is already described at the original UI position. So we won't go into detail here.

This addon can be turned off in the Preferences.

Grease Pencil - all modes - Layer Panel

This panel shows in most of the modes. It is the same content than the Layers panel in the Object Data Properties.

Layer list

Search Field

You can expand a search field at the bottom of the list. Type in your term and hit enter to filter for your term.

Layer Specials

Blend mode

The layer blending operation to perform. See Color Blend Modes.

Grease Pencil - Options Panel

Options for the use of the grease pencil.

Grease Pencil - all modes

Canvas

Use Grid

Use a reference grid behind the grease pencil.

Grease Pencil - Edit mode

In Edit mode a few more options appears

Handles

Limit the display of curve handles in edit mode.

Grease Pencil - Sculpt mode

Handles

Limit the display of curve handles in edit mode.

Grease Pencil - Draw mode

Vertex Paint

Opacity

The vertex paint mix factor.

Grease Pencil - Weight Paint mode

Handles

Limit the display of curve handles in edit mode.

Grease Pencil - Vertex Paint mode

Handles

Limit the display of curve handles in edit mode.

Vertex Paint

Opacity

The vertex paint mix factor.

Grease Pencil - Sculpt mode - Auto-masking Panel

Automasking settings.

Navigation Menu

All Modes - Navigation Menu

The Navigation menu provides you with all tools around viewport navigation. It is available in all modes.

Legacy

The legacy menu contains operators from the old tool system that already exists in the tool shelf and uses the new tool system.

Move

Activates the old move tool. The old move tool does not show a widget!

Note that the hotkey for this tool is not displayed correctly. But can't be fixed by us. The hotkey is ctrl W

Header Values

When you move your object then you will see some values in the header, which defines the current position of the object.

The value m stands for the default metric system. Meters. You can change the units in the Properties editor in the Scene properties in the Units panel. When you choose kilometers here then you will see a km instead m.

The value D stands for the distance of the current selected axis. This can also be two axis. Then you have two d values. The value in the brackets is then the direct distance to the starting point.

These values are always relative to the starting point. You always start with zero, regardless of the real world position.

Numerical Input

When you move the object, and hold down the mouse and type in a value, like 20, then the movement will be performed by the value that you have typed in. In this case by 20 units in direction of the selected axis.

Limit Axis

When you want to rotate a specific axis, then press X or Y or Z to limit the rotation to this axis. You usually start in global orientation. But you can change this in the Orientation settings.

By holding down the mouse button and pressing the X, Y or Z key twice you can toggle this to local. But also to other orientations. This depends in what orientation you start. With normal you can toggle that way between Normal and global.

This can be combined with the numerical input. Type in X, type in X again to use the local space, type in 20 to move by 20 units in local orientation. Release the mouse to confirm.

Orientation

The widget can have different orientations. The menu items should be self explaining.

Last Operator Move

Move X, Y Z

The position. Attention, the actual world orientation and rotation does not matter here. It always starts with a value of zero, and moves relative to this zero then. For the actual location values have a look in the sidebar in the transform panel.

Orientation

The widget can have different orientations. The menu items should be self explaining.

Mirror Editing

Enables mirror editing.

Proportional editing

Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings.

Rotate

Activates the old Rotate tool. This tool has no widget!

Snapping

Holding down Ctrl activates temporary global snapping. It snaps then by 5 degrees steps.

When you use the white circle to rotate, then the widget also shows a division circle around the widget. This divisions shows even finer when you do precision rotation.

Precision rotation

When you hold down shift, then you will have a much slower but also much preciser rotation.

Header Values

When you rotate your object then you will see some values in the header, which defines the current rotation of the object. The rotation is shown in degrees.

Numerical Input

When you rotate the object, and hold down the mouse and type in a value, like 20, then the rotation will be performed by the value that you have typed in. In this case by 20 degree around the selected axis.

Limit Axis

When you want to rotate a specific axis, then press X or Y or Z to limit the rotation to this axis. You usually start in global orientation. But you can change this in the Orientation settings.

By holding down the mouse button and pressing the X, Y or Z key twice you can toggle this to local. But also to other orientations. This depends in what orientation you start. With normal you can toggle that way between Normal and Global.

This can be combined with the numerical input. Type in X, type in X again to use the local space, type in 20 to rotate by 20 degree. Release the mouse to confirm.

Orientation

The 3d cursor can have different orientations. The menu items should be self explaining.

Last Operator Rotate

Orientation

The widget can have different orientations. The menu items should be self explaining.

Mirror Editing

Enables mirror editing.

Proportional editing

Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings.

Scale

Activates the old Scale tool. This tool has no widget!

Header Values

When you scale your object then you will see some values in the header, which defines the current scale of the object.

These values are always relative to the starting point. You always start with 1, regardless of the real world scale.

Numerical Input

When you scale the object, and hold down the mouse and type in a value, like 20, then the scale will be performed by the value that you have typed in. In this case by factor 20 along the selected axis.

Limit Axis

When you want to rotate a specific axis, then press X or Y or Z to limit the scale to this axis. You usually start in global orientation. But you can change this in the Orientation settings.

By holding down the mouse button and pressing the X, Y or Z key twice you can toggle this to local. But also to other orientations. This depends in what orientation you start. With normal you can toggle that way between Normal and Global.

This can be combined with the numerical input. Hold down mouse, type in X, type in X again to use the local space, type in 20 to scale by 20 units. Release the mouse to confirm.

Orientation

The 3d cursor can have different orientations. The menu items should be self explaining.

Last Operator Resize

Orientation

The widget can have different orientations. The menu items should be self explaining.

Mirror Editing

Enables mirror editing.

Proportional editing

Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings.

Quick Menu

Quick Menu

The quick menu, or in long Quick Favorites menu, is a menu that can be customized to your needs. Here you can add operators for quick access.

It is located in the header of the 3D view, But it can be called by hotkey Q directly under the mouse. This hotkey works in other editors too.

When the menu is empty, then you will see the message "No Menu Items found". This means that you first have to add some tools to the menu. It is a user configurable menu.

