Navigating the 3D View

Now that you know what’s going on in the 3D View, let’s see how to navigate through it to check your scene and get in touch with the world you’re creating. When your cursor is hovering in the 3D View, you can perform a variety of actions to change your point of view.

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Tip

To use Blender’s default navigation configuration efficiently, it is highly recommended that you use a keyboard with a NumPad and a mouse with a scroll wheel and middle button (see Figure 2.5). If you don’t, you can still navigate with other buttons by setting them up in the User Preferences, or with the conventional number keys on a keyboard, but you will have limited functionalities and navigation won’t be as smooth.

Figure 2.5 Most of the buttons you can use to navigate in the 3D scene are on the mouse and NumPad. Buttons highlighted in gray let you orbit the camera.

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Pan (Shift + MMB): Moves the camera parallel to the current view

Orbit (MMB or NumPad 4, 8, 6, and 2): Rotates the camera around the scene

Zoom (scroll wheel or Ctrl + MMB drag or Numpad + (plus sign) and NumPad – (minus sign): Moves closer or farther away from a point

View Selected (NumPad .): Zooms and centers the camera in the selection

Predefined (Front, Right, and Top) Views (NumPad 1, 3, 7): Changes the point of view aligned to one axis. Press Ctrl at the same time to get the opposite view (Back, Left, and Bottom).

Perspective/Orthographic Switch (NumPad 5): Switches between Perspective and Orthographic.

Camera View (NumPad 0): Jumps to the point of view of the active camera. Select a camera and press Ctrl + NumPad 0 to make that camera the active one. Press Ctrl + Alt + NumPad 0 to place the active camera in the current view. Keep in mind that with Ctrl + NumPad 0, you can turn any object into a camera, so don’t worry if you accidentally had an object selected when you pressed that shortcut and suddenly you see the scene from a strange point of view: it’s meant to help you orient objects in a different manner. For example, you can use this feature to see the scene from the point of view of a directional light, which will give you a better sense of what the light will illuminate.

Global View/Local View (NumPad /): Local View hides everything except the selection so you don’t have other objects blocking your view while you work. Press NumPad / again to switch back to the Global View.

Walk Mode (Shift + F): Moves slowly around the screen. Use the arrow keys or A, S, D, or F to navigate through the scene as if you were moving in a video game. Use Q and E to move up and down. Use the mouse to rotate the camera. You can increase or decrease the moving speed with the scroll wheel. Press G to enable a gravity effect (it will look like a game, as the camera will fall down to stay on top of the scene’s geometry. Use an LMB click to accept the movement and an RMB click to cancel it.

Fly Mode (Shift + F): This is an alternative for Walk Mode: you’ll fly through the scene instead of walking. To activate this instead of Walk Mode, you need to set it as default on the Input tab of the User Preferences. You can rotate the camera with the mouse, pan with MMB and dragging, and fly forward and backward using the scroll wheel. Use a LMB click to accept the movement and a RMB click to cancel it.