Note that added operators in this menu does not have icons. Just text.

Adding an operator to the Quick menu

Open the panel or the menu where your operator is that you want to add.

Let's add the open command from the File menu. Open the File menu, right click at open, and choose Add to Quick Favorites.

Do the same with Save As. We should now have two new menu items in the Quick menu, which you can use now.

As a rule of thumb, when the right click menu has an Add to Quick Favorites, then you can add it to the quick menu.

Note that you can also add operators from the tool shelf at the left. And also operators from other editor types. Some other editors have their own quick menu though. The Image Editor for example. These operators gets added in the quick menu of the image editor then. And does not show in the quick menu in the header of the 3D view.

Adding a menu to the Quick menu

It is also possible to add a menu to the Quick menu. For example the whole Add menu. The way is the same. Right click at it, and choose Add to Quick Favorites.

Order

You might notice that the add menu adds at the top of the menu, and not at the bottom as you would expect. First comes menus, then comes operators. And they get added in the order in which you add them.

Besides that, operators and menus gets added in the order that you add them. They cannot be sorted afterwards. So be careful how you add them. You can of course always remove operators and menus, and re-add them at the end of the list.

Removing an operator from the Quick menu

Removing is as simple as adding. Right click at the operators in the Quick menu, and choose Remove from Quick favorites.

Context and mode dependent content

The quick favorites menu exists in nearly all editors. Usually available in the header. So that you know this functionality exists. In case it is missing you can call it with hotkey Q.

The content of the quick favorites menu changes, dependent over which editor you are, and in what mode you are. When you add for example an operator from the image editor, then this operator just shows in the quick menu when you call the menu from the image editor. Same goes for the modes. Edit mode tools will just show in edit mode. And so on.

Select Menu

Select menu

The Select menu provides you with all functionality around selecting. The content differs, dependent in which mode you are, and what object type you have selected. Some select functionality is very special for just one object type in one special mode. But not every mode has a select menu.

Object Mode - Select menu

The select menu in Object mode is for all object types equal. It provides you with several selection methods.

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Grouped

Select different types of objects within the group. It requires to have a group selected.

The menu items are pretty self explaining. So we won't go into detail here.

Last Operator Select Grouped

Linked

Linked is a menu select different types.

Select all objects that shares a common data-block with the active object. Select Linked uses the active object as a basis to select all others.

All by Type

Select objects of a specific type.

The menu items are pretty self explaining. So we won't cover every single menu item here.

Last Operator Select By Type

Random

Selects random objects.

Last Operator Select Random

Mirror Selection

Select the mirrored parts of an object. For example for L.Sword it selects R.Sword.

Last Operator Select Mirror

Extend

Extends existing selection instead of deselecting everything first.

By Pattern

Selects all objects whose name matches the entered string. For missing parts you need to add an asterix.

For example, you have four cubes in the scene. Cube, Cube.001, Cube.002 and mycube3. Then the term " Cube " will just select the first cube. While the term " Cube* " will select the first three. And " *cube* " will select all four.

Supported wild-cards:

* matches everything
? matches any single character
[abc] matches characters in “abc”
[!abc] match any character not in “abc”

The tool operates immediately at entering the string.

Extend

Extends existing selection instead of deselecting everything first.

Last Operator Select Pattern

The Last Operator Select Pattern contains the same menu items than the pop-up. So see above. Also, it does not appear in the 3D view. But when you call it from the edit menu or with hotkey.

Active Camera

Selects the active camera.

More/ Less

Mesh - Edit Mode

The select menu for a mesh object in Edit mode.

A few tools here acts different, dependent in which mesh select mode you are. For example, when you are in mesh select method vertices, then the Random operator picks random vertices.

So you might want to check the mesh select mode when something does not work in an expected way.

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Linked

Select the geometry that is directly linked with the current geometry. You can for example have a mesh with several closed sub meshes. Those sub meshes. are not linked together, but are part of the object.

Last Operator Select Linked All

Delimit

Add a limit to the selection. For example, just select up to the next seam.

Linked Flat Faces

Select the geometry that is co planar to the current selection. It works also in other selection modes, but you need to have face geometry selected.

Last Operator Select Linked Flat Faces

Adjust the angle up to which a face counts as co planar.

Linked Pick

Same as with Linked. But works with what is under the mouse cursor.

Linked Pick Deselect

Same as with Linked. But works with what is under the mouse cursor. And deselects the selection.

Last Operator Select Linked

Similar

Select geometry based on how similar certain properties are to it. The methods changes, dependent in which mesh selection mode you are. There is a pitfall with having more than one mesh selection method selected. Then you just get the face regions type presented. Vertices, Edges, Faces, more than one ...

Last Operator Select Similar

The last operator changes, dependant of the method.

Type

Choose the select similar method again.

Random

Selects a random group of vertices, edges, or faces, dependent of the mesh selection method.

Last Operator Select Random

Checker Deselect

Deselect alternating faces, edges or vertices to create a checker like pattern. The result is dependent of the mesh selection method.

Last Operator Checker Deselect

Mirror selection

Requires to have a symmetrical mesh. Selects the mirrored mesh parts from a selection.

Last Operator Select Mirror

Side of Active

Selects all mesh data in direction of a single axis, starting from the current selection.

Last Operator Side of Active

Axis mode

The axis orientation to work with.

Axis Sign

In which direction to work form the current selection.

Axis

The axis to work with.

Threshold

Define a threshold to extend the selection.

Shortest Path

Select the shortest edge path between two selected mesh elements. This can be vertices, edges or faces. A start and an end point must be selected.

Last Operator Select shortest path

Face Stepping

Traverse connected faces.

Topology Distance

Find the minimum number of steps instead of the shortest distance.

Fill Region

Select the region faces too.

Nth Element

Don't select the whole path, but just every nth element of it.

Sharp Edges

Select all edges that are marked as sharp.

Last Operator Select Sharp Edges

Sharpness

The angle after which a sharp edge gets selected.

Edge Loop

Selects a loop of edges from a selected edge. The method stops at poles. That's vertices where three or more than four edges comes together. At a UV sphere the north and south pole ...

Last Operator Multi Select Loops

Ring

Select edge ring instead of edge loop.

Edge Ring

Selects edges parallel to a selected edge in the same ring of faces. The method stops at poles. That's vertices where three or more than four edges comes together. At a UV sphere the north and south pole ...

Last Operator Multi Select Loops

Ring

Select edge ring instead of edge loop.

Loop Inner-Region

Select everything that is enclosed by an edge loop. When the loop is not closed, then it might select everything ...

By default the smaller enclosed part gets selected. The Inner-Region.

Last Operator Select Loop Inner-Region

Select Bigger

Select the bigger enclosed part instead of the smaller enclosed part.

Boundary Loop

Select the edges that encloses a selection of faces.

Loop Select Pick

Quickly selects a loop of connected edges or faces using a single click.
Ideal for selecting edge loops, face rings, or structured mesh flows during modeling.

Hold Alt and click with Left Mouse Button (LMB) on an edge or face.
The operator automatically detects and selects the shortest loop path based on mesh topology.

If you hold Shift + Alt, you can add loops.

Last Operator Select Loop

Face Loop Delimiter

Controls how face loops are detected and selected based on edge properties. Useful for refining loop selection behavior when working with complex or stylized geometry.

All by Trait sub menu

Non Manifold

Select non manifold geometry. Enclosed faces inside of a geometry for example.

Last Operator Select Non-Manifold

What exact kind of non manifold geometry should be selected. The options names should be self explaining.

Loose Geometry

Selects loose geometry.

Last Operator Select Loose Geometry

Extend

Extend the current selection.

Interior Faces

Select faces where all edges have more than 2 faces. In the picture here we have inlaying faces by joining two cubes together, then merge the vertices by distance. So the two faces from the former two cubes are now interior faces. That's usually unwanted geometry that you want to select and to remove.

Faces by Sides

Selects faces that has the same number of edges, or better said vertices. Tris, quads, N-gons.

Last Operator Select Faces by Side

Sharpness

Extend the current selection.

Number of vertices

How many numbers of vertices the face should have. 4 is a quad.

Poles by count

Select poles. A pole is a vertice where more than four edges meet.

Last Operator Select by Pole Count

Pole count

What value to compare the vertice and its edges to. The number four here is the non pole value. Everything different will be treaten as a pole.

Type

How to compare to the pole count value.

Ungrouped Vertices

This operator selects all vertices in a mesh that are not assigned to any vertex group. It’s especially useful in rigging, weight painting, and cleanup workflows where ungrouped vertices can cause deformation issues or be overlooked during asset preparation.

Last Operator Select Ungrouped

Extend

Extends the current selection.

Select by Attribute

This operator selects elements based on the active boolean attribute. Useful for selection of boolean attributes set by Geometry Nodes.

To use, make sure you have a boolean attribute assigned and selected in the Properties Editor - Mesh Data – Attributes tab.

More / Less

Next Active

Selects the next active element. For example, when you have two vertices selected, then the next vertice in the row with the same distance will be selected as the next active.

Previous Active

Like next active, but deselects in the other direction down to the first selected vertice with every step.

Mesh - Vertex and Weight Paint Mode

This select menu shows with the sub modes Paint Mask and Vertex Selection in vertex paint mode and weight paint mode.

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Select Linked

Vertex Selection Mode. Select the geometry that is directly linked with the current geometry. You can for example have a mesh with several closed sub meshes. Those sub meshes. are not linked together, but are part of the object.

Last Operator Select Linked All

Delimit

Add a limit to the selection. For example, just select up to the next seam.

More/Less Sub-menu

Mesh - Texture Paint Mode

This select menu shows with the sub mode Paint Mask.

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Select Linked

Vertex Selection Mode. Select the geometry that is directly linked with the current geometry. You can for example have a mesh with several closed sub meshes. Those sub meshes. are not linked together, but are part of the object.

Last Operator Select Linked All

Delimit

Add a limit to the selection. For example, just select up to the next seam.

More/Less submenu

Curve Object - Edit Mode

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Linked

Select the geometry that is directly linked with the current geometry. You can for example have a mesh with several closed sub meshes. Those sub meshes. are not linked together, but are part of the object.

Last Operator Select Linked All

Delimit

Add a limit to the selection. For example, just select up to the next seam.

Linked Pick Select

Same as with Linked. But works with what is under the mouse cursor.

Linked Pick Deselect

Same as with Linked. But works with what is under the mouse cursor. And deselects the selection.

Last Operator Select Linked

Similar

Select curve geometry based on how similar certain properties are to it.

Last Operator Select Similar

Type

Choose the select similar method again.

Random

Selects a random group of curve points.

Last Operator Select Random

Checker Deselect

Deselect alternating curve points.

Last Operator Checker Deselect

Surface Object - Edit Mode

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Linked

Select the geometry that is directly linked with the current geometry. You can for example have a mesh with several closed sub meshes. Those sub meshes are not linked together, but are part of the object.

Last Operator Select Linked All

Delimit

Add a limit to the selection. For example, just select up to the next seam.

Similar

Select curve geometry based on how similar certain properties are to it.

Last Operator Select Similar

Type

Choose the select similar method again.

Random

Selects a random group of control points.

Last Operator Select Random

Checker Deselect

Deselect alternating control points.

Last Operator Checker Deselect

Metaball Object - Edit Mode

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Similar

Select metaball geometry based on how similar certain properties are to it.

Last Operator Select Similar

Type

Choose the select similar method again.

Random

Selects a random metaball element.

Last Operator Select Random

Text Object - Edit Mode

All

Select everything.

Line End, Line Begin, etc.

Select corresponding element.

Point Cloud Object - Edit Mode

All

Select everything.

Random

Selects random elements.

Last Operator Select Random

Grease Pencil Object - Edit Mode, Vertex Paint Mode

This is the select menu for the grease pencil object. The content changes dependent of the Select mode, either in Vertex or Stroke mode.

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select – Sub Menu

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

By Stroke Type – Sub Menu

Filters and selects points based on their stroke type.
Useful for quickly isolating either line strokes or fill regions when editing complex Grease Pencil drawings.

Stroke

Selects only points that belong to stroke outlines.
Ideal for editing linework separately from fills.
Commonly used in cleanup, inking, or when adjusting contours.

Fill

Selects only points that belong to filled regions.
Useful for editing shapes, color areas, or solid regions independently.
Helps separate fill geometry from outline strokes.

Last Operator Select by Stroke Type

Select Similar – Sub Menu

Select equal elements by the chosen method.

Last Operator Select Similar

Mode

The selection mode.

Threshold

How equal it really needs to be to count as equal.

Fill

Selects all vertices that belong to fill regions of Grease Pencil strokes. Useful for isolating and editing filled shapes separately from outline strokes

Linked

Select the geometry that is directly linked with the current geometry. You can for example have a mesh with several closed sub meshes. Those sub meshes. are not linked together, but are part of the object.

Last Operator Select Linked All

Delimit

Add a limit to the selection. For example, just select up to the next seam.

Alternated

Select every second element.

Last Operator Alternated

Deselect Ends

The end points are always unselected.

Random

Selects random elements.

Last Operator Select Random

First

Select the first element in the stroke.

Last

Select the last element in the stroke.

Last Operator Select Ends

The last operator Select Ends is valid for both, the first and last operator.

More / Less – Sub Menu

Armature Object - Edit Mode

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Similar

Select armature bones based on how similar certain properties are to it.

Most methods are self explaining. Immediate children selects just the direct children of the active object, while Children selects everything downwards the hierarchy.

Last Operator Select Similar

Type

Choose the select similar method again.

Mirror Selection

Select the mirrored parts of an object. For example for L.bone it selects R.bone.

Last Operator Select Mirror

By Pattern

Selects all objects whose name matches the entered string. For missing parts you need to add an asterix.

For example, you have four cubes in the scene. Cube, Cube.001, Cube.002 and mycube3. Then the term " Cube " will just select the first cube. While the term " Cube* " will select the first three. And " *cube* " will select all four.

Supported wild-cards:

* matches everything
? matches any single character
[abc] matches characters in “abc”
[!abc] match any character not in “abc”

The tool operates immediately at entering the string.

Last Operator Select Pattern

The Last Operator Select Pattern contains the same menu items than the pop-up. So see above. Also, it does not appear in the 3D view. But when you call it from the edit menu or with hotkey.

Linked

Select all bones linked by parent.

Last Operator Select Linked All

All Forks

Follow forks in the parents chain. Means select upwards too.

Armature Object - Pose Mode

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Grouped

Select grouped bones by type. Items should be self explaining.

By Pattern

Selects all objects whose name matches the entered string. For missing parts you need to add an asterix.

For example, you have four cubes in the scene. Cube, Cube.001, Cube.002 and mycube3. Then the term " Cube " will just select the first cube. While the term " Cube* " will select the first three. And " *cube* " will select all four.

Supported wild-cards:

* matches everything
? matches any single character
[abc] matches characters in “abc”
[!abc] match any character not in “abc”

The tool operates immediately at entering the string.

Last Operator Select Pattern

The Last Operator Select Pattern contains the same menu items than the pop-up. So see above. Also, it does not appear in the 3D view. But when you call it from the edit menu or with hotkey.

Flip Active

Mirrors the bone selection. Works with an armature with mirrored parts.

Last Operator Flip Active/Selected Bone

Lattice Object - Edit Mode

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Mirror

Select the mirrored parts to the current selection.

Last Operator Select Mirror

Ungrouped Verts

Selects ungrouped Vertices. Requires to have at least one vertex group assigned.

Last Operator Select Ungrouped

Extend

Extends the current selection instead of deselecting everything first.

Sub menu More / Less

Particles - Particle Mode

Legacy

The legacy sub menu contains tools that exists in the tool shelf already. It's the old way to do things. Different to the tools in the tool shelf, these tools are usually modal. And performs once. You have to call them again in case you want to repeat the tool.

Lasso Select

A sub menu with the available lasso select modes.

Random

Selects random particles.

Last Operator Select Random

More / Less sub menu

Hair Curve – Edit Mode

The (Empty) Hair Curve object in the Edit mode has a select menu. Here you can select existing curves in different ways to mask selections for tool shelf operators. Selected curves are editable, deselected curves are locked from editing and are visually opaque with dark gray in the 3D View editor.

All

Selects all the control points of the hair strands.

If you want a want a symmetrical haircut, tick X Mirror in the Symmetry panel or in the Header to the top right.

Hair Curve – Sculpt Mode

The (Empty) Hair Curve object in the Sculpt mode has a select menu. Here you can select existing curves in different ways to mask selections for tool shelf operators. Selected curves are editable, deselected curves are locked from editing and are visually opaque with dark gray in the 3D View editor.

All

Selects all the control points of the hair strands.

If you want a want a symmetrical haircut, tick X Mirror in the Symmetry panel or in the Header to the top right.

View Menu

View Menu

The View menu contains all View related tools. The range goes from tools to maximize the current window across align view tools up to rendering related tools for the viewport like Render Border.

Toolbar

Shows or hides the toolbar at the left in the 3D view.

Sidebar

Shows or hides the sidebar at the right in the 3D view.

Tool Settings

Shows or hides the tool settings above the header in the 3D view.

Asset Shelf

Shows or hides the asset shelf at the bottom of the 3d view.

Adjust Last Operation

Shows or hides the Adjust Last Operation panel down left in the 3D view.

Note that the Adjust Last Operation panel can also be called from the edit menu at the top. And from the toolbar at the right. Here you can also add a hotkey to call it with a hotkey.

Tool Shelf Tabs

Shows or hides the tool shelf tabs. This tool shelf tabs contains tools from the header menus, and are a double menu entry by design. Here you can turn them off if you don't want to work with this tool set.

Note that you need to adjust the width of the tool shelf manually afterwards since it does not automatically update the width of the tool shelf area.

Note that you need to save the startup.blend to save the state of this checkbox.

Legacy

Set 3D Cursor

The old legacy operator to set the position of the 3D cursor in the viewport. This method is especially with rigging the much faster method. So we keep this operator. It is up to you if you want to work with the old operator or with the tool in the tool shelf.

Hotkey only tool. The menu entry just exists to show that this operator exists!

Annotations (Legacy)

This group of operators is useful to take notes without changing tool-shelf operators. These notes can be colored in the View tab of the Property Shelf. Each layer is a single color. You can also animate the notes with keyframes, editable in the dopesheet. d

Render Image

Renders an Image, using the Viewport renderer. This can be useful for preview renderings.

Render Animation

Renders an animation, using the Viewport renderer. This can be useful for preview renderings.

Clipping Border

With clipping you can draw a rectangle that excludes the display of everything outside of this rectangle. That way you can look inside the geometry when you rotate the viewport. To clear the clipping use the tool again. It is a toggle.

Render Region

With the Render Region tool you can drag a rectangle at the viewport to define a portion of the screen to render. The benefit here is to have much faster preview renderings. You just render what you want to judge, and not the whole image.

It has two use cases. The one is with the rendering through the camera. Just what is marked gets rendered. The other is directly in the viewport, with the Viewport shading method Rendered. Render border works with all renderers.

You can have both render border cases active at the same time. When you remove it then just the render border from the current case gets deleted. Either you are in camera view, or you are in viewport view.

Clear Render Region

Removes the Render Region rectangle from the viewport.

Cameras sub menu

Frame camera bounds

It centers the camera to view.

This tool is of use when you are in camera view. Else it is greyed out and inactive. There is a Grey passepartout around the camera view. It can be that this passepartout does not fit into the viewport. It can be too big or too small. And so you might want to zoom out or in.

Normally when you are in camera view, then you zoom in or out the view with the zoom tool. Not this passepartout. But with lock camera off you can zoom the passepartout to reach geometry that is not in the camera view.

The other way is Frame camera bounds. It fits the camera view into the viewport.

Align View

Align View is a menu where you can choose between different view align methods. The view gets aligned at the world coordinates. Here we also find a few more align methods.

Align View to Active

Align View to Active is a menu where you can choose between different view align methods. The view gets aligned relative to the rotation of the currently active object. Not in World coordinates. The menu items should be self explaining. So we won't list them one by one.

Toggle Local View

Toggle Local View zooms in or out until the Selection is displayed fitting in the viewport. And hides all other objects but the Selection.

Remove from local View

It can be that you select more than one object, and switch to local view. Then you decide that one of the objects is in the way. With remove from local view you can remove this object without to leave the local view.

This menu item is greyed out when you are not in local view.

Frame Selected / Frame Last Stroke

Zooms in or out in the 3d viewport until the Selection is displayed fitting in the viewport.

When in Sulpt, Vertex Paint, Weight Paint, and Texture Paint mode, this will Frame Last Stroke of the brush.

Frame All (Quad View)

Just with Quad view. Zooms in or out in the 3d viewport until all objects in the scene are displayed fitting in the viewport of all four views.

Center Cursor and Frame All

Center Cursor and View all centers the 3D Cursor at 0/0/0, and zooms in or out in the 3d viewport until all objects in the scene are displayed fitting in the viewport.

Toggle Quad view

Displays the 3D View divided into four split screen parts. Note that the orthographic views cannot be switched in this mode. They remain orthographic, you cannot rotate them.

To return to single view reuse the menu item in the View menu.

Area

This menu contains general view functionality. And exists in most other editor types too.

Duplicate Area into New Window

Duplicate Area into New Window makes the selected editor window floating. You can then drag it around at the monitor. It is not connected with the rest of the UI anymore.

A separated window cannot be merged into the main window again. You have to close it when not longer needed.

Pie menus

Lists the available pie menus, and gives you the ability to read the hotkeys and assign own hotkeys.

A pie menu is a radial array of operators that can be used with gestures to quickly use common operators or properties.

Reset 3D View

Resets the 3D view to the defaults.

Note that this is an add-on, and can be turned off in the addons section of the preferences.

Tool Shelf

Tool Shelf

Some editors have a tool shelf at the left. Here you can find and use various tools.

Active Tool

In the tool shelf there can just be one active tool in the tool shelf. An activated tool stays active as long as you don't change it. To deactivate the current tool you have to choose another tool. One of the select tools for example.

Tool Settings

When you activate a tool in the tool shelf then you will also reveal its tool settings. There are two locations where you can find the tool settings. In the header, and in the sidebar in the Tool tab. It's your choice with which panel you want to work.

Mode dependent content

The content of the tool shelf is changing depend and of the mode that you are in, and dependent of the object type. A mesh object in edit mode has another set of tools than a metaball. But there are some tools that are available in all modes. 3D Cursor, Select tools and Transform tools.

Tool tips

The new tool system works here and there different from the old tool system. It is one gigantic hack on top of the old tool system. Already the tool tips are different. It misses the Python strings. And some tools misses a proper description. The tool tips are separated from the operators.

Tool groups

Some icons have a white small triangle down right. This indicates that this icon is part of a tool group. This group can be revealed by holding down the mouse until the popup reveals the hidden tools. You can then choose the needed tool in this group. And it will become the one that gets displayed.

Resizing the tool shelf

The tool shelf can be resized by dragging the border of it in and out.

You have the choice between one, two and three icon rows. And text and icon buttons.

Currently the default starts with two rows.

Switching Tools

The Blender key map provides a way to call the tools from the tool shelf under the mouse in a popup menu. And with hotkeys. Even when they don't have a hotkey assigned in the toolbar yet.

Keyboard tool switching is not enabled by default. You need to set the key-map preference Space bar Action to Tools. And when you press space bar, then you will see the tool shelf content under the mouse. But with an hotkey assigned. And then you can use this hotkey in combination with the space bar to activate the tool

Spacebar-T for Transform, Spacebar-D for Annotate, Spacebar-M for measure, and so on.

The accelerator keys are displayed in the tool tips of the tools in the tool shelf. The hotkeys are hard coded. And are NOT the hotkeys for the tools in the tool shelf. But just the hotkeys in conjunction with the space bar menu!

Attention, this is not implemented in the Bforartists key map. This feature is just available in the Blender key map!

Cycling through Tools in groups

You can assign a hotkey to a group of tools, and then activate Cycle in the key map manager. This allows you to cycle through the tools in this group with the hotkey.

This is for example done with the Select tool group. The hotkey to cycle through the tools in the group shows in the tool tip.

Tool Shelf Tabs

The tool shelf contains not only the new tool system tools. But contains also the old tools fom the text menus in the header in tabs. They are a double menu entry by design. This tabs are faster to access. They resize like the tool shelf tabs, and allows icon rows of one, two and three width, and also the display as text buttons.

You can also pin panels. This allows for example to display the snap tools below the regular tool shelf tools. So that you don't need to dig in the text menus all the time. When they are pinned, then they are in reach with one click.

We won't explain the tools here, since they are already covered in the corresponding text menus.

You can turn the tabs off in the View menu if you don't want to work with this tool set.

Note that you need to adjust the width of the tool shelf manually afterwards since it does not automatically update the width of the tool shelf area.

Note that you need to save the startup.blend to save the state of this checkbox. So be careful with modifications.

Sidebar

Introduction

The 3D View is made of several areas. At the right side you will find the sidebar.

In the sidebar you will find tool settings and view related settings. And it is also the home of addons. The Create tab is already created by an add-on. The Mini Lightlib add-on., which is covered in chapter 7.3.13

The content differs, dependent of the chosen object and the current mode.

The Tools tab is also a special chapter. It contains the settings for the tools from the tool shelf.

Animation Tab

Animation tab - Global Transform Panel

Tools that can be useful for animation. Paste a mirrored armature part for example.

Paste to selected keys

Requires Auto Keying to be on.

Pastes the matrix from the clipboard to thecurrent active object or bone. It uses world space matrices.

Paste and Bake

Requires Auto Keying to be on.

Pastes the matrix from the clipboard to thecurrent active object or bone. And bakes it ton an action. It uses world space matrices.

Mirror Subpanel

Relative Subpanel

The upper global transform copy and paste actions works global. These buttons works relative to a chosen object.

Fix to Camera subpanel

Fix Location / Rotation / Scale

Include location /rotation /scale keys when fixing to the scene camera.

Fix to Scene Camera

The actual fixing. Generate new keys to fix the selected object / bone to the camera on unkeyed frames.

Adjust last operator Fix to Scene Camera

Location / Rotation / Scale

Include location /rotation /scale keys when fixing to the scene camera.

Delete generated keys

Delete the keys that were generated by the Fix to Scene Camera tool.

Item tab

Item tab - Transform Panel

When you add an object to the scene then the Item tab with the Transform panel becomes visible. The content changes, dependent of the object type. And it changes with the mode.

In general you will most of the time see the same content though. Location, Rotation, Scale and Dimension.

Animate Property

The properties with a dot button behind can be animated.

Note that you can, different from Blender, animate multiple objects at once this way.

Keyframe and Driver coloring

When a keyframe exists at the current position, then the corresponding edit box turns yellow. When a driver exists at the current position, then the corresponding edit box turns purple.

Note that you can have either a driver or a keyframe. Both is not possible.

Location

The current location of the object in its X, X and Z axis. The lock button behind the edit boxes allows you to lock the values.

Rotation

The current rotation of the object in its X, X and Z axis in world coordinates. The lock button behind the edit boxes allows you to lock the values.

Rotation Mode

Adjust what method gets used for the rotation. Euler rotation can run into a so called Gimbal lock, which can be avoided with quaternion rotation mode. But for most cases the default XYZ Euler method should work.

Quaternion

With euler angles you will have three values available. But with a quaternion you will have four values available. And quaternions reveals a 4L button. This button shows or hides a lock behind the W value. Normally a quaternion has just three locks, one for each of the single axis. The W value is a mathematical construct from the three object axis. And you usually neither want to edit it nor to lock it therefore.

Locking the W axis will lock all axis.

Scale

The current scale of the object in its X, X and Z axis in world coordinates. The lock button behind the edit boxes allows you to lock the values.

Scale is not dimensions. Your object can have a scale of 1 in world coordinates. But a dimension of 4.5. Note that for some operations it is required to have a scale of 1 to get some operations to work. This can be achieved with applying scale in the Object menu.

Dimensions

The current dimension of the object in its X, X and Z axis in world coordinates. The lock button behind the edit boxes allows you to lock the values.

The Dimensions edit boxes are just available for primitives objects. Objects like Empties or a Camera doesn't have a dimension, but a scale factor.

Right Click menu

Location, Rotation and Scale edit boxes and the locks have a right click menu with further functionality.

When there is already a keyframe available then the right click menu looks a bit different. Same counts for adding a driver first.

Add Driver

In Bforartists lots of things can be animated. Also buttons. Add Driver does exactly what it tells. It adds a driver for animation needs to the element. Drivers allows to control animation by properties like expressions, scripts or movements of other objects. Drivers are explained in the chapter 18 Editors - Drivers.

When you click the button the Driven Property panel will appear where you can change the properties for this driver. You don't need to confirm the driver creation. It is just further settings.

Driver Settings

Expression

Driver Variables

Driver Variables are references to properties, transformation channels, or the result of a comparison between transformations of two objects. It is displayed by a panel with all necessary settings, which gets filled in automatically when you create the driver.

Add Input variable

Add manually a new driver variable.

Picker should allow you to pick a target object. But this is dysfunctional here since the panel closes immediately when you move the mouse out of it. Please use the picker in the Driver Editor.

Copy and Paste buttons allows you to copy and paste Driver variable panels.

Driver Variable panel

Variable type

The content of the Driver variable panel changes, dependent of the variable type that you choose here. We came from the transform panel, so our default type here is transform channel. That's what we will explain here.

Open Drivers Editor

Opens the Drivers editor in a floating window. The drivers editor is explained in the chapter 18 Editors - Drivers.

Item tab - Transform Panel in Edit Mode

Just primitive objects like mesh and curve does have an edit mode. Non primitive objects like a camera or an empty doesn't have an edit mode. With two exceptions. Text and Force Field type Curve Guide. Both are curve types.

Mesh Objects

Curve Objects / Surface Objects

Metaball Objects

Median

Median is the position of the selected mesh part

Stiffness

Adjust the stiffness of the selected meta element.

Type

Type is a drop down box. Adjust the meta element type.

Text Objects

Text objects do have an edit mode, but they don't show content in the Transform panel.

Armature objects Edit Mode

Bones do have a head and a tail. You cannot position the whole bone by numeric values, but the head and tail joints.

Lattice Objects

You need to have some vertices of the Lattice object selected to see the content.

Item tab - Transform Panel in Pose Mode

Armature Objects in Pose Mode

The content in Pose mode is the same than in Object mode. We have Location, Rotation and Scale Edit Boxes. And the corresponding lock and animate buttons.

With one small difference. The rotation mode starts with Quaternions by default. And not with Euler Angles.

Item tab - Mesh Object - Vertex Weights Panel

The Vertex Weights panel shows in Edit and Weight Paint mode, when you have vertices selected, and the selected vertice(s) has a weight assigned.

It allows you to modify the weight of this selected vertice(s).

In Weight paint mode you need to be in vertex selection mode and have a vertice selected. It will not show with face select mode. To select a vertice in weight paint mode hold down ctrl and click.

In Edit Mode you can select more than one vertices. In Weight Paint Mode just one vertice at a time.

Item tab - Curve Object - Active Spline Panel

Interpolation Tilt

The tilt interpolation type.

Radius

The radius interpolation type.

Smooth

Smooth the normals of the surface or a beveled curve.

Item tab - Surface Object - Active Spline Panel

Item tab - Grease Pencil Object - Active Spline Panel

Cyclic

Make this curve or surface a closed loop in the U direction.

View Tab

View tab

The View tab contains viewport related settings.

The content is in all modes and for all object types the same.

View tab - View Panel

The View panel contains some camera settings for the world camera and the render camera.

Use Local Camera

Normally when you render an image it gets rendered from the currently active camera. Define a custom camera that is always used for rendering. Regardless which camera is the active one.

Passepartout

Toggles and shows all camera passepartout overlays.

Use Render Region

When you have defined a render region rectangle, then you can toggle it on and off with this switch. See View menu in the 3d view header, the render region menu item.

Camera Lock

Camera Lock is a sub tab with camera related settings.

Lock Camera to view

This menu item allows you to navigate in camera view like you would be in world view. When it is unticked then you can navigate the passepartout, you can zoom and move it. And when you rotate the view, then you will leave the camera mode.

Note that this functionality also exists in the header when you are in camera view. This double menu entry exists by design.

Lock View Rotation

Locks the camera rotation, you cannot rotate the camera anymore. A use case is the 2D Animation workspace, where you can easily accidentally rotate the orthographic view out of position.

View tab - Edit Panel

Lock Object Modes

Restrict selection to content that is in the same mode than the current element.

View Tab - 3D Cursor Panel

Location

The position of the 3D cursor in world coordinates.

Rotation

The rotation of the 3D cursor in world coordinates.

Right Click menu

When you right click at the edit boxes then a menu with further functionality appears.

View tab - Collections Panel

Local Collections

Allows the list of visible collections to be controlled per viewport rather than globally.

List of Collections

The Collections panel shows a list of collections. They can be hidden in the viewport by clicking on the eye icon.

If a collection contains objects, there is a circle to the left of the collection name. If a collection is empty, there is no circle to the left of the collection name.

By clicking directly on the collection names, it “isolates” the collection by hiding all other collections, and showing the direct parents and all the children of the selected collection.

View tab - Annotations Panel

Manage the Annotation layers and materials.

When you don't have drawn an annotation yet then the panel just contains a New button.

Annotations prop

Add, remove and rename new annotations.

Drop down box

A list of the available annotation layers.

List of Annotation Strokes

Here you see your Annotation layers for the current Annotation. Every layer can have an own color.

At the right side you find buttons to sort them and to add and remove new Annotation layers.

You can change the color by clicking at the color field. A color dialog will pop up. You can rename annotation layers by double clicking at it.

Onion Skin

Enable Onion Skinning.

Onion Skinning allows to show ghosts of the keyframes before and after the current frame. In this sub panel you can adjust the color of the onion skin frames.

With the numbers below the colors you can define how many frames before or after are displayed that way.

View tab - Stereoscopy Panel

This panel shows when you have Stereoscopy enabled in the Output Properties of the Properties editor. Some content depends of the Stereoscopy settings.

Left / Right / 3D

With Stereoscopy setting Stereo 3D.

Show the image in the 3d view from the left or right camera, or from both.

Views / 3D

With Stereoscopy setting Multi-View.

Show the image in the 3d view from the single cameras, or from both.

Set Stereo 3D

Calls a panel where you can adjust the stereoscopy display in the 3D view to preview the result.

This settings does not affect the output, just how the result gets displayed in the viewport!

Display Mode

How to display the stereoscopic image when viewing through the camera. This is the preview mode. You need a special monitor for some of the methods. There are five methods available.

Display Mode Type Anaglyph

Render Views for left and right eyes as two differently filtered colors in a single image. You need anaglyph glasses to see the 3d effect.

Anaglyph Type

The color model to display the graphics.

Display Mode Type Interlace

Render Views from left and right eyes interlaced into a single image. You need a 3D Ready monitor to see the stereo effect.

Interlace Type

The interlace type that you can choose.

Swap Left/Right

Swaps left and right camera view.

Display Mode Type Time Sequential

Render alternate eyes. Also known as page flip. Needs a graphics card that supports quad buffer.

Display Mode Type Side by Side

Displays images of the two cameras side by side. You need to go into Window Full screen to see the effect.

Don't use the full screen. feature in the View menu of the 3D view, but the Window toggle full screen. in the Window menu!

Cross Eyed

Swaps left and right camera view.

Display Mode Type Top Bottom

Displays images of the two cameras top and bottom. You need to go into Window Full screen to see the effect.

Don't use the full screen. feature in the View menu of the 3D view, but the Window toggle full screen. in the Window menu!

View tab - Quad View panel

This panel just shows when you are in quad view. Toggle Quad View can be found in the View menu.

Lock rotation

Quad view has four windows. Three of them can be locked to the orthographic views.

Turning off Lock Rotation reveals the quick navigation buttons Switch to Camera View and Switch between Perspectivic and Orthographic display.

View tab - Important Hotkeys

This panel is an addon called Important Hotkeys, and can be turned off in the Preferences.

It displays the most important hotkeys in the viewport.

Font Size

The size of the font.

Context Menus

The pages of this part are listed in the sidebar under Context menus.

More

Asset Shelf

Click to switch the active brush.

Click to switch the active brush.

Click to switch the active brush.

The Grease Pencil sculpt brushes are divided into categories. Click to switch the active brush.

The Grease Pencil draw brushes are divided into categories. Click to switch the active brush.

When in the Mesh Sculpt mode of the 3D View, the Asset Shelf exposes brush assets.

The Object mode asset shelf exposes your Asset Browser library assets directly in the 3D View.

Introduction

The Asset Shelf is a quick access to marked assets for the Asset Browser available in the footer of many editors.

The 3D View is made of several areas, and at the bottom of the 3D View you will find the Asset Shelf.

1. Blue: Catalog Selector
2. Red: Catalog tabs
3. Orange: Import Properties
4. Green: Display Settings
5. Purple: Search Filter
6. Yellow: Assets List

This shelf lists Essential and user defined assets from the Asset Browser for quick and easy access to drag and drop marked assets into the 3D View - directly from the 3D view footer.

Location

The 3D Shelf is available in the following editors:

• 3D View
• Image Editor
• Node Editors: Shader, Compositor, Geometry Nodes

Catalog Selector

To the top left, you can pick and choose which asset library catalog will show in the header – these will help filter assets you would like to see listed in the Asset Shelf.

When you select a category, it will create a tab in the header.

You can alternatively filter by library and expose a selection of Catalogs per library.

Asset Library Dropdown Selector

These are available asset libraries you can filter assets to the Asset Shelf.

• The All category shows all Catalogs from all asst Libraries.
• The Current File shows all Catalogs from the current Blend file.
• The Essentials shows all default Catalogs built in to Bforaritsts.
• The User Library shows all Catalogs from a user defined library.
• If you have the Default Library addon by Bforartists, this will show the Default Library Catalogs.

Refresh

Refresh the libraries.

Catalog Tabs

When you pick a Catalog in the Catalog Selector, these catalogs will list as tabs at the top of the Asset Shelf.

Choose a tab to filter the assets by Catalog.

Import Method

Append (Reuse Data)

Import the assets as copied data while avoiding multiple copies of nested, typically heavy data. For example the textures of a material asset, or the mesh of an object asset, don't have to be copied every time this asset is imported. The instances of the asset share the data instead.

Recommending using Pack instead
You can go in the Preferences, in Developers Tools tab and enable No Packing to show Append (Reuse) back

Pack

Import the asset as packed. Make it is unchanged modified, linked with the original data.

Link (Override)

Import the assets as linked library overrided data. This will only override the active hierarchy. The active hierarchy is defined by the last selected object of a collection or the armature.

To override all selected contents, use the Outliner Editor by right clicking on the asset and Overriding Selected and Content.

Display Settings

To the right you can find the display settings.

Search Filter

Search and filters the assets by name.

Use

When in the Object mode, you can drag and drop collections, mesh objects, materials, geometry nodes and world shaders to the 3D View to link or append the assets.

Select an asset, press and drag into the 3D View to place into the scene.

Asset Types

Collections

Marked collections as assets will show here. Drag and drop will default to linking the collection to scene as an instance.

Mesh Objects

Marked mesh objects as assets will show here. Drag and drop will default to appending the collection to scene.

Materials

Marked materials as assets will also show here. Drag and drop will default to append to scene.

Geometry Nodes

Geometry Nodes with the tag “Geometry Nodes” and “3D View” in the Tags panel of the left sidebar of the Asset Browser will show here.

Drag and drop will default to append to scene.

Worlds

World shaders marked as assets will show here. Drag and drop will default to append to scene.

Use

Select a brush to change the brush settings to the saved brush asset. Select a brush category

Asset Type

Sculpt mode brushes.

Use

1. In the 3D View, select your Armature object and go into Pose Mode
2. Select the bones you want to store as a pose
3. In the Asset Browser Header Asset menu, use the operator Create Pose Asset
4. This will create a Pose Asset in the Unassigned (Catalogue) category in the Current File.
5. Click on the new Pose Asset in the Asset Shelf or Asset Browser to apply. Press and drag to apply with a slider strength.
6. You can alternatively right click on the Pose Asset for alternative methods of applying the pose.

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Pose Asset Context Menu

When you right click into the a pose asset then an Asset context menu opens. For more information, please refer to the Editors – Asset Browser chapter

Apply Pose

Apply the Pose asset to the selected bones.

Apply Pose Flipped

Apply the flipped Pose asset to the selected bones.

Blend Pose

Blends the selected bones with the Pose asset.

Blend Pose Flipped

Blends the selected bones with the flipped Pose asset.

Select Pose Bones

Selects the pose bones stored in the Pose asset

Deselect Pose Bones

Deselects the pose bones stored in the Pose asset

Shader Editor

Drag the nodes from the asset shelf into the shader editor viewport. Note that you need to have an active shader.

The Shader nodes are divided into serveral categories.

Compositor Editor

There are currently no nodes in the asset shelf in the compositor editor.

Geometry Nodes Editor

Drag the nodes from the asset shelf into the geometry nodes editor viewport. Note that you need to have an active node tree.

The geometry nodes are divided into serveral categories.

Image Editor – Paint Mode

Click to switch the active brush.